Hughes Gareth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9331. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): It is customary to come up with parody titles when you are debating the title and commencement clauses of bills in the Committee stage. A parody title that I would like to suggest for this bill the Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill is the “Crown Minerals (Lawmaking at its Worst) Bill” because what we have seen I think is a pretty shocking abuse. I use that strong word in a considered manner because I believe that it is an abuse of the process. What we have seen is lawmaking at its worst. It is as if Simon Bridges has been looking at the tributes to Margaret Thatcher in the last few days and has decided that that is what he is going to model his legislative style on—the most intransigent iron-willed nature of that formidable Prime Minister.What we see here is a Minister who has introduced a substantive amendment which international and legal experts and eminent New Zealanders have said has significant constitutional impacts and is an attack on rights. The Minister introduced this amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 205 on Easter Sunday when everyone rightfully was opening up their Easter eggs and spending time with their family and maybe not watchingQ+A in the morning. The Supplementary Order Paper introduces a substantive amendment but of course by being introduced as an amendment it had no select committee scrutiny it had no Attorney-General New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and it meant that we have seen this amendment—the “Anadarko amendment” it has been called—introduced and a week later voted on.The Government would have liked to see the third reading of the bill today. That was not to be the case so we have another week to organise and I see that the cyber-petitions are rolling in. There were 10000 signatures in the first 24 hours so I am sure there will be a lot more. It is lawmaking at its worst because by avoiding the select committee hearing you cannot hear from the public and you cannot hear from the experts.Another bill that I saw raced through the legislative process was with regard to ultra-fast broadband where $1.35 billion of taxpayers’ money was on the line. That resulted in some embarrassing snafus from the Government’s perspective and now we are seeing Chorus with a $300 million blowout. If you do not have that public and expert ability to submit and the ability for the select committee to amend legislation you have bad consequences. If you do not have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet I believe that you can have much more severe impacts not just on the bottom line of a company but on fundamental values that we hold dear—that is human rights.I call this bill the “Crown Minerals (Lawmaking at its Worst) Bill” because we should not be addressing legislation to amend the law to benefit one sector. Simon Bridges in the earlier calls in the Committee stage was alleging that the Greens would have pro-protester laws. I say that no we have laws in New Zealand and they apply to all New Zealanders. But what we see in this legislation is laws specifically targeting one company. You can do the very same thing against a fishing boat and not face the same charges as you will under this legislation when it is finally commenced. It is only one sector that gets impacted. I do not believe that that is lawmaking at its best. We should not be writing laws to benefit one sector.This legislation contains arrest and detention powers for the military. Again we should be using these considerable constitutionally important powers sparingly only in extreme circumstances. We should not be turning the New Zealand Navy into the private security company for the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation.I know that you all read the Green Party blog Frogblog and what I have proposed there is—Hon Maurice Williamson: You have got to be joking.GARETH HUGHES: Parliament’s IT expert Mr Williamson is not a reader of Frogblog and I am immensely surprised.Andrew Little: I thought everybody read it.GARETH HUGHES: Yes apparently no one reads it. Not many people read it when you look at the blog rankings. Anyway I put up a blog there where I posted my proposal. I am going to take it to the Standing Orders Committee. I am going to introduce it and support what David McGee recommended to the Standing Orders Committee in 2003 with the Wellington District Law Society which is that we should actually have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet for substantive Supplementary Order Papers. I think it is important. We have obviously a unicameral House and considerable legislative powers without the controls that you have in other overseas legislatures. I believe that it is important that we have a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act overview over substantive Supplementary Order Papers and I hope that other parties would support a move in that direction. I think it would be a positive step. What we do not want to see is Crown mineral lawmaking and worse legislation passing. We want to see lawmaking at its best and that is what I believe New Zealanders demand of this House. Kia ora.