Collins Judith; O'Connor GregHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's such a delight to follow that woman-splaining from Naisi Chen the list MP for the Labour Party telling us that we don't understand these things. Well I've got to say I felt this evening that the Minister the Hon Megan Woods has been somewhat struggling too and perhaps she might have benefited from coming to the select committee which didn't eventuate.Hon Member: Oh come on!Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Why I say that—and I hear some shouting coming over from the Labour Party but I must say they're not looking that good in their red. They wonder why I would say that. Well that's because when I was asking the Minister when she was in the chair in the committee stage where these new deposits were that she had started talking about she couldn't come up with them. My colleague Stuart Smith rightly asked Well what are these? What is a 'deposit'? Where's the definition?" It's not in the bill. We went back to the primary legislation—as you would expect me to do—and we could not find it there either. We have wondered whether or not there was any legally defined "deposit" and perhaps there is but the Minister seemed unable or incapable of actually finding that for us or telling us. The only part that I could see it referred to was in the explanatory note which as we know is actually not the legislation; it's an explanatory note. Perhaps it's because the Minister has rushed this through without the proper process of a select committee.I understand from the Minister that this could amount to around $50 million—did she really say that?—for the Crown. And that was a wonderful thing. The issue is of course that that $50 million is apparently according to the Minister being demanded to be paid or collected from the very industry that's going to be the one paying it. That I find just staggering. I've heard of all sorts of virtue-signalling and I think we've all seen some examples of that even relatively recently of people who demand to pay more money for things. Well I just don't know from my experience as the former Minister of Energy and Resources that that many businesses and people who are in the business of extracting natural gas very clean-burning natural gas—and using them in our barbecues by the way and all those other things that we use them for—would be offering and demanding demanding demanding that the law change so they could pay another $50 million. That just doesn't ring true.When I asked the Minister quite genuinely "Who were these people demanding? And where?" she said they'd apparently been demanding this of the officials. Well again I'm finding this one really hard because when we got this bill this afternoon after the Budget we decided on reading it that this was not the sort of piece of legislation that we would want to rush through during urgency—that we would want to consult with the industry; we would want to hear advice from the officials. And we decided that we would not support this bill. We thought it was very strange that the Minister on a bill which she says is just correcting a misunderstanding or misinterpretation wouldn't have reached out across Parliament to say "This is what this is. Can you please support it?" But no she didn't and I just thought that was very strange too. She couldn't come up with any of these people who had demanded—the names of any of these companies that had demanded—to pay more money. When she said that they had been demanding it—you know the officials—she just couldn't say anything about what they'd actually demanded other than they really wanted to pay more. Look I don't want to be cynical about this one but I'm not too sure that that really rings quite true with the nature of what this is: a $50 million extra payment to the taxpayer—well the Government. How does that work?Hon Member: People like paying their fair share.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: And I hear from someone—Ms Lorck? She's desperate for me to name her because she won't be named here anymore after 14 October. She's desperate for me to name her; so I'll just do it so she can get in the Hansard—poor person. She's asking "Well these people just want to pay their fair share." But that's not what we're hearing from the Minister.Marja Lubeck: They're desperate.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you. That's not what we're hearing from the Minister. What we're hearing from her is that they demanded it of her. Then when we asked her "When? Where?"—whatever—apparently they demanded it of the officials. Which officials? When? And who was doing the demanding? It just doesn't ring true.Then if we have a quick look on what was actually happening around that time New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals (NZPM) which is the official arm within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment that actually deals with permits had been very successfully sued and had had a really good telling-off in the court on a judicial review by Greymouth Petroleum to get in fact a permit on oil and gas in seams in the Taranaki area—and I'm not sure which basin it was in. The Minister wasn't too clear on that one either. But she said "Nothing to do with it." I just think it's amazing that it had nothing to do with it when in December last year when apparently this was being demanded by somebody unnamed somebody in the industry—it just happened. And then at that time given that the court was handing I would say or letting no doubt New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals know—it was pretty clear I would have thought—an indication at that stage just how badly their case was going that you just have to wonder: is there no connection at all? And the Minister has assured us tonight that there's none. But I think there's going to have to be some Official Information Act requests going in. I feel that our colleague Stuart Smith is going to be prosecuting this one because it just is a little bit cute.Then we have to ask ourselves: and why is this so urgent today? The Minister has explained: because the Government needs this money. Well didn't they need it 42 years ago? Didn't they need it six months ago? Why couldn't they have said before in December when they apparently were being demanded that they clarify this issue? Why didn't they then put the matter to other parties in Parliament or even bring it here? We've had urgency haven't we between then and now? It's a very teeny-weeny little bill. I mean it's just a teeny-weeny little thing. And yet apparently it's taken them six months to do it and it all has to be without the industry actually being consulted at all—absolutely no consultation. Because we have heard this afternoon from people in the industry people who actually represent the industry not just those who might know somebody in the Minister's office who've said that they are delighted we are opposing this bill because no they did not ask for it. So I am going to be really interested to find out what who exactly and when and to whom.And I know that some people might find that really strange—that a Minister would do that—but that's six months $50 million. Why wasn't it done beforehand? And the answer is: because I don't think it is anything more than an attempt to perhaps set a complete destruction of the oil and gas industry. We look at the way that the Minister who is the Minister of Energy and Resources refers to natural gas. She refers to it as "fossil gas". Well I hope she enjoys her fossil gas barbecues! I hope she's thinking like that when she's you know starting up the barbie! I really do think that having a Minister of Energy and Resources who has such contempt for the industry such contempt for a sector that has been a major exporter for us—and when we were in Government and the Hon Gerry Brownlee will certainly remember from his time as the Minister crude oil was our No. 1 export to Australia and No. 2 was gold. This Government using NZPM—that used to have some really good people; I'm sure that they still are there hiding—must be really worried about the fact they've got a Minister who has no respect for the sector no respect for the industry and they hear the rubbish I've heard today about how somehow this has got something to do with climate change.It's got nothing to do with it. Nothing in here will make any scrap of difference to our climate change obligations. In fact it's quite the opposite. What it's going to do is actually have less natural gas being looked for and more coal being imported from Indonesia and more coal being burnt and our emissions continuing to rise because this Government went and did some virtue signalling.Hon Julie Anne Genter: You've got no idea what you're talking about.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: And I wish that person would just be quiet when I'm speaking. It's not her time. Why doesn't she just take her turn?DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time is completed."