Nash Stuart: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4627. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):I rise to speak in favour of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. Scott Simpson the last National MP who stood up said that this bill had wide support across the House and it was a fine piece of legislation that amended an even better piece of legislation. Let me put the record straight: we are supporting this piece of legislation out of absolute economic necessity. We think this is a very bad way to draft legislation and we think that the original legislation was an absolute mess.This is not the way to draft legislation and when that last MP who is the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee stood up he said that it is vital that we support New Zealand’s economic sustainability. We agree with him: that is why we are supporting it. But another thing that is absolutely vital is the right of New Zealanders under a democratic process to appeal. What this bill does in essence is wipe away that ability to appeal. What this does is force a piece of legislation through. It is not under urgency but it is urgent because if this legislation is not put through and if the Māui Gas pipeline is not allowed to go ahead then there will be catastrophic consequences for the economy. We did have an incident when the Māui Pipeline closed down. What happened was it cost about $40 million a day over 5 days so we are talking about $200 million for just 5 days. This is why it is important that it does go through but this is a very very sloppy piece of legislation.It is one of these things that seem to be creeping in a little bit to this Parliament and it makes me feel very uncomfortable. What we seem to be doing a lot of is amending legislation—and I have spoken on a couple around veterans’ affairs and around superannuation—that has been before the House in very recent times because of sloppiness in the way that it went through the select committee. When I hear people stand up and say: “That chair did a great job for the select committee.” I beg to differ because if the chair of the select committee that put through the original exclusive economic zone legislation had picked this up—if the MPs and the officials had picked this up—then we would not need to be here. I mean we can blame Shell Todd Oil Services—it is a convenient thing to do. I do not blame Shell Todd Oil Services; I just think this whole mess could have been avoided if we had done things well.The other thing that really concerns me about this piece of legislation is that it plays into the sort of global brand we are trying to develop and that is on two points. First and foremost gone are the days when New Zealand was seen as the cowboys of the wild west. In the 1980s we were viewed by the Americans by the Brits and by Europe as the cowboys. They came over here and there was insider trading. They ran roughshod over legislation in all manner of things which thank goodness is now illegal and no longer happens but it used to. What this does is erode our global brand just a little bit by saying: “You know what? It is sloppy legislation. We don’t know how to craft bills that allow something as important to our economy as the Māui gasfield to go through and it is sloppy.” This is not the sort of message that we want to send to international investors who are coming across to our country to explore our oilfields or to work with our natural gas or to put up windmills or to invest in other forms of energy. This piece of legislation says: “You know what? If they get it wrong in New Zealand don’t worry. They will just legislate something through. It’s how they work in New Zealand.” That used to be the way and it should no longer be the way and that is why this really concerns me.The other thing is that we are trying to build a global brand around “clean green” and “100% Pure”. In fact it is the brand we go out to the world with. This started in 1984 when David Lange said no to nuclear ships. I think it was a completely unintended consequence actually but suddenly those around the world stood up and said: “Goodness me that country actually stands for something.” and ever since 1984 we have stood for something as a nation. We go to the world with this “clean green” brand that is “100% Pure”. The study done by—I think it was Deloitte; it may have been PricewaterhouseCoopers—one of those big consultancies anyway said that 80 percent of New Zealand businesses that seek to engage in the export trade leverage off our international brand. The Ministry of Economic Development when it existed tried to quantify the value of this brand and it said it was worth about $20 billion. But if we devalue this brand—and this goes a little bit into this—then what we end up with and what we end up as is just another small economy trading commodities into a shrinking global market place.That is the last thing we can afford to do because our global brand is one of the very few things we have got that cannot be reproduced in the backstreets of Shanghai or in an office block in Mumbai. It is our unique selling point and it is our global point of difference. Anything—anything—that seeks to damage that brand or tarnish that brand must be banished and one of the things that I think this Government has done very poorly over the last 7 years is damage our brand. Let me give you one example—and this sort of plays into the whole energy sector—and that is global warming. It does not matter whether you support action on global warming because there is a beachfront property you own and if sea levels rise by a metre you are going to lose that property or whether you want to save polar bears or whether you want to save the world—it does not matter. The reason why I think it is so important is that again it plays into the global consciousness of what New Zealand stands for.We used to be leaders on this. Under the Clark Government we were out there leading the debate on the global stage and now we are seen as laggards. We are going to go to Paris and we are going to be absolutely caned and rightly so—and rightly so—not only because of how we have let our global position slide but because we have actually let the reality of what we once stood for slide as well. We have to stand for something.There are a couple of other points that I would like to make which I think the previous National MP was a little disingenuous around. There is something called the Energy Trilemma Index and it is put out by—I think the organisation is called the Global Energy Council. What it does is measure three very important energy variables that go into making up a global ranking for our country. We actually came in at 10th in the world which is very very impressive but part of the reason for that is our political stability and our economic strength. You would get that under any Government; it is just what happens in a highly functional democracy like we have. But the interesting thing is that in energy security we are 16th up from 19th but in energy equity we have dropped from 18th down to 28th. What energy equity is is basically the ability of our citizens to afford energy and this plays into the whole fuel poverty argument. What fuel poverty is is the ability of people to afford electricity in order to heat their homes in the middle of winter and we have a real problem with this. When we are 28th in the world in terms of energy equity we have a problem that we really need to address.The other one is environmental sustainability. Again this plays into our global brand. We have gone from 36th to 42nd in the world in terms of environmental sustainability with regard to our energy sector. That says to me that we need to work a lot harder in how we actually manage our energy sector. Now electricity generation is a very good story—there is about 80 percent renewable. The Labour Party and I think even the Government have bought into the target of 90 percent renewables by 2025. It is an admirable target and again it is a great story. But when you combine it with the global perception of how we are doing it is not particularly flash.I am going to bring this back to the legislation. It all ties in with this piece of legislation. In a way this legislation epitomises how we are treating our global brand at the moment and the lackadaisical way that we are saying: “It’ll all be right. Don’t worry about it. If we get it wrong we will legislate it.” The previous speaker Scott Simpson highlighted and I have re-emphasised how important passing this legislation is for our economic well-being. We cannot have the Māui gasfield going down because a cost of $40 million a day is unconscionable. The fact that this gasfield employs 300 people in Taranaki shows that it is a vital part of regional infrastructure but this—and I think even members on that side of the House will admit this; well they should admit it—is not a good way to pass legislation. It does not play into how we see ourselves as a country. It is not a good way to sell ourselves internationally either as a global brand or in terms of how we do business or how we manage our energy sector.Labour is supporting this not because we think it is a good piece of legislation but because we think it is a vital part of our economic infrastructure. We would really request that we do not see any more pieces of this legislation and that the Government gets its legislation right before it brings it back to the House. Thank you very much.