about our environment which is critical to us. Mr Speaker,
we're doing the best we can.
doing the best we can. Five minute call. I
call Maureen Pugh. Thank you, sir, I stand
to speak to the Exclusive
Economic Zone and Continental Shelf
(Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill.
and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. This
is an odd bill to be debating here in
the House today. I consider it a
waste of the House's time to be
perfectly frank. It was a waste of time
of the select committee. It was a waste of
time of the advisers, of the
parliamentary council. And
the committee's
committee's secretariat that supported the select committee. It's
that such a
amendment to be making, all parties here agreed to the change, however,
that side of the House insisted that
it be put through this process,
consuming that valuable staff and
committee time and also this House's
time. It's such a minor
amendment to be making and it could
have been easily dealt with as part of
the Statutes Amendment Bill. As
was suggested by my
very astute colleague here beside me, the Hon
Scott Simpson, in his first
reading speech he even sought leave
of the House that this bill proceeds
forthwith through
forthwith through all remaining stages without debate
and on one vote. But that side of the House
wouldn't go there and we may
wonder why, Mr Speaker. It
certainly wasn't in the interests of expediency or
efficiency. It wasn't in
the interests of openness and
transparency, that we hear so much
about, but we are yet to witness in
practice and it wasn't in
the interests of any
potential submitters because the
process was so truncated that no
submissions were called for, but the irony
of it, sirs that prior to the bill
being introduced, there were seven
organisations that were contacted
and they were invited to
make comment, so these
seven representatives were from the
petroleum
petroleum and seabed mining industries and five came back and
said they were also in support of
the minor changes in this bill. The
irony, sir is that they were
invited to make comment on
such a minor amendment to this bill
which is absolutely laughable when you stack
it up against the consultation on
something else of far
more consequence and importance to
that sector owe their future and
the future of the oil
and gas industry here in New Zealand.
future of the oil and gas industry here in New Zealand. A
decision that has no justifiable basis. It's
certainly not rational, certainly
not an environmental benefit, it
certainly has no economic sense, and
the most bizarre thing is it
actually has no benefit
in terms of improving global emissions. So we
need to ask ourselves, sir, is this
a stalling tactic in
getting the bill
a stalling tactic in getting the
several weeks is we are dealing with such minor legislation here, or we
are dealing with legislation left
over from
government. This just goes to demonstrate yet again
the gaping hole that there is in the
work coming before this House and
what is actually stacked up on the othered
paper, sir. This bill simply putting
right a drafting error in the
entitled Cost Recovery for Boards of Inquiry and it means there may be
recover rabble costs from an
applicant for the actual
and reasonable
reasonable expenses incurred in relation to a board of inquiry.
The actual and reasonable costs are recover rabble under the
Environmental Protection Authority
in relation to
their receiving, processing and deciding
on applications for marine consents and
so this bill simply brings it into
consistency, it now aligns with the
Environmental Protection Authority
and the Resource Management Act
1991, sir. I commend it
to the House.
I
I Mr Speaker, this speech will be as
long as the name of the bill. It's a
pleasure to take a short call on the
second
second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone
Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects)
(Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, which amends the principle
act