Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): What a performance tonight from the Labour Government introducing another bill under urgency again violating normal democratic principles. Discarding principles like the rule of law which essentially if I was to summarise it for Labour members over there who aren't familiar with this concept is that everybody should know what the law is how it applies to them when they take an action in advance so they can make sensible logical actions. If a Government's going to change the law that affects people who've made investments or have this thing called skin in the game—in other words they actually produce things and make things for New Zealand—then it should go and consult with them because I think the Minister made a good point which was that the New Zealand Government the Crown has the right to royalties from New Zealand's petroleum and mineral resources. They belong to the Crown and if the Minister and officials wanted to make the case that the royalty regime was out of date and needed to be updated because we're going to be using gas for a lot longer and we're going to be getting all of our gas out of the ground we're going to find more and more gas and we're going to keep using it maybe for another 50 or 100 or 200 years—Simeon Brown: More barbecues.SIMON COURT: Not just for barbecues Mr Brown but potentially hot showers and potentially to manufacture things like methanol like ammonia urea fertiliser at Kapuni. Gas is not just for energy; gas is also a vital chemical in manufacturing products that New Zealand uses here domestically and exports to the world. So if the Government wanted to change the royalty regime they could have consulted with the industry consulted with the New Zealand public asked for advice from economists from geologists from all kinds of experts and they could have proposed and then passed a new regime for royalties but they didn't do that.They've come to the House and made the most obtuse vague series of explanations as to why this bill needs to be passed tonight. That is why the ACT Party says this is not in accordance with the principles around the rule of law and it is not fit for a democracy like New Zealand's to pass laws in this way. I also want to address the issue that the Minister raised having finally admitted there was a potential benefit of $50 million to the Crown which is no insignificant amount of money. I mean it's about as much as they blew on consultants for a bike bridge that never got built so they've got to keep finding these $50 millions down the back of everyone's couch otherwise they won't be able to employ any more consultants to design things that won't get built like Let's Get Wellington Moving or Auckland light rail. So we understand they need the money but when I asked the Minister about the costs: what are the costs that business and consumers have to pay? Will this $50 million that the Government gets become a lot bigger number in terms of the costs to the industry to the gas producers and to those who manufacture and consume gas and eventually to the consumer—to the Kiwis who rely on affordable energy on affordable products? Whether they be paints or resins or waterproof raincoats which is what methanol is used to manufacture or kids' waterproof backpacks so that their books don't get wet when they go to school—assuming that this Labour Government cares whether kids go to school or not—all of those products are extracts from natural gas made in New Zealand. It's natural gas produced in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders.So when I asked the Minister about what the costs of this policy are the Minister did not address that at all in the committee stage. She continued to describe the benefits but refused to venture anywhere near the costs because all of the costs will flow through to the consumer in one way or another or if these costs flow into the manufacturing sector then the manufactured goods like methanol—of which New Zealand produces 3 percent of the world's methanol—those costs will be added on to the cost of our manufactured products. They will be less competitive in the international market which means New Zealand will receive less money from our international customers which means that our balance of payments deficit—which is the difference between what New Zealand sells to the world and earns and what we spend what we import from the rest of the world have to pay for—will get worse because our manufacturers won't be selling as much if the price goes up and they have to compete with cheaper manufacturers. Just to give you an example: cheaper manufacturers of methanol are based for example in China where they make methanol not from clean natural gas but from gasifying coal in a coal gasification process that New Zealand abandoned in the 1970s because it created so much toxic waste in the form of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons coal tars and all kinds of other carcinogenic chemicals. So what this Government's really saying is We want to put costs on our clean natural-gas industry so they become less competitive with the rest of the world and we don't really care." and that makes us less competitive with the dirtiest most polluting manufacturers in the world. None of this makes any sense if you really care about the environment if you really care about climate change and if you really care about the socio-economic fabric of New Zealand society and of great places to live and work like Taranaki which have the highest incomes in any regional economy in New Zealand.So what the ACT Party would be saying to the Minister is that you're happy to talk about the benefits to the Crown and why this Government needs another $50 million—no doubt to waste on projects that will never be delivered by the by—but we didn't hear anything about the costs and the opportunity cost because the signal this sends is that New Zealand's not a safe place to send your money to start a business. If you're a foreign organisation you're a forestry company you're a manufacturer or you're a distributor of products and you want to come and set up in New Zealand this bill raises the risk profile for international investors. It's another way that this Government has iced has sterilised and has frosted up the windscreen on the New Zealand economy. So it's less likely that foreign investors will come and send us their money because we are short of capital. We know that because we have an infrastructure deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars and this Government has no solution for that. International foreign direct investment could help with our infrastructure deficit. All of this rushed legislation violating the principles of the rule of law without consultation and failing to account for the costs and the benefits undermines New Zealanders' and our trusted international partners' confidence in New Zealand as a place to invest a place to work and a place to live. Of course we hear a lot from this Government about disinformation about a loss of trust in the democratic process and yet here this Government is this Labour Government introducing a bill under urgency having claimed that they've been begged to apply a new levy regime by those who wish to pay the levy. This almost fantastical notion that there's a queue of people outside the Beehive who have big businesses or big profits and want to pay more money to the Government because they're so confident it will be spent wisely—I mean this sounds like a bedtime story you'd read to young socialists but I tell you what: it's not true and Kiwis don't believe it. People who'd like to bring their money and invest in New Zealand because they like Kiwis don't believe it either. That's why the ACT Party says it's not credible Minister. Then we think about our high-value resources. New Zealand is resource rich. We're resource-rich in our people and our skills but also the minerals: the petroleum the gold all of those rare earth minerals that we find in all kinds of places Kiwis might not have thought to look—whether it's lithium deposits around the Taupō volcanic zone whether it's some of the purest gold deep deep deep underground underneath the Coromandel ranges where a company called OceanaGold has undertaken to drill a 10-kilometre tunnel underground to get the gold out without disturbing the surface of a national park. That's how good Kiwis are at caring for our environment getting our minerals and resources out of the ground and actually making us wealthy as a nation. ACT can't support this bill because it makes New Zealand poorer. But we'll be working very hard when we have an opportunity as part of a future Government a centre-right Government to make sure New Zealand becomes a wealthier place and that our environment and our people are wealthier too."