Wagner Nicky: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4496. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am delighted to be here to support the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill in its Committee stage. I am delighted to support the bill because up until now there has been absolutely no framework to manage the environmental effects of activities in the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf. That means no legislation to manage seabed mining no legislation to manage the platforms for oil and gas exploration and no legislation for drilling marine farming energy generation or carbon capture and storage. As the marine area covered by this bill is 20 times the size of the land mass of New Zealand this legislation is well overdue. I think it is really interesting listening to the Labour members say they are not going to support the bill because between 1999 and 2008 under Labour there were 46 wells drilled with no legislation to monitor the activities and no legislation to protect the environment. 
I was really pleased to hear from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment this week who welcomed the changes to this bill. She said she is satisfied that the legislation will provide environmental protections for our oceans. Obviously Labour does not read the press releases. Obviously Labour does not follow what the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says. She also congratulated the Government on bringing this legislation to Parliament on listening to others and on carrying on a conversation with environmentalists. 
I would like to thank our Ministers. I would firstly like to thank our ex - Minister for the Environment the Hon Nick Smith for promoting this legislation and our present Minister the Hon Amy Adams for getting this legislation through the House. 
We are all aware as New Zealanders how our country is shaped by the oceans around it. We have one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world. Most New Zealanders live close to it and they want to protect our oceans. We enjoy our coastal oceans. And although we mostly know those beaches and the things near us and focus on those we are also committed to looking after the wider oceans and the resources beyond to the exclusive economic zone which goes past the 12 nautical miles up to 200 miles out to sea. The exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf are ours under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Because they are ours under this legislation we have both rights and responsibilities. We have the right to manage and to use the resources in the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf but we also have the responsibilities to protect and conserve the marine environment and this is exactly what this legislation will enable. 
The Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard on this bill. We made a large number of changes. The issues we were most interested in in Part 1 were the purpose clause of the bill and whether the bill met with our international obligations. The original purpose of the bill was based on the principle of balance—the balance between looking after the environment and managing our economy. But the Minister has since revised that purpose in her Supplementary Order Paper 100 and the purpose is now “to promote the sustainable management of the natural resources of the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf.” Of course this is in line with the Resource Management Act which is the management tool that looks after that first 12 nautical miles of our coastal waters so it makes sense to use that for the greater exclusive economic zone. It will create better consistency in environmental regulations for the different areas of the ocean and will be particularly useful for any activities that span both the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone beyond 12 nautical miles. 
These changes will also please many of our submitters as they were concerned that as the bill attempted to balance the economy and the environment the environment might miss out. That is not what we want. Also the concept of sustainable management is well defined in domestic law and it has been used for about 20 years in Resource Management Act case law so people understand the terminology and will be able to use it freely. The new purpose will ensure that any economic activities in the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf will be sustainable and will be done in such a way as to safeguard the life-supporting capacity of the environment. 
I would like to take just a short call to talk about our international obligations. There was significant debate about whether the bill would meet our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and also some submitters felt that it was a bit restrictive to use only that legislation. They suggested and we did actually take their suggestion to add the Convention on Biological Diversity. We sought advice and we were assured that the bill did meet our obligations under international law. But the Legislation Advisory Committee advised us not to allow our international obligations to become an interpretations tool because that would risk the bill becoming subject to international obligations not considered by our Parliament. However we did include the Convention on Biological Diversity. Under the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 100 the text is amended. Both the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1992 and the Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992 are included and our commitment to both these obligations are clarified by saying that “This Act continues or enables the implementation of New Zealand’s obligations … relating to the marine environment” under these conventions and everybody—except perhaps Moana Mackey—feels that this fulfils our obligations and is the right piece of language for New Zealand. 
I believe that the amendments made to the original bill improve it significantly and I would like to thank all the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee for the work they did to improve the bill. I would like to thank the Green Party for its input and also the Labour Party because there were times that we got a better outcome because of that discussion. 
Just before I go I would like to put an answer to Grant Robertson’s concerns. This bill is predicated on caution. Because of the size of the exclusive economic zone and the unknown quantities of our waters and because new emerging technologies are involved it seeks to favour caution and environmental protection. As a default position all activities are discretionary unless they are classified as permitted so until we have more knowledge each activity will be considered with a case by case approach. I think that is appropriate and I think that should put Mr Robertson’s fears to rest. Thank you.