Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I too stand tonight to speak to the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I have to say that this is a sad day for us in this Parliament. To be dealing with a bill like this and the potential impacts for this country is very sobering. We're literally rushing through yet another piece of legislation. What this bill is going to do is effect a ban on oil and gas exploration which was announced seven months ago by the Prime Minister and the Minister and only discussed within Cabinet two weeks ago. The effect of this bill is going to be that we are going to cost this country tens of billions of dollars in revenue and we are also going to end up with an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.The reason we have this bill in the House is because if the Government had actually tried to push on with the ban under the current law it actually would have found itself at risk of being challenged in court because the Crown Minerals Act's purpose is and I quote to promote prospecting for exploration for and mining of Crown owned minerals for the benefit of New Zealand." Well unfortunately those principles are being thrown out the window with this new bill. And what it's done in effect already is it has scared away the potential investment into this country and that's because of the uncertainty over long-term gas supplies.The oil and gas sector in this country contributes $2.5 billion a year to our GDP figures. Now the ban also shows the arrogance of this Government because it has ignored the advice and it has absolutely no idea about long-term investment cycles. Now to give you an example about the impact of this caution that is now in the sector Ballance Agri-Nutrients—they've this year decided to can a billion-dollar rebuild of its Kapuni factory and that's a direct result of this bill. Methanex the second major natural gas consumer has halted its new investment putting on hold a $100 million expansion of its Taranaki plant.This is the kind of bill that stifles the very innovation and advances that the Productivity Commission actually says should be part of our response to climate change. It's stifling that investment. It was well articulated before by my colleague Erica Stanford: where is R & D that actually goes into the investment into the technologies to reduce emissions? I come from the West Coast and I'm a very proud West Coaster. Over there extractive industries are a huge part of our economy and a huge part of our history. There is absolutely nothing wrong with mining coal mining gold or mining oil; it's what we do with it afterwards that causes the problems. Why not invest in the technology that actually reduces the emissions from those products?Now the Minister has very generously given this bill a four-week submission period—four weeks. Now if we were going to make changes to the Dog Control Act or something quite minor we'd actually go out to the community for six weeks as a typical open transparent Government would.I'll mention a Mr John Kidd from Woodward Partners. He was quoted in the media recently saying that the reason that this is being rushed through is so that Block Offer 2018 can proceed but what it's actually going to do is cause so much uncertainty. He's actually said publicly that holding up the block offer as the reason to fast track this legislation review is therefore and I quote "disingenuous and serves only to mask the true objective of seeking to minimise public discussion and critique"—this is for the most open and transparent Government ever. Now how many times have we heard that quoted back to this Government about the most open transparent Government? There is never a day goes by now that we don't find a reason to criticise them for being the most open and transparent Government ever! Well Mr Kidd went on to say that the Government should actually can Block Offer 2018 and take time to get the legislation right and then carry on with Block Offer 2019.Now both of the projects that I talked about before would have helped reduce the greenhouse gas emissions but unfortunately this Government in its ill-conceived ban on oil and gas exploration is having a major impact on the innovation and technology sector. So unfortunately this Government doesn't seem to get the point about the long lead-in times that some industries need and rely on. So what this Government is doing in effect is giving the sector cold feet. And they're going to vote with their feet. Now I can tell you that National will overturn this ban when it's back in Government in 2020 and it's going to make sure that there will be room to meet the challenges of climate change as well.We've also talked a lot about some of the other projects going on around the country but I'd like to mention the one off the east coast of the South Island and that's the Barque prospect. That will be lost to New Zealand for ever if New Zealand Oil and Gas cannot find themselves a willing partner. Well actually who would want to? Who would want to partner now in an industry with so much uncertainty hanging over its head? I think this is going to be the demise of this country. We're going to see the losses from these potential businesses and when I'm talking about the Barque one—that's actually a transformational project down there—that's thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of revenue. Just think about how many more schools hospitals social services and how much more infrastructure we could build in this country with that kind of income.Now this Government is so naive and so arrogant that it's actually turned its back on its own officials and expert advisers. It's laughable if it wasn't so jolly sad. How many of these profits from these companies and these potential businesses have they lost for this country? Well we know now from the Government's own experts and advisers that it's around $8 billion lost in this particular offshore project. Those profits are only to the Government's finances. It doesn't include the companies' profits it doesn't include the wages and it doesn't include all of the trickle-down businesses that support that industry.What it's going to do is have an impact on energy prices as well because we're going to have to import them. We certainly can't import them cheaper than we can produce them here in New Zealand down on this little group of islands at the bottom of world so how are we going to fill that energy void? Some of the figures that I've seen indicate that in about 18 months the supply of gas in this country is going to be in decline and those exports will be necessary then. So perhaps we'll build more solar or perhaps we'll build more dams but of course they all take steel and concrete. Where are we going to get that from? We can't take the coal out of the ground and we can't get the steel and where are we going to get the copper from to run the electricity out to all those plugs that we're going to park our electric vehicles at and charge up? All of those things are coming from the extractive industries.This ban is about real people. This isn't about a just transition; this is just ruination."