Lee MelissaMELISSA LEE (National): Madam Speaker thank you so much. It is the first time in I think 91 days that I'm standing in this House to speak so I'd like to acknowledge my colleagues. I have missed you. I would also like to say to my select committee members from across the House that it's lovely to actually see you in person even though it's across the room because in select committee for the last three months we've just been doing it via Zoom. So it's nice to actually see you.It is a pleasure to rise together with my colleagues on this side of the House to oppose this bill. I'd just like to say that my colleague Barbara Kuriger has actually done all the heavy lifting on this particular bill and we on this side of the House oppose the Crown Minerals (Decommissioning and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.We actually supported the intent of this bill at first reading so that we could go to select committee and hear the submissions and I was in my office listening to the Minister when she talked about the 23 oral submissions. She said you know This bill is this and this is the reason." but what I took out of the speech that the Minister made was that it is incredible how this Government made a decision to stop oil and gas exploration and kill thousands of jobs in Taranaki and this also means that it's an overreaction to one incident that happened. This bill applies retrospectively and will impact on existing permits and licence holders altering the rights and duties and that is a huge impact on business.If I could quote the chairperson of Energy Resources Aotearoa Chief Executive John Carnegie he said that this bill is "regulatory overkill"—and I'm quoting—"with different requirements piling on costs far more than needed to protect taxpayers." He also went on to say "Much of the Bill is retrospective which is like moving [a goalpost] after the ball has been kicked." Who does that? You don't do that in rugby. You certainly should not be doing that in business either. When you make a commitment you expect people to live up to their responsibilities and when people are given licences they should be doing what they are supposed to do.Sometimes some businesses fail. They go bankrupt and you have to deal with those circumstances individually not make rules that go right across industry and other industries and that could actually impact on them and that actually means that consumers potentially will be paying higher prices for our energy. But do they actually care? This Government apparently cares a lot and yet I don't think they actually do.When you actually look at the responsibility of the Government you would think that they should care about what happens in the industry. I think when I was listening to a speaker earlier—you know nobody actually wants to increase carbon emissions in our country. We all want to do our fair share to reduce our emissions to make sure that we progress on to a time and place where New Zealand is responsible and will be carbon-neutral. I think that's the goal. We actually want to get there but the problem is that when Governments make regulations and pass legislation when we're not ready to do so what happens is that we have situations like under this Government. Instead of actually using less coal for energy we're using more coal for energy and not only are we using New Zealand coal; we're actually importing from overseas to use the coal to power up our energy industry.I think this is where we show the Government to be not as responsible as they claim to be but irresponsible in their application and delivery of our legislation and our regulations. I think this is one area where natural gas is used by 270000 residential users 11000 commercial users 5000 large commercial users—including our hospitals—and 300 large industries. They don't need it to be retrospective. They don't need this bill and I certainly do not support this bill."