Pugh Maureen; Williams PotoMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I stand today to speak to the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill. I want to make it really clear from the outset that this side of the House does not support this bill.I'm talking today to Part 1 section 23A amended by clause 5 regarding the application for permits. Now we've heard a lot about the process of the development of this bill and the select committee process but in response to the Hon Nick Smith's contribution the revelation that Cabinet did not even consider this leaves me wondering: how did the whole of Government find out about this? Was it actually at the announcement when the support parties were actually informed about this? This is a shocking process.Hon Shane Jones: Democracy! Democracy!MAUREEN PUGH: Shane Jones yells out Democracy!" You ask the people of Taranaki if they feel like they've been part of a democratic process. I can tell you that they do not sir. They do not.Now this Government is not only turning off the tap—quite literally—for the Taranaki region they are actually making it a sunset industry for the whole of New Zealand. There are other areas in this country that are closing the door on this and the next provincial success story that could come out of natural oil and gas. There are areas around this country that are not even explored yet. Where are we going to find the next success story like Taranaki? Well actually we don't know because this Government has put a doorstop on it. Does the Government know what lies off the south-east coast of Ōāmaru 60 kilometres out? I'll tell you what's offshore there: 5700 jobs $32 billion in royalties to the Crown and that community will now never realise the opportunity to bring that to fruition. If I think about my own area of West Coast—Tasman where there is smoke there is usually fire. Where there is coal there is usually gas. Sometimes coal gets a bit of a bad rap but out of those coal seams comes coal seam gas. The Minister in the chair I'd like to ask: this bill in effect prevents the capture of that coal seam gas so what is going to happen to that as a by-product of this bill going through this Parliament? I suggest that the gas now has to be released into the atmosphere. What on earth does that do for our global emissions our carbon emissions? Absolutely nothing. In fact it makes it even worse. And these are the types of situations we find ourselves in when we have not had the expert input into the development of this bill from the very outset. So Minister I would be very keen to hear from you about what the proposed intention is around the capture of coal seam gas because there are a number of prospective resources on the West Coast.Now the venting of these gases into the atmosphere is a total waste of a resource when in fact we could be turning that resource into electricity or heat generation. And it's not dissimilar I would argue to the Nelson situation where they capture their landfill gases and they use them to heat the hospital boilers. That's just an example of what happens when you truncate a process and when you don't involve the experts and we are left in a situation of unintended consequences simply because there was a priority to make a grandstand announcement on the global stage.We have heard today already about the energy crisis coming to this country and even a question today from David Seymour relating to the 120000 tonnes of coal that is on its way from Indonesia to fill what could be a gap in our electricity supply by the end of this year. This is a nonsense bill and I'll be back to talk about other parts.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Before I call Andrew Falloon to take the next call could I ask an honourable member please to do something with the unattended file boxes that are sitting on the Opposition side of the Chamber."