Independent views By Brendan Horan

Equality is topical today with much of the country focussed on redefining marriage but meanwhile other legislation is slinking through parliament bereft of full scrutiny. Take Simon Bridges' amendment to the Crown Minerals Bill. Simon says it's about safety, others say its designed to stop well-meaning New Zealanders protesting against mineral, oil and gas exploration at sea.

With the passing of this bill protestors will be more heavily legislated against than miners. The likes of Lucy Lawless would be jailed for her recent peaceful protest.

However, there are other ramifications within this bill. With the Rena debacle, locals realise the significance of protecting our ocean. This Government has proved they cannot remove oil from a ship on a rock, let alone leaks 1500-3000 metre below sea level.

Delving deeper, the proposed law ‘wholesales' out New Zealand's mineral wealth by way of mining permits to overseas companies with the added bonus: ' free of pesky protesters or public perusal”. Does the average Kiwi appreciate the extent of our offshore mineral wealth? It is huge and has accumulated over millions of years.

The bill progresses the release of this mineral wealth to multi-nationals such as Rio Tinto and Trans-Tasman Resources, and yes an ex-National Party Prime Minister is involved (I get splinters just thinking about the number of boards that woman is on). And TTR is deemed so trustworthy it's permitted to mine offshore , take what it says is iron ore overseas to process, declare a net profit and give us a whopping 1-2 per cent ...yeah right! Where are the checks and balances?

Within that iron ore we have titanium, gold and other precious metals and minerals – what happens to that?

And what about employment? At the very least we should require foreign companies to employ a certain percentage of local people. Tragically, for New Zealand the Government vetoed that proposal this week.

So as we focus on equal rights, I would ask that when considering deals to sell off New Zealand's mineral wealth that this Government give equality to New Zealand and its workers so that we have as many rights as offshore companies that seek to profit from us.