Hayes Joanne: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes Joanne: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 26 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:2009. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JOANNE HAYES (National): Before I begin my discussion I just want to acknowledge Dame Thea Muldoon. She was the powerhouse I believe behind Sir Robert Muldoon and I want to say haere rā haere rā haere rā moe mai. There is one other person whom I would like to acknowledge. She is a dear friend of our family. Her name is Mrs Nell Buckman and she passed away just recently. I am sure she is hand in hand with Dame Thea on their way to heaven.With that I am pleased to stand to support the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill. It is not a rewrite though. This is a bill where we are addressing the transitional issues for current petroleum and gas operators. It is an opportunity for us to take this bill and to make sure and ensure that those operators in the oil and gas industry are being given a fair opportunity to make sure that everything all the work they are doing is within the rules of our Environmental Protection Authority work.In 2011 we had an outage in our Māui field for 5 days. As many people have discussed in the House today that 5-day shut down cost the gas consumers $40 billion—$40 billion. We cannot stand here and say that that is acceptable. It was unacceptable so we needed to do something about that.Oil and gas is our fourth-largest commodity after dairy meat and wood. I can tell you that it is $2 billion of GDP per year that is brought in and the Government receives $800 million of that. Those funds that are received by the Government help to go towards and pay for health services education services—some of our public services that the people of New Zealand are the beneficiaries of. I believe that that is very important for the well-being of our country and our people.I am pleased that Labour is supporting this bill albeit it had 9 long years in Government and it did nothing. It did nothing to protect our environment. Drilling went ahead 34 wells were drilled and there were no environmental protections for this country. Thirty-four wells were drilled and nobody knew about it but then we found out and we blew the lid on that. Thirty-four wells were drilled without any protection for our environment. It is this National-led Government that has brought in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act which set up the Environmental Protection Authority to look after the well-being of our environment.I am fortunate to belong to our Bluegreens caucus and last year—Hon Maggie Barry: Kia ora.JOANNE HAYES: Thank you. It is a very good caucus committee and it is well-known and well respected amongst New Zealanders who know all about us and who are members of our caucus committee. I belong to that and I went to the launch of the Kaikōura marine reserves. There I could see firsthand what an exclusive environmental zone Act is all about—how it looks after our environment and makes sure we have an even balance of economic and environmental programmes going hand in hand. We can do that as long as we look after our environment.I am a little bit perplexed really and sad that the Greens have opposed this bill going forward. I thought that referring the bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee would give the Greens an opportunity to discuss it. I am quite sad about that because they were in partnership with the Labour Government for 9 long years and they did nothing. They did nothing to voice their opposition to Labour not—not—setting up environmental policy to protect New Zealand. I was really surprised that a Green member talked about electric cars and solar power. When the Greens were in partnership with Labour they never even got a voice in. They were not heard. Why was that? It was because I think there is no respect there. There is no respect for that coalition unlike our respect for our coalition partners. We have a lot of respect for our coalition partners and we do listen. We listen to our partners I can tell you that now. [Interruption] I know that you are just jealous. You can harp on over there. You can sit there and you can argue backwards and forwards but we have a lot of respect for our ACT partner our United Future partner and our Māori Party partners because that is what working in a coalition is all about I can tell you now.It is great that New Zealand First over there is going to support the bill going to the select committee. I am really pleased about that because then you can really see environmental policy at work led by the National-led Government. You can really see that at work.Anyway back to the bill—let us have a look. As the law stands current operators who apply for marine consents would be in breach of the exclusive environmental zone Act if they continued to operate beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime while consent appeals were being heard by the Environmental Protection Authority. I must say that I was very impressed with the presentation from the Environmental Protection Authority today. I was impressed with the fact that it is doing such a wonderful job. It was set up 4 years ago through the exclusive environmental zone Act. I was impressed to hear about some of the great work it is doing in monitoring the activities within our environment and to learn that our exclusive environmental zone is so large. It is the largest in the world in terms of land and even larger in terms of sea. I was very pleased to hear that and hear about the successes it is coming forward with.To carry on with the bill even if a marine consent application is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority section 162 of the Act does not allow existing operators to continue their activities beyond the expiry date of their permits under the Crown minerals regime. All of this you will have heard over and over again from my colleagues before me and will keep hearing from my colleagues who will come after me because it is really important that everybody gets the message of what is happening in the background of this bill.Obviously those affected directly by the dates of permit expirations are Shell Todd Oil Services; Australian Worldwide Exploration or AWE as it is known on 24 November 2025; OMV New Zealand on 1 December 2027; and Origin Energy Resources New Zealand or Origin as it is known on 26 June 2031. Even if Shell Todd Oil Services is granted a marine consent before 27 June there is a risk that the Environmental Protection Authority decision could be appealed in which case Shell Todd Oil Services would be in breach of the Act. We all know that it did not apply early enough and that there needed to be sufficient time for some appeals. We know that. But I can tell you that this bill will not actually change the current requirement for existing operators to transition into the exclusive environmental zone Act regime through the marine consenting process. Those are just some of the details in the background of this bill.I just want to kind of wind up my kōrero by saying that our natural environment for this National-led Government is our greatest asset. I talked about our marine reserve in 2014 and the work we have done there. We believe as I said before that economic and environmental policy can and must go hand in hand. We cannot let an outage like at the Māui gas field in 2011 happen again. The oil and gas industry is vital to the New Zealand economy. You have heard all that. You have heard what we do—$800 million into areas within health education and the social sector. You have heard how important they are as commodities for our economy and for exports—fourth behind dairy meat and wood—and you have also heard that as I said $800 million in taxes come back into this economy.I am proud to support this bill in its first reading before it goes to the select committee and I will look with interest as it is shepherded through the House to its final approval at the third reading. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.