Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker and welcome back to the Chair. It's good to see you there. I'm very pleased and surprised at the Hon David Parker's contribution. I think it was very measured and well considered. For many of the same reasons that he's outlined the National Party will not be supporting this bill.I think that bans are almost always the wrong solution. If the ban is the answer you have to go back and look at the question. We have adequate—more than adequate—processes to deal with environmental challenges and issues when we exploit resources and exploit resources we do. Our very standard of living is totally dependent on the resources industry. Almost everything in this room that we touch in some way has a fossil fuel either as a part of the make-up of it or used in the manufacture of it. For example the varnish on the walls has got quite a substantial amount of petroleum in it. So those sort of things are vitally important to our standard of living.As the Hon David Parker said this bill would send a massive shock wave through the international community particularly the sovereign risk that in New Zealand has always been seen as very low until the oil and gas exploration ban which did send a massive shock wave through the international community. So much so that in fact I've been told from companies trying to raise funds for other projects nothing to do with the oil and gas sector that they weren't going to be supported by independent financiers because they see the sovereign risk in New Zealand now as a result of that ban as too high for them; they would rather invest their funds elsewhere.The closedown of the Maui platform was mentioned by the Hon David Parker. That would certainly be a massive issue. We with the oil and gas ban ensured we burnt more coal. The rest of the world has lowered their emissions by going away from coal and using gas; we in New Zealand have gone the other way. With the oil and gas ban we don't have the supply of gas to do away with coal. The units in Huntly that we use to generate electricity with coal run on gas as well. We simply don't have the supply of gas for that option to be utilised. [Interruption]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! I apologise to the member. Respectfully to the members of the public present in the gallery I do have to hear the contribution of members on the floor so I respectfully ask if you could just lower your voices so that I can do so.STUART SMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. We do need gas and will need gas to keep the lights on as the Hon David Parker said well into the foreseeable future. In fact while we'll need less of it it becomes ever more important as we rely on unreliable energy sources such as solar and wind.But ironsand was what was particularly mentioned by the member promoting the bill. Iron is used in everything from white goods all through our manufacturing. Wind turbines have a major part used in their manufacture from ironsand.Offshore seabed mining is quite common in other parts of the world. Aggregates for example in Europe—there was last year 65 million tonnes of aggregates taken from the sea and that grew by over 10 percent and that's a trend that's been going on for some time. In South Korea as well 16 million tonnes. Those sorts of things are happening all the time.When we look at all of the royalties that we're receiving from minerals over $182 million in royalties from minerals which includes oil and gas. Also ironsand we receive a substantial amount of coastal and ironsand royalties of over $1 million. These things are not unsubstantial.The very community that is actually promoting this—and good on them for bringing it forward—they will be the ones that will also be affected by the downturn in the economic activity in those regions.The Leader of the National Party Christopher Luxon said today that we would not support Te Paati Māori. This sort of policy is exactly why we would not. We know that we are looking forward to a chaotic coalition and that is—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): Order! STUART SMITH: While the members might not like it then they should think very hard about what they're putting forward in their members' bills. Thank you Madam Speaker.