Chen NaisiNAISI CHEN (Labour): This afternoon we've heard many things on this bill that I did not expect to hear. This is the bill on gas information disclosure and penalties and we're going to talk about what we've heard in this House but I'm only going to talk about the points that are related to this bill.Could I say to the members opposite that they need to wake up and smell the roses because—do they know what—when we asked for submission on this bill guess what? The major drivers in our economy—one of the biggest companies in our economy: Mercury—expressed strong support. Todd Energy and Nova Energy support amending the Gas Act of 1992. Vector generally agrees with the information disclosure and penalty provisions of the bill. There's more: Firstgas Group endorses the information disclosure provisions of the bill. Haast Energy Trading overall supports the information disclosure. Transpower emsTradepoint Major Gas Users Group Gas Industry Company and Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand accept and support the overall direction of this bill. These are major players in our gas sector and they support this bill. Do you know what? This Government on this side of the House has worked hard to support the market. They've worked hard to build the infrastructure of this market so that the market can be the market—i.e. that it can actually run smoothly so that a market economy can happen and that we can actually compensate when failures happen in a market. What happened in the market was the market did fail. We had an outage in 2018. We had an outage where people were left in the dark and the cold. There were companies that couldn't actually operate. There was a huge cost on our economy. Those were significant failures of the market and what this bill is able to do is support the market so that the market can continue to function the way that it was designed that way that it was supposed to. When markets fail it costs the economy and let me tell the House that that cost was $2 million a day—$2 million a day of cost to the market to the economy. Look when we are talking we need to recover from COVID when we need to grow the economy we've got to stop avoiding costs like this to the economy right? Two million dollars a day—that's a huge cost and not only that but it actually puts other industries at risk. It's not just about the energy sector but all we know that the energy sector is interconnected with all aspects of our community. We know that our health sector relies on it; our transport sector relies on it; our elderly in their homes our children in their homes all rely on it. So that's why we owe it to the people of New Zealand to have a properly regulated gas market so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of having clean energy to make sure that we actually provide the amount of energy that is needed.Today I really was looking into this bill and I've really learnt another lesson in market economy. We all know that in a market there's a supply and a demand side. In the supply side of the gas market it's the changes in our natural gas supply level and then obviously you have to peg that against the different changes in our export and import as well but also our storage levels as well. When the storage level gets low and when the demand gets high the fact is that affects our demand side of our gas market here in New Zealand—the economic growth and we've all seen that in New Zealand; even in a post-COVID climate we've seen economic growth getting better. The weather—so when we have a dry year and right now we're seeing that there has been a drier than average period that we are going through right now and also the cost of competing fuels and we're seeing that with fossil fuels as well.So we're seeing that the market has to readjust and the market has to go—I remembered today during the debate my colleague here Glen Bennett member for New Plymouth has told us that the industry chases the money. That's something we've heard in this debate and that is exactly what happens. The market chases the money and so when Government doesn't provide the right infrastructure for the market they just go to wherever the money is. But we know that doesn't always work for everyone. It doesn't work for the country of New Zealand so we need to make sure that there is a regulation in place to make sure that this market is actually running smoothly.We know that 26.5 percent of gas is used to generate electricity in our country so this has a follow-on effect almost like a supply chain within our economy and within our energy market where gas and the level of natural gas we have in the country actually affects our energy and our electricity prices. As this Government—and I want to recognise the Hon Julie Anne Genter here who had a brilliant speech in this House this afternoon talking about the importance of waking up and smelling the roses in terms of the emergency we're in in terms of our climate in terms of the importance of looking after our natural resources—the importance that we need to have a just and an equitable transition into the economy or into our industry that's based on clean energy based on electricity. But we know here that gas is a very very important fundamental crux to that—Barbara Kuriger: So why ban it?NAISI CHEN: So we need to make sure that the gas that we have in this country actually supports the electricity ambitions that we have for this country.Barbara Kuriger: So fundamental the Government's banned it.NAISI CHEN: Can I just put on record that we are still right now looking at gas at the moment. We just have to go to the electorate of my colleague here—Angela Roberts right—and we can see that the farmers in Tikorangi are still looking at gas and we know that we are still looking at the fission and the right mix within our economy at how our energy should be supplied. So it's very important I think that we find the right balance. We need to make sure that we look after this nation the land that we stand on the globe in terms of our carbon emissions in terms of our clean energy. But at the same time we need to make sure that that transition to clean green energy is just. And this is why we are passing through bills like this. It is to make sure that our infrastructure for our gas market is the right one. It's to make sure that people actually disclose their supply levels to that we can actually plan ahead and planning ahead and information symmetrical information is so important. I feel like I'm going back to my economic study days where these things are the fundamentals of our economy—of the study of economics where we have to look at the symmetrical information when the market fails; when we as a Government have to intervene to make sure the information is right and make sure that we actually make good decisions for the future that we can actually futureproof our energy sector to make sure that we are able to actually for outages to back up our electricity supply to make sure that there won't be increased price spikes to make sure that we won't have sudden $2 million a day losses in our economy because God knows that that is so absolutely detrimental to this economy if it ever happens especially during a post-COVID phase.I'm proud to endorse the new penalties that we have in this bill as well that were mentioned during our select committee stage increasing the $20000 penalty into a $200k penalty as well so that we can actually regulate a market which largely burns the other players in a market rather than criminal penalties that we had in the past. We also looked at information disclosure and we note that there has been concerns about information and how it might be something that's commercially sensitive. So we want to make sure that the market—the infrastructure is right for the market so they can actually disclosure feeling assured that this is for the benefit of all New Zealanders to make sure that all New Zealanders get the power supply to get the energy levels supply that they need that they deserve to keep their good living standards here in this nation. I would also love to thank not only the Hon Megan Woods for actually introducing this bill into the House but also my colleagues on the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee and our great chair Jamie Strange who actually had to reopen submissions this side of the election just to make sure that we've captured every single voice out there and we did. [Interruption] That's right. And obviously my good colleague here Glen Bennett and I see the members opposite Barbara Kuriger and Melissa Lee—I think we've done great work on this bill and I commend it to the House.