Hughes Gareth: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10254. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I just add to what the honourable member Maryan Street has said about the public opinion of New Zealand. When we looked at the regulations being developed by theMinister for the Environment Amy Adams we saw that 99 percent of thousands and thousands of submissions were not saying: “We want stronger rules.”; they actually said that deep-sea drilling should be prohibited but she said her Government would not rule out making it permitted. This is a big worry because the regulations of the new legal framework we have established over the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf and the regime we have through the Crown Minerals Act are such that potentially if the Government did go with making it a permitted activity Kiwis would have to go and get a consent for a deck but not to drill down kilometres under the sea.That is why it is important we have good rules strong rules and that is why it is incredibly worrying that we are in the Committee stage of the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2013 Amendment Bill and we have not had obviously a select committee hearing. In fact we have not had a single National member seek the call to actually make a contribution. Without a select committee hearing without public input without experts’ input without the members of the committee being able to grill officials—I saw a member trying to talk to the officials before; obviously we cannot talk to officials so we cannot get advice—this is not how good laws are passed. This is not how we get good regulations that protect our environment protect our economy and protect our people and our workers.When we look at Part 1 of this legislation this is the only scrutiny it is going to get—basically the Opposition taking a few calls. Hopefully the Minister in the chair the Minister of Energy and Resources will take a call because there have been a number of questions raised of the Minister and hopefully he can ask his officials if he needs advice.So I guess the question is what is wrong with a select committee? Why have we not had a select committee process? Was there consultation with the industry? Was there consultation with the experts with NGOs in formulating this amendment Act amendment bill?Hon Christopher Finlayson: What does Clint say?GARETH HUGHES: Did he have a casual chat to the member Chris Finlayson about the human rights implications? Was it a casual chat outside the Chamber or was it a proper New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet as you would expect with such significant legislation? Why was there no regulatory impact statement? Who has been lobbying whom? And why are we are in this farcical process right now? So Part 1 deals with permits and with how the tender process is opened up.I have been having a bit of a read of the Government’s 2013 block offer. It is quite a significant document because what the Government has opened up is 189000 square kilometres of New Zealand’s waters mostly up on the west coast of the North Island and on the east coast of the South Island and over the Great South Basin—189000 square kilometres. That is a significant increase over the other tender block processes that have been in the order of around 40000 square kilometres like the PEG1 and PEG2 basins which were offered to Anadarko and which it successfully tendered for despite Anadarko having a track record of being a 25 percent stakeholder and paying out $4 billion for its role in the Deepwater Horizon incident.The tender process as outlined in this document which we are amending in Part 1 of this bill through relaxing and weakening the provisions is allowing a weaker more liberal approach—not in a good sense of course because regulation when you are talking about potentially causing a catastrophic oil spill is good. So you see the incredible detail of how to apply for a bid. You have to put it in the red tender box. I do not know whether members have seen the red tender box. It is a special box that you put your bid in. It has to be delivered in three copies double sided and in an electronic copy on a CD-Rom. They have to be received before 5 p.m.There is incredible detail outlined in this document yet when it comes to the actual content of the bids what the Minister is doing is incredibly weakening the process because what we see in this part is of course not the need for the financial capability or the expertise. So what we are seeing is a weakening of the process despite all the bureaucratic attention to which coloured box you put your bid into.So I think the Minister should answer these questions. Why is he weakening the process? What is the rationale behind it? Why can Kiwis not have a stronger permitting regime? Why should the Minister be the one to have the ultimate decision because what you see I think in new sections 29A and 29B in clause 5 is that the Minister has to be satisfied of the matters relating to the granting of a permit. I have got no confidence in the current Minister in the chair being the one to be satisfied with regard to health and safety. I think it is deeply worrying—