Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on this piece of legislation which National does support—the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill—which is part of the usual maintenance of legislation that this House does all the time. We pass laws and over the years the evidence of the industry that is being regulated or legislated over shows that we haven't thought of something quite right in the past or somebody has found a loophole or somebody has done something that the Parliament didn't expect and so there is an ongoing continuous process of updating the legislation so that it will be clear and consistent.In particular what we're looking at here is the oversight of the change-of-control process and the Minister of Energy and Resources and several other speeches have outlined the changes that are particularly focused on in this bill so I won't labour those issues particularly heavily. But I would I suppose make the point that it is legislating for an industry that is indeed under threat by this ideological Government. So it's tweaking the legislation for an industry that this Government is—Andrew Falloon: Killing off.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Killing off" is not too strong a word to describe it. So yes we talk about the just transition and I suppose our only concern is that we don't want it to be a transition from New Zealand being a rich country to a poor country. If we're not careful with the way that decisions are made in this minerals sector we could be certainly imperilling our future prosperity.So we all know about the oil and gas decisions from last year which were not based on any kind of analysis that ordinary New Zealanders would expect that any Government would rely on and draw on in making major decisions about the economy which affect the ability of New Zealanders to go out and earn a living a good quality income to provide for the health and the education and all the things that we want to enjoy out of life. Before you make decisions that have a dramatic impact on the earning capacity of this country you actually do the analysis—not you Mr Assistant Speaker but the Government—and they failed to do that in this particular case.Worse than that it's not actually going to achieve any climate change benefit. As has been outlined by numerous reports in the process if indeed we continue to import coal from Indonesia and places like that by shiploads trundling across the Tasman Sea full of coal in order to maintain the energy that we're not getting from the gas that we used to be getting but we could be getting if we tried to look for it then that is not helping the climate one jot. If you want to deal with the demand for the energy that is currently being generated out of gas that might have an impact but of course you've got to learn how to turn the milk into milk powder and all the sorts of things that require energy and currently use energy. They're not interested in dealing with that detail but that blunt decision-making last year around the oil and gas sector didn't even contemplate those things.It still doesn't cease to amaze me Mr Shaw—looking over here—what gives the impression of the members of this Government that New Zealand is unique almost in the entire world in being so rich and so prosperous that we don't actually have to look in the future for oil and gas and mineral resources. Every other country in the world apart from the French I understand who don't have any—they have plenty of nuclear energy and all sorts of other things and we've had a long history of dealing with the French over nuclear interests. So apart from the French everybody else including the most sophisticated and wealthy economy in the world the United States which is now the largest producer of oil and gas currently and has seen the biggest reduction in greenhouse gases on the basis of that—they think it's worthwhile doing. Every other country in the world does but New Zealand apparently according to this Government is so rich that we don't need to do that. So we've got this bill trying to create clarity and consistency around the regulation of an industry that the Government is apparently quite happy to let wither and die sooner than anywhere else in the world.Then we look at the question of—one element of it is clarifying access arrangements that are needed to access schedule 4 land. Now that raises the other issue which is bubbling away in this Government at the moment in relation to exploration or extraction of minerals from parts of that land which are included in the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate—not necessarily schedule 4 but the scrublands that have come into what is called stewardship land within the DOC estate.People sometimes might be surprised to learn that about one-third of the land mass of New Zealand is in the DOC estate—one-third. It's not a small amount; it's quite a large amount—one-third. The idea that every single square metre or hectare of that land is so pristine that our ecology and international reputation would collapse if we were to extract something from it doesn't seem to me to hold up to any sort of rational assessment. So over the last 20 or 30 years there has been plenty of activity on that land which has been folded into the DOC estate but which came from a whole lot of other Government departments over the years and is of very low-quality conservation value.Any pragmatic Government would say "Yes we absolutely look after our national parks which are our heritage and need to be preserved but we don't necessarily have to do absolutely nothing on large areas of land." So as I understand it the Greens have made it very clear that it is their very clear policy that we should do absolutely nothing on that land and there's a bit of an argument about greenstone and quarrying for just some aggregates and all sorts of things that come out of that area. But you know it can go down to coking coal and things like that.Hon Tracey Martin: Nine years and nothing. Now we talk about it.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: But New Zealand First of course have a very different point of view as articulated by Shane Jones and so we're all very interested to know what the outcome of that argument will be and what horse-trading will be undertaken to see what they're going to do over that issue.Hon Tracey Martin: What argument? It's called negotiation—not that your party would know much about it.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well we'll see. We'll see where we get to on that argument.It is important because ultimately if you're talking about economic development in a country then you need to have a whole series of activities in order to create an economy which provides jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders. That's about investing in high-tech industries it's about good quality farms it's about wine it's about having good quality infrastructure that carries the stuff it's about having a good quality education system and developing skills it's about capital markets—it's about a whole lot of things. But in just about every other country in the world it also includes actually making use of the mineral wealth of the country where you live. We just need to be a little bit careful and it worries me that the direction of travel of this Government is to say "No no. We're so rich that we don't need to do any of that." for no reason.So if you look at the West Coast whose economy was based largely on this extractive sector—you know going back into ancient history where they'd be taking lumps of coal the size of pineapples and all sorts of things and making a real living. Those days have long passed but there is still much wealth to be drawn from the natural environment. If we go about it in a careful considered and sustainable way that doesn't have a long-lasting impact and is done with the assistance of top-quality science then that can be an important part of a modern sophisticated economy and we're not seeing much evidence of that.But anyway getting back to this bill it certainly certainly is one of the basic pieces of legislation where we are maintaining a legislative regime for a sector which is and remains an important part of the New Zealand economy. On that basis I commend this bill to the House."