Connell Brian: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: Electricity and Gas Industries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15993] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I did not intend to take another call but I was fired into action by Mr Copeland’s contribution. He said that he had 14 years of experience in the oil industry. If he says he has that experience then I accept he has it but from listening to his contribution I think it must have been spent down the well. His answer to the problems we are facing in New Zealand at the moment is to pass law like this. 
Mr Copeland should be very careful before he runs down companies like Shell and accuses them of perpetrating frauds. Companies like Shell have an international reputation and if we do not seek to look after that reputation I ask Mr Copeland why they would bother to invest in New Zealand especially given just how difficult it is becoming to invest here. 
Mr Copeland with his 14 years of experience—which must have been 1 year repeated 14 times—has told us that we need to pass this sort of law and that it will guarantee disclosure. I do not know which planet Mr Copeland has been on but passing another unnecessary law does not guarantee disclosure at all. I have said previously how we guarantee disclosure—that is that we get cooperation through goodwill. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Do you think I’m being dishonest? 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: I am not accusing Mr Copeland of what he has accused Shell of being at all. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: He did it in a good Christian way. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Yes he did do it in a good Christian way. He was very quick to point out that that company had perpetrated a fraud but in his own disclosure he left out some very critical components. This is not an exact science. When people start to drill they do not exactly know what they have got. The Government is asking some of these companies—companies that have invested tens of millions of dollars—to say to their opposition: “Come on in. We’ll give you a leg-up. We will share with you at our risk our information.” If that will not drive people into being very cautious about disclosure I do not know what will. 
I say to Mr Copeland and the Minister of Energy that they should have taken a more strategic view than just saying they would legislate. That is a bureaucrat’s answer to a pragmatic problem. I know that Harry Duynhoven does not believe in this stuff. He is a Minister who gets things done. He does not believe in bureaucratic responses to pragmatic problems. He knows that in order to attract capital to this country we have to put out a hand of friendship to businesses not slap them down every time they venture here. We should think through what is being suggested. We want full disclosure—we have agreed with that; all the parties in the House agree with that—but we are saying to companies: “Your having spent money finding petroleum reserves we are going to share them around with your opposition by inviting them in.” It just will not happen. Why would one give one’s opposition a leg-up? It simply will not happen. 
If we go through clauses 48 and 49 we can see how prescriptive they are. I again have to ask Mr Copeland and others whether they have thought about the compliance implications for companies coming into New Zealand. It is very prescriptive stuff. In fact it is almost draconian. Companies like Shell—the one that Mr Copeland wants to put down—have choices and options. They do not have to come here. He does not seem to understand that. If companies are to come here we must offer them an even playing field and this measure will not provide that. Let us have a look at clause 48 which includes some of the things that these companies will have to do. For example section 90A(1) states: “Every holder of a permit relating to petroleum must provide to the Secretary all information in connection with” whatever they have discovered.