Browning Steffan: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9276. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): It is very disturbing to see the changes that have been put forward in this bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill particularly by Simon Bridges and his attempts to basically stifle free speech and the efforts of communities to look out for what is actually important to them which they have proven to him is important to them. I will talk of Anadarko at this point. The Minister of Energy and Resources came toKaikōura which is sort of in my home turf to talk to iwi and the local community along with Anadarko and some of the officials who are basically from the minerals part of our bureaucracy. They came along and were theoretically there to listen and to make good sense of what the community’s concerns were. What did the Minister do? He came along and he then attempted to ensure that its voice its protest in the future against such exploration and such attempts to do stuff that could have a devastating effect in its territory was totally dumbed down. It is an atrocious part of his activity that he would go there front up attempt to charm the people and then take away their rights as such.However what is really concerning beyond that is that this bill does this throughout the country. It is not just for the areas around Kaikōura; it is for the areas that I am familiar with in the Marlborough Sounds and it is right through areas of the Coromandel too. It is just right through this country that this Government is prepared to really limit what can be protected in our environment.It is interesting to see that the Department of Conservation is further reduced in its capacity through this where it has been reduced consistently for some time. I will use some examples from the Marlborough Sounds area where we have had significant help given to the community from the Department of Conservation to put some resources into identifying the biodiversity issues around aquaculture and into some of our precious places out there and around Mount Stokes and the like as well. But what has happened more and more as its resources are being pooled and the Cabinet influencethat we see is about to come in much harder in this bill is that it has actually been reduced more and more to the point that it was not even doing submissions on important applications that were definitely going to have effects on very important biodiversity areas in the Marlborough Sounds. For this bill which actually reduces that further to come up on top of the cuts that the Department of Conservation has just had is appalling. It is absolutely appalling.What we had hoped and expected was that the Ministers who have spoken here previously including Nick Smith who speaks so strongly about balance out there—what is that balance? The balance is about bursting in over what the local community has said is important whenit has actually zoned areas to make sure that certain developments do not happen—after absolutely full consultation with the community including industry including different users including tourism including iwi. We have come to those conclusions and what does this Government do? It comes in over the top and allows and promotes development in areas where communities decided it was not appropriate. This is absolutely appalling and we have got a further extension being moved here and in other bills that this Government seems to have forthcoming. I am not quite sure what the Government expects of the community when it keeps getting hounded like this.