Hughes Gareth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill — Referral to Commerce Committee In Committee[Sitting date: 10 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9271. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I hope Mr Hague gets his third call because it was a substantive contribution. What he points out is that there are some strong health and safety aspects in this Crown Minerals (Permitting and Crown Land) Bill that the Green Party supports but it is the dross I think Mr Hague called it the rest of the bill that we are opposing. Unlike the Minister of Energy and Resources when he got up from the chair I am going to dispassionately stick to the facts. What we saw from the Minister was an embarrassing display when he made up for a lack of substance with bombast with bluster with hyperbole and with name-calling. It was an embarrassing display from a Minister clearly on the defensive a Minister who is losing the public debate.In this call what I want to talk about is Supplementary Order Paper 205 introduced on Easter Sunday by Simon Bridges. It has been called the “Petrobras law”. Greenpeace is calling it the “Anadarko amendment”. I think historians in the future will call it a bridge too far. It has not been a good day for the Government. We have got leaks. We have got privacy breaches. The Government is on the back foot when it comes to unlawfully spying on Kiwis. And here is the Government spending its scarce legislative time focusing on criminalising a human right—Kiwis’ freedom to protest on the sea. It is unneeded because we have got it going through the High Court at the moment. The Government is taking Elvis Teddy to the High Court. It is an overreaction because the penalties are far higher than what we have in the criminal statute. It restricts Kiwis’ freedom. It is a grotesque attack on Kiwis’ rights. I know that the Greens have a number of calls and I would like to apologise to Mr Hague. I have just realised that in fact it was not his second call; it was only his first. I hope to hear from him again. I apologise wholeheartedly.In this call what I want to touch on is why it is a bad amendment the shocking process we have seen it go through and what the real agenda behind it is. First up it is a bad amendment. This Supplementary Order Paper 205 amendment to Part 1 of the bill establishes five new criminal offences including damaging and interfering with a structure or a ship interfering with equipment and interfering with operations and sets up these new exclusion zones around the vessels. It is bad lawmaking because it is targeting one specific activity. It is targeting one specific industry. This quite legitimately opens up the Government to accusations. This is law for one industry by one industry. It is lawmaking at its worst. What we see is not what Minister Bridgestalked about—that the Greens are advocating for more rights for protesters. Protesters’ rights in New Zealand are the same rights all New Zealanders have. It is called the law. What Supplementary Order Paper 205 is doing is setting up specific penalties if you infringe one specific industry. If you do this to the fishing industry you are not going to face these penalties. It is only if you impact the Government’s mates its oil-driller mates whom it is trying to bring down to the great waters of Aotearoa.It is bad lawmaking because it is extending police powers to the military and to the navy specifically. Extending powers of arrest and detention to the military should be used sparingly and it should be used only in exceptional circumstances. What we are seeing here is the Government setting up the New Zealand Navy to be a private petroleum security company. We should not be passing laws like this one with this amendment. It interferes with the freedom of navigation in the exclusive economic zone of New Zealand.We have got a legal opinion from Duncan Currie an eminent international legal expert who points out that when you look at the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and say the Australian legislation which Ministers Bridges and Heatley have modelled this Supplementary Order Paper on the 500-metre exclusion zones relate only to installations and not to vessels. What this Supplementary Order Paper is doing is rewriting international law to suit one specific industry by having the 500-metre exclusion zone surround vessels. These are exactly the same types of tactics and dubious legal justifications that New Zealanders rightfully question when it comes to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. It is something our Government rightfully challenged when the French tried it on Mururoa and we sent our frigates to protest at their nuclear testing in our backyard. Quite rightfully it is something that our officials criticise North Korea for doing—for making up laws like this on the fly. Mr Currie I think quite rightfully writes in the legal opinion which the Government has treated with disdain that “There is a good reason that UNCLOS does not allow safety zones around vessels. In contrast to installations such as oil rigs which are subject to the exclusive justification of the coastal state ships are principally subject to their flag State laws while sailing in the EEZ or on the high seas. Safety zones around vessels would create confusing zones of coastal state jurisdiction around foreign flagged vessels—a very confusing state of affairs which is not contemplated by UNCLOS or the law of the sea.” So here we see Minister Bridges with no legal advice.