Hughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4516. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chair. As we have been debating this afternoon the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill is all about activities in the exclusive economic zone. What I want to quickly touch on though is the agenda the rationale behind the bill. This Government has got a clear “drill it mine it frack it” agenda for this country—this 19th century approach where we are looking to the past for inspiration not to the future economy. What we know from the Government’s amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 100 which has been tabled is that they have had this green spin put on them by the Government. It has improved the purpose clause partially with the inclusion of “sustainable management”. It has upped the penalties. But what did not get covered in the media was all the meat that is in the amendments and that is what I want to talk about today. 
Although the media around the Minister for the Environment’s changes called them a back-down to the Greens and the green agenda in the  
National Business Review 
 what it should have said is that actually what we are seeing is also a back-down to the oil industry. What we see in the amendments to clause 17 and in new clause 17A—the “Anadarko clauses” as I call them—is this Government backing down to oil industry pressure. These are sops in terms of both an SOP and a sop to the oil industry. What we are seeing is the amendment to clause 17 simply giving oil projects that have been rejected more time and in new clause 17A we are making the outrageous suggestion that all you have to do to avoid having to get a consent for the period of passing this bill is simply to plan an activity. 
I will go into that in a little bit more detail. Clause 17 to begin with is around how planned petroleum activities may— 
Hon Amy Adams 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member might not be aware but the clauses he is discussing are not in Part 1. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think they are in Part 1A. The member will come back to Part 1. Thank you. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: Sure. I would like to talk about those amendments later when we look at Part 1A. But what I would like to point out is my amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 102 that would amend clause 15 in Part 1. What my amendment does quite simply is make deep-sea oil drilling a prohibited activity. This is defined as anything greater than 200 metres. 
The Government always says the Greens are against everything. That is its meme its talking point that it goes on about at the moment. But the fact is that we are against dumb ideas. We are against ideas that are not in our economic interests. We are against ideas that risk our environment for foreign oil-drillers’ profit. It just so happens that many of those same bad ideas come out of this Government’s office. 
My amendment to clause 15 would make deep-sea drilling a prohibited activity. We have got to do it because it is a different kettle of fish from what we have done in Taranaki over the last 100 years where we are talking about drilling only 130 metres deep. Now we are talking about under this bill this Government allowing oil drilling in New Zealand as deep as 3000 metres. One of the permits under consideration by Minister Heatley is for drilling between 1000 and 3000 metres. This is at the frontier of science the frontier of technology and there is no amount of rules regulation or legislation that this Government can introduce that is going to plug a well. We saw from the Deepwater Horizon incident that a spill from an exploratory well cost $40 billion. What this Government is quite happy to allow are planned activities. All that drillers need to have is a permit to go ahead and drill exploratory wells in an environment— 
Hon Amy Adams 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Clause 15 is also not in Part 1. It too is in Part 1A.