Robertson Grant: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10256. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): I want to return us to the important matter of the Minister of Energy and Resources satisfying himself on “the matters set out in section 29A(2)(b) and (d)”. This is the critical element of the decision that is being facilitated in Part 1 of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013Amendment Bill to allow somebody to take on the contingent work that has been agreed to as part of a permit when a company decides that it does not have the capability or the resources to do that. As I was discussing in my earlier call the matters that the Minister now has to satisfy himself on are serious matters which I am concerned that we are putting in the powers at this point of a Minister who has shown himself incapable of actually controlling this legislation.But let us have a look at what it is that he is having to satisfy himself on. New section 29A(2)(b) implemented by section 24 of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act covers “that the applicant is likely to comply with and give proper effect to the proposed work programme taking into account— … the applicant’s technical capability; … the applicant’s financial capability; and … any relevant information on the applicant’s failure to comply with permits or rights or conditions in respect of those permits or rights to prospect explore or mine in New Zealand or internationally;”. So that is actually the Minister effectively acting as our policeman our protector when it comes to the question of whether or not a permit has been fully looked after and properly looked after.But then when we get to section 29A(2)(d) this is where the rubber hits the road in terms of what is concerning those of us on this side of the Chamber. New section 29A(2)(d) of the amendment Act says that “in the case of a Tier 1 permit for exploration or mining that the proposed permit operator has or is likely to have by the time the relevant work in any granted permit is undertaken the capability and systems that are likely to be required to meet the health and safety and environmental requirements of all specified Acts for the types of activities proposed under the permit.”So bear in mind that in this instance that is being proposed in this law a new player to the extractive industries is arriving and it is up to the Minister to satisfy himself that that company will “meet the health and safety and environmental requirements of all specified Acts for the types of activities proposed …”. That is a wide breadth. That is something that will require the Minister to make decisions about vital matters for our environmental future vital matters for our economic future. We do not know today why it is this did not end up in the legislation originally. We do not know who it is who has come to the Minister to ask the Minister to take this law on. All we know is that we have to trust the Minister to ensure that this company which has not necessarily ever been involved in the extractive industry in New Zealand—it has come in off the back of another company’s permit—is OK. Will the Minister be able to assure this House of that about a company that he perhaps has had no dealings with before and the officials have had no dealings with before? He is the one thing standing between us and that company being allowed to undertake the drilling that is the result of the seismic work of another company.So new section 29A(2)(b) and (d) is about health and safety and it is about the environmental requirements of the Acts that govern anyone who wants to undertake drilling in our waters. That is a significant change. It is not a change that I believe should be undertaken through an urgency process like this. It is not a change under Part 1 that I believe the Government has thought through. It is most certainly a change that had we had a select committee process there would have been significant submission on. This is exactly the kind of matter that people would have been raising their concerns about. This is a different process from the one that was envisaged when the bill first came before the House.I simply do not believe that the Government has made the case to us tonight for why it is that this change has been brought in. Mr Bridges tried to tell us at the start it was all technical it was all matters of policy that were meant to have been put in place but I simply do not buy that. I do not buy that because it was only 6 weeks ago. I do not buythat some person found a paragraph that was meant to have been put into the law and suddenly thought “Gosh! We forgot that.” Something occurred that made the Minister bring this change forward. I believe Parliament and the people of New Zealand deserve to know what that was. They deserve to know why it is that a process that is now laxer for a company coming in to do drilling than it was when the amendment Act was passed previously is being put in place. The Minister needs to answer those questions for us.