Tabuteau Fletcher: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTabuteau Fletcher: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 26 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:2008. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First): I am proud to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to actually support this bill although I appreciate much of what has been said in the House by our previous speaker Gareth Hughes. It was certainly a bit rich to note that the Minister blames Shell for this problem that seems to need Government legislation. It is unusual to see the Government blame business or not take the benefit of good business upon itself. This bill continues to highlight this Government’s brilliant management of legislation! I know National is always keen to fix the heck out of a problem that does not need fixing or conversely to do nothing when urgency is needed. This bill just adds to the litany of issues that this Government needs to face up to. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) debated just this week is another prime example of 34—or is it 33—pieces of legislation that needed minor corrections. I question the number because the Associate Minister of Justice himself was not sure how many Acts were affected by the amendments.This bill seeks to rectify an oversight on the part of this Government that it should have seen coming. There is certainly no two ways about it. It has already happened once before—37 pages of amendments previously as noted by a previous speaker. The purpose of this legislation is to allow existing petroleum operators that have applied for a marine consent—that is consent under the new exclusive economic zone legislation—to continue to operate their core business and to continue to operate even though there is no way they could do that under the current configuration of legislation now in front of us. It is an artificial time constraint and it is interesting to note that in the legislation there was no contingency no section that gave these companies the opportunity to transition into this new legislation.For me I wonder whether this kind of fix-up is an example of what we will see with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiations. I mean we do not have the privilege now of debating it as a House. It is certainly not being consulted on publicly and we do not even get to discuss it for 4 years. I use this as an example of a forewarning to this Government to please focus on getting the legislation right getting the negotiation right so that the New Zealand public can have trust in a Government. There was trust in a Government but it has been slowly eroded over the past 6 years. Trust is hard-earned but it is certainly harder to maintain.It has been categorically stated by the Minister that this bill will not seek to change the requirements for existing petroleum operators to transition into the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act regime through the marine consenting process. Dr Smith as I understand it has ruled out the possibility of more and different tweaking of the Act. One risk is that this amendment could see rise to changes made to it later through this process. New Zealand First is critically aware that this opportunity has now been opened and we are strongly vehemently wording a warning to the Minister asking that the Government please confine itself to the issues raised in this legislation as the fix that it presents the bill to be.There is high public interest in the balance struck out in our oceans between exploration and protection. The obligation to protect and preserve is always paramount. New Zealand First believes we should be able to take energy fish minerals and resources from our oceans but New Zealand First also believes that we must have regard for their protection and the precautionary principle that is actually underlining the new exclusive economic zone legislation. In short if the Government did now wish to revisit the balance that it struck in the law of 2012 at the very least we need assurance of full consideration public submission and proper democratic parliamentary process not something slipped into the House and rushed through like the countering terrorist fighters legislation late last year.I have made it known publicly that Minister Bridges’ decision to give permits for oil exploration rights in our marine reserves was anathema. Along a similar vein after speaking and consulting with the public on this particular bill two cases that failed just recently were not really about environmental or economic balance; they were about applicants proposing some quite novel ideas where a lot was at stake environmentally and they were unable to satisfy the Environmental Protection Authority that they had done the necessary homework. Those two cases at this stage anyway have suggested to New Zealand First that the current law is doing its job and that there is no need to use this as an opportunity to rewrite legislation when a promise has been made to this House that it is simply a fix-up.New Zealand First supports the reasoning for this necessity. No public consultation has been entered into as noted by the previous speaker except of course consultation with the one affected party that is which obviously supports this bill. It is important to note why New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stagetoday. There is a transitional provision under new section 162(5). We speak of the end of June 2015 being the date when there is a real risk that Shell Todd Oil Services will be in breach of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act if it continues operating beyond 27 June of this year. Without that consent it would have to cease its operations in the Māui field.It has been noted—but I would add New Zealand First’s point of view to this conversation—just how significant this is. Shell Todd Oil Services’ Māui operations contribute about 20 to 26 percent of New Zealand’s gas supply and employ more than 300 personnel which of course is a significant contribution to Taranaki’s financial well-being. A 5-day shut down in 2011 due to an outage at Māui gave us a real calculation of approximately $40 million a day gross cost to the New Zealand public. This bill as it reads will allow only current lawful petroleum activities to transition into the new regulatory regime without breaking the requirements of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. Therefore international obligations do not directly apply to this bill thankfully.I am sure it was never the intention of this Government to deliberately or even inadvertently put operators transitioning into the exclusive economic zone regime at risk of breaching the relevant requirements of the Act. Therefore with our warnings to the Minister about the process we are about to enter into which we have been told is a fix-up and not an opportunity to rewrite legislation New Zealand First will support this bill going through to the next stage because we cannot sit by and see core infrastructure collapse because of poor Government legislation. Thank you.