Tabuteau FletcherFLETCHER TABUTEAU (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker for this opportunity to speak to this legislation. As usual I am dismayed and upset by the hysteria and scaremongering coming from the other side of the House. In fact many of the words that Mr Müller said in his contribution to the House—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think you'll find his name is Muller.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Oh I apologise. I think everyone in the House will find my name is Tabuteau". But anyway Mr Muller—his words I could have used verbatim because he's right. What the National Party have done is sold this story of everything stopping—"It's the end of the world and it's happening now."—so let's do a little reality check for those members opposite shall we? The reality is in the next 18 months or so the fine companies that the member from New Plymouth spoke about—Jonathan Young: Mr Young.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Yeah I was going to pronounce it wrong so I didn't want to say it. OMV Todd and others have signed up to currently 18 drills over the next 18 months. They're dropping lines right now. In fact from memory there's a 450-kilometre line being laid right now by one of those companies to get to those gasfields.Jonathan Young: 450 kilometres?FLETCHER TABUTEAU: No you're right. It must be 45 kilometres. So the—Jonathan Young: Know your facts.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Oh be quiet. The reality is that what we are seeing—sorry he interrupted my flow of thought—is actually potentially 31 permits as Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand itself has said over the next 18 months. There are 31 permits for drop to drill lines right now.So Mr Muller was talking about the need to get gas get it now and make sure it's part of our transition to renewables. That's exactly what we're making sure can be done and that's what we said we've wanted them to do. In fact one of those companies just applied for an extension on one of those exploration permits' time line because they made the argument that they're going to need more time to do it. Guess what? The extension was approved straight away.Jonathan Young: By MBIE not the Minister.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Straight away by this Government Mr Young.So the scaremongering from the other side of the House is just infuriating because it does generate its own kind of self-fulfilling prophecy by those in that area who believe it—who believe those members of the House who say these things. This gentleman on the other side of the House was trying to make the argument in his contribution today and in question time as he said himself that gas supplies were running out when Minister David Parker himself very clearly outlined that the reason for the price increases was not the supply of gas or the volume of gas available; it was the infrastructure itself that was in need of repair and was at 40 percent capacity. And yet over there they're talking about running out of gas.So it is frightening what they are saying and it is incredibly disappointing because New Zealand First and this Government have written a piece of legislation that ensures—actually here's another point for Mr Muller again. Over the last what 20 years with the declining price of oil Taranaki exploration has naturally decreased because where's the profit motive in it for big business? That has been the fundamental decline in oil exploration over the last decade or so—because of the price of oil. Well guess what's happening now now that the price of oil is going up? They're exploring more. The viability of the commercialisation of those drops is looking better every day and so the exploration is increasing. So please stop—Jonathan Young: Exploration doesn't create a resource.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: No it doesn't. But there they are—big business doing the numbers dropping the lines looking for gas and oil right now out in Taranaki. So I suppose I should stop addressing—it was just infuriating to hear.This is a good piece of legislation. It is a piece of legislation that is about transition. It is legislation that has put a line in the sand as it were and that has said—as Mr Parker actually so eloquently put it in his contribution—we are a country that has been through this conversation before. We are transitioning to renewables. We have sent clear signals to industry and we have seen investment in those renewable technologies increase such that our renewables is at I think 84 percent. That is fantastic. We need to do more and industry itself wants to do more—new wind farms new solar plants.Mr Young made the argument that we're not there with solar and battery technology yet.Jonathan Young: Of course we aren't.FLETCHER TABUTEAU: Well he's saying it again and yet one of our biggest electricity suppliers in New Zealand is installing solar and battery combinations into new builds in Auckland and has been doing it for over a year because the numbers make sense Mr Young. The numbers already make sense and what we're seeing—like the microchip in computers; the processing chip—is the exponential increase in power with the correlating drop in price. That's exactly what we're seeing with battery technology. It's an incredibly exciting time to be a part of a Government that has said that it's time to consciously make that decision to transition to encourage those big businesses who see renewables as the way forward for this country.Mr Parker said "Wouldn't it be nice if we were a beacon." but actually Mr Parker we are a beacon in the world already with our 84 percent renewables. The diversity of renewable technologies that we use is a light for countries around the world. They are excited by what they see here.This House has been having a conversation about hydrogen. I'd like to add to that because personally I find the technology incredibly exciting and so have been doing a lot of work with businesses in Taranaki for example and around the country who are looking at accelerating the hydrogen time line as we speak. Mr Young did you go to Aberdeen with that group to speak and watch as the energy industries from around the world had this exciting conversation about hydrogen and the way forward? In fact Minister Woods was in Japan just recently having a very similar conversation with Japanese officials and Japanese business. Mr Parker was right: Toyota Hyundai and Honda are on board now with hydrogen technology. They're speaking about 30 years but actually I've just been having a conversation with New Zealand businesses who are talking about retrofitting technology for large trucks for hydrogen and the payback period on it is five years from the savings on the fuel alone. Now that is according to them less than a year away in terms of physical implementation and viability into the market—less than a year away hydrogen—and New Zealand is in an amazing position to offer the world this green hydrogen alternative. We can export that to the world and this Government and I personally are incredibly excited to be part of that journey and to help accelerate that.In the meantime we are making sure that there is a transition phase for gas and the transition technologies that are available. More permits and more drilling is happening right now and I truly wish them the best because it is a hard business to be in and very difficult to make money. So good luck to them and yeah let's get on with this and transition to an economy and a country where energy is something that we can be incredibly proud of. Madam Deputy Speaker thank you."