Moroney Sue: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10252. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you for allowing me to take a call on the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill. It is a bit of a mouthful because as we have just heard the Government well it stuffed up basically the first time around. The Minister Simon Bridges had the original amendment bill amending the Act before the House just a few weeks ago and now here he is already in urgency on a Friday evening bringing back an amendment to his amendment. We have talked about this a bit tonight already but this is the very reason why a bill should not be rushed through because it will come back time and time again.In Part 1 of this bill we are asking the public to put an awful lot of faith in that very same Minister—that very same Minister—who could not get it right 2 or 3 weeks ago. Part 1 says that the public of New Zealand should put absolute faith in that same Minister to simply satisfy himself that the application is all fine and dandy. The same Minister who actually screwed up this legislation just a few weeks ago is going to have the power to satisfy himself and go: “Oh yes OK. That application looks fine to me.”I think that is a real concern because what we know about the exploration of Crown minerals is that actually safety should be the predominant measure. In the explanatory note of this bill there is an alarm bell that goes off for me because it talks about “An applicant for a Tier 1 permit for exploration who does not have the expertise or financial ability to undertake exploration drilling activities will be able to be granted a permit on a conditional basis.” I just want to read that out again for the public because I think this is alarming: “An applicant for a Tier 1 permit for exploration who does not have the expertise or financial ability to undertake exploration drilling activities will be able to be granted a permit on a conditional basis.” They will be able to be granted that permit by the very Minster who got this legislation wrong just a few weeks ago.That is an awful lot of power to put in the hands of a Minister—particularly a Minister for whom this is probably I think one of his very first attempts at putting a piece of legislation through this House—who could not get it right the first time. That is not going to end up as a catastrophe here in the Chamber tonight. He did not get the legislation right the first time around and it means yes we are sitting at this time on a Friday night to rectify his mistake but it is not really the end of the world. But if he gets it wrong in satisfying himself about one of these applicants and they do not have the expertise and something goes horribly wrong then that is a whole different scenario for New Zealand. It is a whole different scenario for New Zealand.Here in Part 1 we are asking the public of New Zealand to trust I guess the wisdom and the judgment of the very same Minister who could not even get this basic piece oflegislation right to make a decision that could actually impact on the environment and safety of New Zealand and New Zealanders. I think New Zealanders need to be very worried about that.I think actually the contribution from my colleague Moana Mackey shed some light on this before. It seems obvious now I have heard her contribution to this debate that it is not because the legislation was passed in this House and then it was enacted and the Government saw it in practice and thought: “Oh gosh we’ve got it a little wrong.” That is not what has occurred here. The original legislation has not even been enacted. So what could it be that could cause the Government to come back this quickly under urgency to fix something up? Well it seems that it has been got to. Some company one of these tier 1 applicants “who does not have the expertise or financial ability to undertake exploration drilling activities” has obviously come back to the Government and asked it to weaken the legislation further. I can see no other explanation for why before the original legislation has been enacted we are suddenly back here.