Williams Andrew: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4793. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 Well done. I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill. As we have said in this House New Zealand First will be supporting this bill and supporting the Government with this legislation. I do not intend to take a long call on this as it has been stated on three or four occasions now in this House but we feel this legislation is long overdue in terms of our 200-mile limit. We have the fifth-largest economic zone in the world—ocean zone—and therefore without this legislation it certainly does not have the necessary sanctions on it and necessary legislation on it to ensure that the activities out in that zone are being monitored by this sovereign nation. 
I want to congratulate the Minister for the Environment Amy Adams and the officials for this extensive legislation which came before the Local Government and Environment Committee nearly half a year ago. It has been an extensive piece of work. It is a very hefty document. We had a huge amount of input from the officials and from the Parliamentary Counsel Office from the Ministry for the Environment from the Environmental Protection Authority and many many very very good submissions on the bill from a huge number of organisations and much of that was taken up. It was interesting that a huge number of the recommendations and the submissions came through and if they were not taken up in their entirety there were certainly very good sections taken out of the submissions and from the advice from officials that was taken up in the bill. As a result of that and also as a result of discussions with the Minister I think the result is pretty good. It is not 100 percent but like anything it is pretty well as good as we can get in the circumstances and it will certainly go a long way to providing what is required for such an important resource that this country has. 
As part of the whole economic development drive that we are all striving to get for this country to create more employment more jobs more opportunities—and particularly more opportunities for the next generation coming through—this serves a purpose in terms of laying a framework that will help the development of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone. It will ensure that there is future prosperity for this country in many respects because of the large numbers of resources and opportunities that are in our marine environment going out to the continental shelf. When you think that the New Zealand land mass represents something like only 5 percent of the total area of this economic zone we have vast amounts of resources under our oceans out there that we probably even today do not know all about and there will need to be some form of exploration and research and scientific investigation to see what is available there. 
Can I just in closing thank the members of the select committee. I think all the committee members had a huge amount of input on this. It was a very collegial way that we worked through it even though there was some disagreement for a period of time on the purpose of the bill. We are very pleased that the purpose of the bill was changed somewhat in terms of the wording to get a slightly better balance with the environment being of a higher importance than perhaps was the initial intention of the legislation. In that respect New Zealand First put in a minority report in the first instance with our concerns about the purpose of the bill. We said that we thought that the environment could suffer if it was seen only as a balance between the environment and economic development and if the environment itself was not still uppermost in our minds because at the end of the day New Zealand is very fortunate being in the South Pacific where we are. We have this pristine large part of the South Pacific on our doorstep. It is so important for our tourism and it is so important for our pure image around the world and so whatever economic development goes on whatever exploration and whatever taking of resources goes on within that economic zone we must always be mindful—and every New Zealander and everyone in this country must be mindful—that we are guardians of such an important marine environment which is so important for our tourism so important for our image so important for the place where our people and our nation live so important to Maori and so important to so many parts of our community. 
If we get this right and if it works out as we expect it will from this bill we would expect that there are great opportunities in the future. New Zealand will be much better for it and as a result all our people in this country will be better for it. So New Zealand First is very happy to support this bill and we commend it to the House.