Little Andrew: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9265. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call in the Committee stage of the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill. I want to begin by saying that I come from a region where minerals extraction particularly of the hydrocarbon type is common and long established. It is an area that has long needed an improvement in its road north State Highway 3 which is the source of some mirth for the uncaring Government. It does not see the value of it and does not see any need to put any money into it. But it is a road that plays an essential and critical part of the mining industry in Taranaki as it is at the moment.What I want to comment on is Supplementary Order Paper 205 and make the point that that Supplementary Order Paper ignores the genuine anxiety even in places like Taranaki which is quite familiar with mining and hydrocarbon extraction. Nevertheless there is anxiety about where the future of oil and gas exploration and production is going particularly with deep-sea oil drilling. That anxiety is felt in all parts of New Zealand and just as much in Taranaki as anywhere else.What the community is looking for is assurances—and I know the people of Taranaki just as much as anybody else are looking for assurances—not only from the industry itself but also actually from the Government the regulator of the industry that proper precautions are being taken when new permits are being let particularly deep-sea oil exploration and drilling permits and that the Government and the industry are taking seriously the concerns that people have. Those concerns and anxieties are real. People look around the rest of the world see the mistakes that have been made and quite rightly when it comes to their back doorstep they are asking what precautions are being taken here.In Taranaki before the change of Government we were on the cusp of having a rapid response unit for marine drilling and that seems to have been shelved and has gone nowhere. That is an important issue. Indeed when Maritime New Zealand was asked about it in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last year it knew nothing of it but when you talk to the Mayor of New Plymouth His Worship Harry Duynhoven about it he will tell you chapter and verse the work that had been done in preparation for a rapid response unit in the event of an incident or an accident offshore in Taranaki. Where is that sort of reassurance here?What we have—the response of the Government—is that if anybody opposes this type of activity in our seas there is something wrong with them and they are to be punished they are to be shut down and they are to be locked out of any legitimate protest activity. The Government would be better off and the Minister of Energy and Resources Mr Bridges would be better off to work with those in the industry and ensure that they are working with the communities and providing the information that gives them some reassurance that the risks are understood that they have been properly assessed and that they can be properly handled and also to have the honesty to say that if those risks are too great then they will not embark on that sort of work. We are entitled to nothing less.It is a very sensitive issue wherever you go. In Taranaki whether it is exploration drilling and production or whether it is the seabed ironsand mining these are legitimate issues that members of the local community have and are entitled to see reflected and respected by the Government in the legislation it passes. This legislation does not do it. This Supplementary Order Paper 205 does not do that. It rides roughshod over longstanding basic rights that people have and ought to have to raise their concerns and anxieties about this sort of activity much of which is dependent on new and developing technology and in many places it is untested. The waters off Taranaki are not the easiest to navigate or indeed to drill within as has been proven over the last 30 or 40 years there.This is an opportunity for the Government if it has a mind to do so to provide some reassurance not simply to regulate for its ability to ride roughshod over those who have a different view and who are seeking that reassurance and who want something different when it comes to this very sensitive sort of activity.