Dean Jacqui: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4500. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak in the Committee stage of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill. The member who just resumed his seat Gareth Hughes referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. I think it is probably worth having a look at the full press release made by Dr Jan Wright who has “welcomed the changes to the Exclusive Economic Zone Bill made by the Government. The Bill is intended to regulate activities in the EEZ including deepwater oil exploration and iron sand prospecting. Dr Wright says she is satisfied that the legislation will provide significant protection to New Zealand’s EEZ.” So that comes directly from the website of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. It is one of two press releases that the parliamentary commissioner put out very recently acknowledging the good work of the Minister for the Environment the Hon Amy Adams in recognising that through the select committee process some improvements can and should be made to the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill. You know hats off to Amy Adams. She has listened and she has made some very constructive changes. 
I also want to pick up on the point made by one of the Labour members who bemoaned the fact that Supplementary Order Paper 100 was something like 14 pages long and contained an awful lot of material. I would just like— 
Grant Robertson 
: It was me. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well if you have a read of the Supplementary Order Paper you will recognise that there are really three substantive— 
Moana Mackey 
: You haven’t read it. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Look at the creases in the paper see—look at the creases in the paper. If those members had—like I and my colleagues—looked at that Supplementary Order Paper they would have recognised that there are three key changes. 
The first amends the purpose of the bill to incorporate the concept of sustainable management which is similar to the Resource Management Act. I am going to pick up on that theme maybe later in this speech or in other contributions. It also increases the maximum penalties for companies from $600000 through to $10 million. This again was another hotly discussed issue within the Local Government and Environment Committee. It clarifies that the transitional period will enable planned activities to proceed during the 2013-14 season and also provides a statutory time frame of about 6 months for marine consent processes. Many of the other issues noted in the Supplementary Order Paper are tidying up and formatting issues associated with the bill. 
I just want to pick up on the first point I made about sustainable management and I just want to read from the bill’s commentary: “Labour would also like to see more consistency between [the exclusive economic zone] regime and the RMA. … Labour believes that better alignment of the two regimes would provide more certainty for industry and local government as well as reassurance for the general public regarding the protection of the marine environment. The concept”—and I think this is the interesting part—“of ‘sustainable economic development’ is well understood under the RMA and should be carried through into this regime.” That is really interesting. It gives a tick I think as my colleague says for the concept of sustainable economic development. 
So when I pick up the Supplementary Order Paper and have a look at the amendment to clause 10 it says: “Purpose—(1) The purpose of this Act is to promote the sustainable management of the natural resources of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf.” So from that I am assuming that having read Labour’s minority report in the bill which is calling for the concept of sustainable economic development and then picking up the Supplementary Order Paper which in the amendment to clause 10 talks about sustainable management I would have thought that Grant Robertson might be well pleased. 
So why is it that Grant Robertson and Moana Mackey want to send this back into the wilderness and not actually take a stand and make a call on this legislation? Do you know why? It is because they do not want any regulation in the exclusive economic zone. They want to continue the legacy of their 9 years while they were in Government when there was a regulatory gap which they were happy with regarding deep-sea drilling in their tenure of Parliament. If they were so happy—[ 
Bell rung 
] Just to finish off that point it seems that Labour members want the concept of sustainable economic development. It has been picked up in the Supplementary Order Paper. They are still not happy. Why are they not happy? They would prefer to have a regulatory vacuum rather than some good legislation.