Simpson Scott; O'Connor GregHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look I've been listening to this debate for some time now earlier today and more recently this afternoon but also as the bill has progressed its way through the House. And the more I hear from Government members the less convinced I am of their real heart and passion for this change that they're making in the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill.Now that we've got to the third reading stage and it's the final part of the legislative process that will see this piece of legislation come into law after the Royal assent what is it all about? Well mostly it's about changing the tone of the existing legislation and I'll come back to that in just a moment. The primary purpose of the Crown Minerals Act that we have is to recognise the importance that we as a Parliament and as a nation—is concerned about its economic wellbeing and welfare places upon the value of minerals that are administered and licensed and levied by the legislation that the principal Act creates.We have in New Zealand as have most countries around the world an understanding that minerals can create wealth can be an addition and a practical part of a modern exciting new world which we all want to enjoy. Pretty much everything that we do in our day-to-day lives has an element that comes from mineral extraction. Whether that's in the fossil vehicles that some of us still drive from time to time or whether it's the use of digital devices of the sort that we all find are such an important part of our day-to-day lives they all contain and involve minerals that have been extracted from the earth. Now we can as a nation either decide to administer the extraction of those minerals in a sensible pragmatic and rational way or we can choose not to.Now coming back to what this bill is about effectively: it simply changes the existing purpose of the Crown Minerals Act as we have it now from promoting mineral extraction to managing mineral extraction". Now some might say "Well that's not much of a change." but actually it is. It's a very important and none too subtle change about the way Government thinks of mineral extraction. And we on this side of the House don't agree with this subtle and frankly—well it's none too subtle; it's a blunt attack on the mineral extractions industry.In my electorate of the beautiful Coromandel we are fortunate to have a very good operation at OceanaGold. I've had the benefit of visiting underground there on a number of occasions and I've always been impressed with not only their environmental standards but the way they operate their business the way it's conducted and their genuine concern for the communities that they operate in and the way they conduct their business. That is a net benefit to us all. The good people of Waihī I think by and large understand that. Waihī is a mining town. Waihī would not exist if it was not for mining and it has done so for more than 100 years.So we can as I say choose to carefully prudently and effectively manage mineral extraction under the Crown minerals legislation that we have or we can send none too subtle messages of the sort that this Government is intending to do which actually says "No we don't appreciate your work. We don't value that. We don't encourage and promote. We just want to merely manage." Well I don't think that's good enough. I don't think that sends the right messages to an important part of our economic sector that in my experience tries to do the right thing.I understand that the Minister—in fact my colleague Stuart Smith has made it clear—apparently has never been underground into a mining operation. I would have thought that would be a priority for her and something that as involved as she is she would have undertaken to do because seeing is sometimes believing.So on this side of the House we are opposing this legislation. We think it sends the wrong messages. We think it is unhelpful not useful and we don't support it.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Tēnā koe.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer—the member needs to call."