Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): The ACT Party will be supporting this bill but I just want to cover off a few things that are really important that introducing this bill under urgency has raised that the ACT Party wants to get on the record. It's true that New Zealand at the end of a global supply chain has problems with security of supply of everything and fuel is just one of those things. Before the Marsden Point oil refinery closed we were not sourcing all of our fuel from onshore production. In fact a large amount of it was imported from refineries in Singapore and Brisbane for example supplied by a company called Ampol which supplied fuel to the Gull chain and Waitomo and others. So New Zealand has always had a component of imported refined fuel as well as until Marsden Point closed a refinery to refine crude oil.Now when we think about New Zealand having to deal with this issue of security of supply how do we become more resilient and what does resilience mean? I asked an official from the Ministry for the Environment yesterday what was their definition of resilience" in relation to a bill going through that select committee the Natural and Built Environment Bill. They couldn't tell me; they said they'd get back to me. Well I want to offer the Government a vision of what ACT thinks resilience means for New Zealand when it comes to fuel security and the strength of our economy in our communities. Because this bill is intending to raise a levy which the Minister said that by the end of the year she will know how it's to be spent on buying essentially 70 million litres of diesel and storing it somewhere in New Zealand.Well I've spoken to the fuel companies and I've spoken to major users of diesel and they've said that it's no good just adding a few more tanks to the Channel Infrastructure tank farm at Marsden Point and it's no good just standing up a few more tanks at the Wiri tank farm in Auckland or at Petone. We actually need to think about where diesel fuel which is the mainstay the backbone of our economy of industrial production of our road freight and transport—actually diesel was used to power generators to keep the cellphone network running in Hawke's Bay recently after the electricity was disconnected. Diesel is still the lifeblood of our economy. So I've asked stakeholders what does resilience mean where should the storage go? And they've said "Everywhere". Because if you think about the kind of natural hazards that New Zealand's subject to—the alpine fault in the South Island letting go potentially releasing devastating earthquakes of magnitude eight or nine. There's a 75 percent probability of that earthquake occurring in the next 50 years. As an engineer I think I would bank on that happening. I wouldn't be banking on it 25 percent not happening. I'd be thinking that alpine fault is a clear and present risk to the resilience—in fact to the survival—of many of our communities particularly on the West Coast of the South Island and other places which are dependent on road transport over very vulnerable routes in order to maintain their lifelines.So the ACT Party will be asking the Minister when we get to committee stage "Where is the storage what does resilience mean and what are the plans for the future?" Because 70 million litres sounds like a lot but New Zealand used over 3200 million litres which is about what are we thinking? Quite a lot more than—forgive me it's early; I need a calculator. But 70 million litres or 70000 tonnes compared to 3.2 million tonnes is not a lot. It's a drop in the bucket. It's a few days' supply of what New Zealand uses on an annual basis. So we'll have a few questions for the Minister when we get to committee stage: what does resilience mean where will this fuel be stored so it's actually of benefit and is the Government about to get into supplying diesel itself like they promised they would get into supplying bitumen themselves through Waka Kotahi because they weren't able to procure it at a decent rate. So ACT will support this bill because we believe it's important to have a secure fuel supply for communities around New Zealand but we have questions for the Minister particularly around why urgency why now—when this problem has been known about for a couple of years—and what does resiliency mean? Thank you."