Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to have a speech in this third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill which we oppose. The Minister who's just taken her seat had a lot to say about climate change and about transition. Unfortunately this bill is not really going to have much of an impact on that although it will have an impact on the wealth of New Zealand and New Zealanders. She talked about clause 4 which changed promote prospecting for exploration for and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand." to "manage prospecting for exploration for and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand." Unfortunately that will have some impact. Semantics do have a practical effect. Unfortunately the management of permits is anything but efficient. They are not efficient. The delay's unbelievably long and it is having a deleterious effect on the mining industry. Ironically as my colleague pointed out the Labour Party had its roots on the West Coast in the mining industry and now the Labour Party appears to be abandoning its base leaving their mining past behind—and the hard work and toil of those miners that set up the Labour Party all those years ago. The transition to a greener economy is essential. We are doing that; it's an essential part of the modern world. Unfortunately as part of that as I alluded to in the committee of the whole—and this has been right across the Western World—we've got a bit worried about mining and the impacts that it has. But what we're doing—we still require all those minerals—is we're essentially exporting the mining responsibility to people overseas where the environmental rules are not as stringent as they are in the Western World and the labour regulations are not what we would expect here.In New Zealand people working in the mining industry earn well above the average or the median. It's a very well-paid sector to work in and people's health and safety is incredibly well looked after. I have been down two gold mines well underground very deep in the Waihi mine and also on the Snowy River Mine on the West Coast not far out of Reefton—fantastic facilities. The attention to detail on the safety of their staff is unbelievable almost. So they really take that very very seriously. So too do they take the environmental obligations very seriously as well. All of the plans for the restoration of the mining sites are in place in a modern mine when it's opened. Now no doubt regulations may change over the time of that mine but they are responsive and the people that handle their restoration are only there for that job. They are not the miners. They are not the people doing the drilling and the blasting they're not people operating the machinery they're not people operating a trammel mill or the other processes in the mine. They are there to protect the environment and to meet the obligations that any good steward of the land would do and I have seen that firsthand on numerous occasions.I'd have to say what a pleasure it was to visit the Stockton mine and I'd urge anyone who gets the opportunity to go there; they should do that. The professionalism of the people working there and their attention to detail and the way that they go about their mining is something I think we should all as New Zealanders be very proud of. This goes to the transition. The coal from Stockton is metallurgical coal. It is used to make steel primarily and in other industrial processes as well but not just for the calorific value of the heat in the coal; it can be used for industrial processes as well as other things.That coal is used by steel mills overseas to lower their emissions. Because of the chemical makeup of that coal on the West Coast they blend it with other coal and are able to use less coal in total to make that steel—and they have lower emissions as a result of that. The emissions from that coal is a significant part of steelmaking. Now there are some strides being made to make steel without coal. That is in its infancy at the moment. Basically it's not taking it from iron ore to steel; it's the scrap metal to steel stage that's able to be done more easily and that is really pretty much in its infancy and the costs are quite high. So I think coal is going to be with us for quite some time to make steel. As my colleague Melissa Lee mentioned earlier an everyday thing that we think of today such as a wind turbine has on average 220 tonnes of coal used to manufacture that turbine. We need coal and I know as a man of the West Coast you'll be delighted to know that there are jobs for West Coasters and a future in the mining industry on the West Coast. That's a message certainly from this side of the House that I'd like to get on the record. But mining goes much wider than people would think. If we do think about batteries—if we think about an alkaline battery it's got zinc manganese potassium in it; a silver oxide battery has silver zinc potassium; a lithium-ion battery has lithium cobalt and carbon and it has 28 percent graphite. Graphite is also mined albeit that in my electorate at CarbonScape they are making—right through the process of being able to make and now trying to commercialise—green graphite. That is from carbonaceous waste into graphite that can be used at a very high purity higher than most deposits of graphite that are found naturally and mined and that will lower emissions for batteries. But VW did a comparison of a battery electric vehicle with a diesel vehicle of a similar size and they found that for those vehicles over their lives they would have to do 100000 miles before the EV reached the same emissions level as the diesel. So once they went beyond 100000 miles then the EV was actually lower on emissions. So just to put these things in perspective; it seems to be forgotten by others or perhaps it's not known and that's to their shame. But I would like to point out as I said mining goes much wider than things like wind turbine towers and batteries. Toothpaste for example has fluoride in it as you would be aware where they mine for fluoride. Calcium aluminium and sodium—all of those are mined for. In deodorant there's aluminium and zirconium—all mined. Sunscreen has zinc; electric shavers and toothbrush—[Interruption]DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry could I just ask those members at the back to move a little closer for your conversation instead of yelling at each other across. I can hardly hear this very good speech. STUART SMITH: And magnesium is used in anticaking for foundation powders and creams. Who knew? Titanium is used as a whitening agent in powders and cosmetics and potassium is used in fragrances and tanning lotions. Iron of course is used in cosmetic pigment and metal polish. So all of those things are mined for. Not all of them but a lot of them are available here. Now do we want those things that we use to be made ethically? Do we want those things to be made with as little impact on the environment as possible? Do we want those things mined where the mines will be restored in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner? I would say yes to all of those things and I think all New Zealanders would say yes to those things. But this Government seems intent on exporting our sins overseas. They want it all to be done overseas and as I mentioned in the committee of the whole House the West has made a strategic mistake here. We are now dependent on regimes that are not often as ethical in terms of labour laws and the environmental practices and yet we seem quite happy to have that happen. Do we care about the climate? Yes but it is a global issue not a national issue."