Young JonathanJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Just a couple of points before I start on my substantive comments. The funding to hydrogen projects first started from this side of the House—Minister Megan Woods may forget that—and secondly if she is aware of what's happening in Australia in terms of developing a hydrogen-based energy system the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group have said that this will take them 20 to 40 years and the New Zealand expert in this particular field has said to me that the development of such a system in New Zealand will take several decades. My concern is that what we are seeing here is the ending of an industry and an energy source before we have a substantial replacement. We are going to be left with a substantial energy gap which will affect not just households in New Zealand in terms of price increases in electricity but it will also affect major industries such as Fonterra who are already quite nervous about where they're going to get gas particularly at this point in time right now when they are hitting peak season. We do know as does the spokesman over there for economic development that we do have a gas supply shortage at the moment. We may not have a gas shortage just now but we do have one coming. In fact as we listened to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE)—and they came to our committee to give us answers to our questions—they said to us that our gas resource and supply in terms of that which is proved which we have 90 percent confidence can be delivered to market is just under six years. So when you look at a hydrogen-based system that can take 20 to 40 years to develop or—from New Zealand experts—three decades and we have a pending shortage of gas supply for companies like Fonterra that could come within six years we've got an issue here. We've got an issue in New Zealand that I don't think you know a 100-megawatt wind farm in Waverley—even though I support that project—is going to be able to rectify. Hon Nathan Guy: When are they going to wake up?JONATHAN YOUNG: When are they going to wake up? You know it's not as if we disagree with renewables. We don't but we want stability in New Zealand's economy. We do not want more jobs lost as an example of what's already happening in Taranaki with companies disappearing offshore leaving this country—oil and gas companies selling up because they have no faith in this Government for their future. What we want is stability. What we want potentially is a cross-party agreement understanding energy and resources so we can have stability that does not chill off international investment. But not once—not once—did I get a phone call from the Minister of Energy and Resources. Not once did she ever approach me and say Let's talk about it." You know I've had better conversations with the Green Party who are probably on the far end of the spectrum and Gareth Hughes has had the decency to say to me that if we wanted to go to Taranaki to hear people there he would support that. I want to commend him and Chlöe Swarbrick for those positions of what I consider decency of Parliament to the people of Taranaki who would be most affected by the decision that this Government is making. Can I also say that we received a submission from OMV. They are the company in New Zealand who have already invested $2 billion and have paid probably a billion dollars of royalties to the New Zealand Government who have the highest number of permits offshore than any other company—a company that is highly respected by MBIE; that has world's best practice in operation. What they have said in their submission to the Environment Committee is that unless they have a commercial discovery in the 2019-20 summer drilling season—so that's just over 1½ years away in terms of their thinking—and unless they have success and we need to understand the chance of success is probably less than 10 percent they will cease investment in New Zealand. So when I say that there is a pending shortage what we are saying is that MBIE's figures say that we have confidence—90 percent confidence—for the next just under six years but our biggest operator is saying they have confidence for two years and I say that that has got to be a concern. Minister that has got to be a concern. I would say that we will not have renewable generation in place to cover this gap by then. In fact as I said today in questions to the House today we are seeing massive increases in the wholesale cost of electricity because lake levels are low. Yes and we face this—we've had two shortages two lake-level issues in one year. Potentially this summer will be another and we've also had an outage at the Pohokura field. Firstly it was an issue around their pipeline and secondly it is the shut-off valve that they are attempting right now to repair and because of that that field has been operating at 50 percent capacity. Because of that today we are burning 5000 tonnes of coal to keep these lights on. I'm asking in terms of the energy complexity and integration of our system here in New Zealand what are we doing to ensure that New Zealand homes schools hospitals and businesses can have access to affordable and reliable electricity? I believe that this decision by this Government wanting to address an issue around climate change is actually not achieving that but is putting our economy and our jobs and our homes at risk and this is why we actually protest. Yes it's jobs; yes it's the Taranaki economy; and yes they have failed to consult but it is an issue that will spread over New Zealand and right now if this Government were to deny those issues then they are not facing facts. We are seeing a huge spike in electricity. We are seeing a massive increase in greenhouse gases today because of gas shortage. Is this a picture of the future? Well it might not be if renewables can step in but I don't think they can. In fact I have driven from this Parliament to Wellington Airport and I have looked at Transpower's dial on their website to see that at that particular point in time when 6500 megawatts of electricity was being consumed on the coldest night in winter we had zero megawatts from North Island and South Island wind because there was a high over the country and that's the vulnerability. If we want to see more and more renewables what we've got to understand is that the reliability factor around the technology to bring reliability is not with us yet. In fact the Wind Energy Association have said—and I went to their conference—that they think that by 2026 they might be able to have an economic solution for batteries and turbines. Well you know that's eight years away. That's a long time away. I don't take it—when the Minister of Energy and Resources says that we are looking back in the past we're dinosaurs and they're the 21st century Government that is not true. I think we're the smart ones who actually are not prepared to be driven by ideology but want to get down to the facts and get down to the issues and we want to consult. We want to talk to the industries involved and that is electricity that is hydrocarbons that is geothermal that's wind power and that's the solar generators. We want to have an integrated system that is reliable that New Zealanders can count on and what's happening with this bill is it's creating a flaw—it's creating a vulnerability in our energy system. It's not that we are champions of hydrocarbons but we are champions of energy for New Zealanders—energy for life energy that will equip and enable our enterprises to succeed energy that will continue to flood our schools and our hospitals and energy that will enable our economic activity to grow and increase. This Government has been criticised for lack of consultation. Let me say if you consulted you would have learnt a lot more. I have consulted far more I believe than the Minister of Energy and Resources because she's turned her back. When Treasury looked at the MBIE report what did they say? They said "We looked at this report." and the statement that they said was that "Due to the time limitations and the analytical constraints arising from Cabinet's previous decisions MBIE had not consulted the petroleum industry or the public on the proposals."What is an analytical constraint? It's a decision by that Cabinet to not analyse to not get the data to not get the information and to not learn the truth but to make a decision based on ideology to make a decision that's formed together to form a coalition that has been purely what they call leadership—I call it the lack of leadership. They have made a decision to weaken this country instead of taking a pragmatic and a practical a systematic and an evidence-based and scientific-based decision—and I invite dialogue with us because the time will come when we are in Government and we might have to fix up what you've started. We stand against this bill with everything in our being."