Goff Phil: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10269. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I was not going to take a call on this but frankly I am outraged that tonight we have had a Minister in the chair the Minister of Energy and Resources who either is asleep is too damn arrogant to respond to valid questions that are being asked of him or is afraid and frozen to his seat because he cannot answer the questions that have been asked of him.It is an absolute outrage that that Minister in his first piece of legislation stuffed up so much that we have a bill in front of us the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill that says that we are debating the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 amendment to the Crown Minerals Act. We were in this House 6 weeks ago Minister. How was it that you were so ill prepared and so incompetent that you brought legislation into the House that has this many errors? Why is it that you brought in legislation that abridges the fundamental rights of people to freedom of expression freedom of speech and freedom of assembly? You brought it in by a Supplementary Order Paper after the—no I am sorry Mr Chairperson. You did not bring it in; the Minister brought it in. You would never have done such a thing. The Minister brought in legislation that abridges the fundamental rights of New Zealanders through a Supplementary Order Paper after the Commerce Committee had met so he never had to front up. The Government members trembling in their bloody seats never had to front up at the select committee to answer the question of why they were doing things that are totally without justification.The Attorney-General sits there and interjects from his seat but he has never taken a call. What is the role of the Attorney-General if not the watchdog of the fundamentalrights of New Zealanders: the right to freedom of speech the right to assembly and the right to protest? I think it was Grant Robertson who was speaking before about the proud tradition of New Zealand being nuclear-free. It was a proud tradition that I remember when Norman Kirk farewelled the frigateOtago to go up to protest against French nuclear testing in Mururoa. And now the National Party would say: “Wasn’t that a wonderful thing?”. It was the right of protest—the right of protest—actually exercised by the Government of New Zealand.Then I remember when I was a young member like Mr Bridges in this House and I was out on the harbour in Auckland and Wellington protesting about nuclear-armed submarines and ships coming into New Zealand. Now the National Party would want to claim credit for some of that policy. So why is it given that New Zealanders are so proud about the way in which we have used the right of protest at sea to achieve our goals that this Minister can bring back a bill into the House that abridges those fundamental rights?But he does not stop there. Not only does he want to abridge the fundamental rights of protest in our territorial waters but he wants to extend that abridgment to our exclusive economic zone and on or above the continental shelf. My question to Mr Bridges is this if he actually knows the answer to it but I suspect that he has stuffed up yet again: how does he claim the right to legislate for the waters under and on the surface of the waters of our exclusive economic zone and above the continental shelf when he does not have that right under law? How is he legislating to extend the outrage of stopping protest within New Zealand’s territorial waters to the waters that we do not even have the right to legislate over? That question has been asked time and again of the Minister in the chair.How many times has the Minister got up to answer a question in the Committee? Is it not the role of the Committee of the whole House that members of the Committee ask questions of the Minister in the chair and the Minister is sufficiently competent courageous and ready to get up and answer those questions? That Minister has not got out of his chair. We are debating this at 11.35 at night and not one of the members of the Government has the guts to stand up and to defend the legislation that they have got—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I will ask the member just to withdraw that comment. It implies that the member does not have courage. So I ask the member to withdraw that comment.Hon PHIL GOFF: I will withdraw that Mr Chairman. They do not have the intestinal fortitude to get out of their seats and to debate legislation to make excuses for their incompetence or to defend what they are doing in the House tonight.The first time they try to bring this in they bring it in by a Supplementary Order Paper that does not go to a select committee. This time they do not even take that chance. They rush it through all its stages under urgency late on a Friday night when they hope no New Zealanders are listening to the outrage that they are perpetrating.