Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand today too in support of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill in its second reading here today. And as my colleague Melissa Lee said earlier she got excited when she thought she was going to be talking about Taranaki—and so did I. But the tone of my presentation and my contribution today is going to be somewhat more subdued because we are in fact on this side of the House supporting it and as Andrew Falloon has just said why wouldn't we when this was initiated last year.It was actually introduced as a bill to the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee on 5 April this year and they've reported back in seven months. So in terms of a select committee process and the consultation required it's probably very timely. Across that time during the process 11 submissions were received and five of those were oral submissions heard here in Wellington. But what gave me great comfort when I read the departmental report was that prior to preparing the bill the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) had consulted with a wide range of interest groups and organisations including the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet the Ministry for the Environment the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Department of Conservation the Ministry of Justice the Environmental Protection Authority the Office of Treaty Settlements and Treasury. And what did give me comfort was that MBIE also consulted with the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand which we know as PEPANZ. They consulted with Straterra and Greymouth Petroleum—not to be confused with a major town on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand in my electorate but Greymouth Petroleum being a major exploration company in the North Island. There was also some broader stakeholder contribution as well.The bill makes some minor amendments to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 and it's simply tidying up some of the duplication and confusion and inconsistencies that we saw in the Act. Even with the submitters who came along to the select committee it became clear that there was confusion around some of the parts of the existing Act and as a result there were recommendations made that there should be some changes made to different sections and parts simply to clarify the exact meaning of those parts to avoid that confusion in the future.One of the biggest changes that have been made is in terms of the prosecution of cases where the change of control of a permit participant company who fails to notify the energy and resources Minister would now be an offence under this Act and could in fact attract a fine of up to $800000. It did come as a surprise to me that prior to this change this was not actually considered an offence for non-compliance. I suggest that now with a fine of up to $800000 this will certainly bring about a change of behaviour. If anyone was considering not notifying the Minister there is nothing like a deterrent of $800000.The select committee recommended that clause 23 be added to this bill so that it confirms the change of control of a permit operator. Now permit operator is quite different to a permit holder. The permit operator is the person who has the day-to-day responsibility of managing the mining operation. So this clause 23 will now say that if this change of permit operator is not completed there are now provisions in this bill. But it also has a transitional period so that if there were permits that were operational and this bill comes into place before the transition of the mining permit then the unintended consequence of breaching the new Act rather than the old Act means that there would not be an offence under this provision of clause 23. So I commit this bill to the House. Thank you.