are passing today actually fixes a lot of the mistakes that were made
in the past. I strongly commend this
bill to the House.
in the past. I strongly commend this bill to the House. I
call Sarah Dowie. Thank you Madam
Speaker for this opportunity to rise in support
of the second reading of
this Exclusive Economic Zone
and Continental Shelf (Environmental
Effects) Amendment Bill. I
firstly want to take the time
to congratulate my colleague the Hon
Scott Simpson for his precis of the
process and how this bill came
to being. The fact that in the last
parliament we had the resource
man agement reform. It was a
management reform. It was a complex set of reforms. There was over
700 clauses amended. Over 250 pains of
material of various moving parts and
it was very complex. One thing I
think was unfairly lobbed
toward this side by the Hon David
Parker was that, you know, this
was our era. As anyone can see, when you
have a complex
reform bill, it's only
have a complex reform bill, it's
natural that certain things get overlooked when time pressures
are on the table. I support PCO, but
it was a drafting error and it has
resulted in this very minor
and technical bill by way of tidy up. I
will certainly say to the
Government at the moment that that cism
is certainly unfounded and unfair and I
would simply draw their attention to
their
would simply draw their attention to
extended paid parental leave, which certainly I was
supportive of but when they did so, and that was a
relatively minor bill, they
overlooked extending the Keeping
in Touch Hours at the same time
that resulted in me putting forward
an SOP and the Government it.
adopting it. That is simply a highlight of the fact that when we
are drafting legislation, when
we are doing it as complex or
when we are doing it in a hurry, that
even the best of us can
overlook some minor elements and we need to go
back and tidy up. So here we are. We
are here with a bill that is tidying
up a technical and
it is minor. There is no substantive change
here. It is a policy decision that
was signed off by the previous Cabinet.
We are making good on that
promise in that it is only fair that when
a private individual is looking to
seek a private benefit in the marine
space, that when they apply for
that consent, and through a board
of inquiry process, that they pay for
the cost
the cost incurred of that assessment. This is what
that bill does. It also enables the applicant
to ask the minister, through
the Environmental Protection Agency for
an estimate of those costs. Again,
a fair mechanism to have and certainly
not a policy change. It also allows
the minister in considering that
assessment and the consent, any
offerings from the applicant that
would reduce the costss a part of
that application process, so
the minister can assess that and bring
that into the mix when they are
providing their estimate and their
assessment of the reasonable costs
for that application process. As
you will see, it's a very minor and
technical bill which has resulted
in this truncated process
that was before this House and
then before the environment select committee. I
am a little bit amused that this
process wasn't truncated further. We
had debate in this House at the
first reading that the first, second
and third readings should be
taken as one because it was so minor and
technical. Regardless, it was
referred to the
environment select committee where it was, again,
unanimously decided that no
submissions would be taken and as
the Hon Scott Simpson pointed
out, we did seek further consideration
from the law society, which resulted
in a very good submission to us that
detailed three points. Two of those
points we did decide were verging
outside of the scope of the bill
and verging into new policy and
a new policy arena but certainly the first
with respect to drafting
and making the bill clearer with regards to
cost recovery was taken onboard. So
we are here now. We have our bill in
front of us and it is
supported by this side of the House. I'm
certainly not going to take
anymore time in discussing this bill
given that my colleague gave
such an excellent precis of where we are to
date. We support this
bill in its second reading. I
call Jenny Marcroft. It is a privilege to stand
and speak on behalf of New Zealand
First on this, the Exclusive
Economic Zone and Continental Shelf
(Environmental
(Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill. I too will take a relatively
short call on this as we proceed
this bill through the House. I
would first like to make note of minister