Ngarewa-Packer DebbiePROHIBITION ON SEABED MINING LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Māngai. I move That the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill.It's an honour to rise on behalf of my people and Te Paati Māori to speak to the first reading of my member's bill the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill. It's an honour to be able to bring this ban-seabed-mining debate not only for the nation to see but for the world to see today. The bill aims to put in place a nationwide ban on seabed mining consents within Aotearoa exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and coastal waters governed under the Resource Management Act. It also seeks to retrospectively withdraw existing seabed mining consents and prohibit the ability for exploration rights for seabed mining under the Crown Minerals Act. It was crafted from the experience that our iwi have had in dealing with the existing legislation and the first application in Aotearoa to mine the seabed. It was an application seeking to mine millions of tonnes of iron titanium and vanadium from 66 square kilometres of seabed between 22 kilometres and 36 kilometres offshore from Pātea for 35 years in the EEZ by dredging up millions of tonnes of the seafloor extracting the mineral and dumping the unwanted sludge back into the sea smothering the surrounding area with a sediment film which would spread all the way down from Taranaki to Wellington affecting marine life biodiversity and Māori.Since 2011 across National-led and Labour-led Governments Ngāti Ruanui and Ngā Rauru have spearheaded the fight against seabed mining. From our iwis' perspective seabed mining is a violation of our kaitiakitanga and as defenders of the ecosystems we are gravely concerned it will affect everything. This is a part of who we are where we are and it must be protected. Concerned with the impact of seabed mining our communities took this battle—many who are upstairs: Uncle Tūranga Pito Auntie Joyce my pāpā Auntie Laura Mary-anne all our whānau Rachel Reimā—all have been a part of protesting filling busloads to make sure Parliament and their communities know how they felt.They were supported by the South Taranaki local diving club who set up ocean videos so we could qualify and quantify the marine life in the South Taranaki Bight who established a proactive education programme so that we could connect and see and appreciate what's going on in our reefs; our party in South Taranaki fishing clubs; farmers who helped fund billboards opposing seabed mining; communities and leaders such as Jacqueline Dwyer who helped fund-raise; and concerts to help fund our fronting the legal battles. Scientific evidence was compiled with cultural evidence an inclusive fusion that made for compelling and precedent-setting court cases. It's been a true grassroots movement which catapulted my being in Parliament and indeed this member's bill.It's been the grassroots that has spent tens of thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars and these grassroots are not amateurs in this sector; they are people from Taranaki who have more experience in the oil and minerals sector than any other region and any other peoples in Aotearoa. This battle has taken them to every court in this nation resulting in successfully winning in the High Court the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court as the applicant Trans-Tasman Resources continuously failed to deliver material evidence on how their proposed project would not adversely affect our moana. Despite having a decade to prepare scientific evidence this applicant still has not been able to provide any because it simply does not exist.The opposition to seabed mining has been strong. There were 13000 submissions presented to the Government opposing seabed mining with only a handful in favour. We have also delivered 40000-signature petitions to the Government. It is clear the public do not support the Government's stance on this. Ocean advocates from across Aotearoa have called on this Government to urgently ban seabed mining. More than 30 hapū and iwi environmental NGOs KASM—Kiwis Against Seabed Mining—and Greenpeace Aotearoa have called on the Prime Minister to support my bill and as KASM highlights we already know an enormous amount about seabed mining. The Government does not need an inquiry to understand that this industry would trash our moana; it's abundantly clear.Iwi don't want it our community doesn't want it the public doesn't want it nor does the technology sector. The argument that seabed mining is critical to the energy transition is nonsense. Most battery makers and industry users reject these arguments. BMW Volvo Google and Korean battery maker Samsung have all vowed not to buy metals produced from deep-seabed mining until the environmental risks are comprehensively understood. There's a growing global movement to end seabed mining within France Canada Pasifika nations—Tuvalu Fiji and Nauru calling for a moratorium to which in response to our own Government's support of the conditional moratorium in international waters we cannot fathom for the life of us how Labour today is able to face themselves.It is hypocritical that Aotearoa this Government has supported a conditional moratorium in international waters due to extremely limited scientific knowledge yet last week would not do the same for its own domestic waters. We need to ban seabed mining now and to delay it sends the message to Aotearoa and to grassroots that we are open for business. Our ocean is home to over 90 percent of life on earth it is our biggest ally in the fight against climate change and every second breath we take comes from the ocean. Damage to it will impact livelihoods of billions and affect our grassroots affect our mokopuna for ever. The risk of unproven technology outweighs any supposed benefits and this Government is prepared to allow us to be guinea pigs. Applicants can't provide evidence. The technology is untested and untried.And I guess what we're really concerned about is the fact that the Government is still creating and allowing this huge amount of space to bring about further applications. What you should be doing is investing more time and information in sustainable sectors the blue economy clean energy. This climate crisis is upon us; our nation deserves better.This bill provides certainty. It ensures once and for all that measures are in place that will prevent our environment and our mokopunas' future from being compromised from this barbaric activity. This bill is very specific: it doesn't affect the gas and oil industry as has been proposed. It has one retrospective applicant and anything that you did want to change could have been done through a Supplementary Order Paper so it's disappointing to see Labour's stance on this.I guess you know what we are seeing is the same Government that continued the foreshore and seabed and that's really disappointing. Our whenua was stolen from this Government in 2004 and I'm disappointed to see that that's where we're going again. A Government that campaigned on taking strong action on climate change surely has a moral obligation to lead the world away from potential ecological disaster and stand for supporting my bill.I'm standing here as the smallest party asking for the support of all parties in Parliament. The Government has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop this dangerous industry before it starts. It's not the time to cop out and vote down my bill in favour of a weak inquiry. What concerns us is if we delay this we actually may have people come in and lower the benchmark and lower the benchmark that so far has proved that the EEZ regs and the test that we helped create—these people upstairs helped create the EEZ regs. It just takes one party to come in and lower that benchmark and then what we have done is open up a door that you cannot close. And we have lived the consequences of the fracking from the oil and mineral sector. We have lived with the clean-up. We see the regs abandoned. So Ngāti Ruanui and Ngā Rauru in our unapologetic Māori movement will not stop until seabed mining is banned in Aotearoa once and for all and Te Paati Māori stands and represents the true kaitiaki: tangata whenua. We have the strongest environmental policies of anyone in Parliament and we will continue to fight for our taiao mō ake tonu [environment for ever]. Now is the time for transformative action. You have the opportunity to show not only your own people but the world that you are leaders in this sector. To slide across and wait for an inquiry is just delay and we need certainty now. Nō reira i te āhuatanga o tā tātou kaupapa i mua i a tātou kia ora rā. [So in the sense of our subject that is before us thank you.]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): The question is that the motion be agreed to.