Court Simon; Salesa JennySIMON COURT (ACT): The ACT Party will be opposing this legislation. Despite what the bill says—that it's not retrospective—either that's a typo or it is retrospective. This Government has introduced a bill under urgency which applies costs to businesses which will affect their rate of return on investments made in the genuine understanding about what levies they would have to pay in the future—if for example you've invested in a gasfield or oil field in Taranaki that might have been permitted pre-1986 and you've continued to invest in production equipment in personnel in training in safety in environmental protection on the basis of a future revenue stream and then it turns out that this Government introduces a bill to the House under urgency which undermines that revenue stream by applying essentially a gas tax on your business.This is a very interesting proposition though because this is the Government that claimed there was a climate emergency there was no future for hydrocarbons and there was no future for natural gas and oil. In fact this very Minister—the Hon Megan Woods—has claimed that New Zealand will achieve 100 percent renewable electricity by some arbitrary date. I think it was 2030" when she uttered it. I bet she's hoping that everybody forgets it—[Interruption]—in the same way they'll forget the names of those Labour backbenchers who will be gone on 15 October.If we want to consider just what it means to introduce retrospective legislation—the Energy Resources Levy Amendment Bill—what it means to people and to businesses that might consider investing in New Zealand over the next few years or decades well they'll be afraid of the word "Labour" because they know it means that any investment they might make could be undermined in future without consultation and without any opportunity for natural justice. This bill will be introduced and pass all stages without the opportunity to hear from stakeholders which means that it's up to the MPs in the Chamber here tonight to tease out from the Minister and from officials what they think the reason for this bill is what the costs and benefits are who pays the costs and who gets the benefits.The Minister is going to have a lot of explaining to do when we get to the committee of the whole House but I just want to raise some of the issues that are bound to come out: firstly the Government changing the rules without notification or consultation; retrospective law changes that apply costs to businesses that affect their return on investment; the knock in confidence at a time when New Zealand is already hungry for foreign direct investment when we're short of capital to build infrastructure and yet this Government takes another action to sterilise to chill to ward off that very foreign direct investment that New Zealand so desperately needs.In fact a few months ago I attended a conference with investors who were part of an organisation that raised $172 billion in capital to invest in infrastructure in 2022 alone. I asked them: "How much of that are you bringing to New Zealand?" And they said "None—none. We're not bringing any to New Zealand because we can't trust the Government." I said "What would you invest in if you wanted to?" They said "Wind farms—offshore wind farms for renewable energy." But this Government—in fact this Minister as Minister of Energy and Resources—has not been able to bring any legislation or regulation to the House or to any committee of Parliament which even sets out how you might apply to establish an offshore wind farm.So here's a Government that complains that we're all going to die because of climate change—there's a climate emergency. Our children have no future!Hon Gerry Brownlee: 15 years.SIMON COURT: Is it 15 years now Mr Brownlee?Hon Gerry Brownlee: It was 12.SIMON COURT: It was 12. The Minister extended it by a couple of years and yet they can't even bring legislation or a regulatory framework for someone to apply for an offshore wind farm. Of course if I wanted to set up a new drilling rig for oil and gas in Taranaki I could still do that but I can't apply—there's no paperwork I can fill out to apply—for an offshore wind farm.This Government's got its priorities all wrong. It talks a big game on climate change; talks about cost of living. What does it do? It introduces legislation that's going to add tax and cost to the gas sector increase the cost of living for gas users for New Zealand domestic gas users because if the Government's taking money that the business can't recover out of its bottom line it's going to pass that on to consumers. For members of the Labour Party who didn't do fourth-form economics—even though they might have got a degree in something else they have no practical experience in business—this might come as a shock to them: when the Government puts cost on businesses that they can't find efficiencies in their business to deal with they pass it on to the consumer and that consumer is me. I have an interest in this. I have gas hot water at home. It's the best energy source you can get. Do you know why? Because I've got three teenage boys and when they want a 20-minute shower each do you think I'd get a hot shower? I tell you what if we were living on electricity if we had an electric hot water cylinder it'd be empty after the first shower there'd be a riot by the time the third boy got into the bathroom and Dad would have to have a cold shower.So there's a reason why gas is part of our future. I just want to touch on that: clearly the Minister and this Government also believe that natural gas is a big part of our future because they've realised there is a significant resource available to New Zealand and that we will continue to need it and we will get it whether this Government likes it or not whether they want to ban gas barbecues or not whether they want to ban new gas connections in new homes or not. New Zealanders will continue to extract and use this natural gas and obviously that's come as a bit of a revelation to this Government and this Minister—"Crikey there's quite a bit of gas out there. Kiwis are going to keep using it even though we've said that they're bad and naughty and we've tried to ban the stuff. Crikey we'd better get our hooks into that because that could be an earner for Government." It turns out this Government's got an insatiable appetite for other people's money for revenue. It hasn't been able to find any ways to actually cut costs in this Budget that was announced today. So now they're scratching around looking for a bit more revenue and of course like everything this Government does that's a revenue hunt it ends up costing consumers and costing taxpayers sometimes both.Now I also want to reflect on some comments that the Minister made at a conference I attended recently. It was the Downstream energy conference in Lower Hutt where the Minister made claims about 100 percent renewable electricity: that the Onslow dam project was going to help reduce the dry-year risk there's going to be a big battery to store up all the renewable energy and it is going to recycle energy in a big dam that's going to cost something like $16 billion at the bottom of the South Island drowning what are no doubt threatened species and hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away from where people actually use the most energy and electricity in New Zealand which is the top half of the North Island. The Minister is very proud of that project. The Minister's officials at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment said this project is on track—you know a business case is coming; great things are going to happen. There was no sense at the time that the Minister was considering applying fees charges or levies to the natural gas producers—those producers of valuable hydrocarbons that don't just get used to run my hot water but that are also used to manufacture all kinds of very valuable chemicals that are incorporated in everything from waterproof raincoats and backpacks to paints and cosmetics which are made from New Zealand hydrocarbons.The Minister did not give the industry or any downstream users of gas the benefit of signalling at the downstream conference that policies which produced this legislation were coming. The Minister stood there cold as ice—and we know butter wouldn't melt in her mouth—and claimed that 100 percent renewable electricity was the future: "Everything's on track. Nothing to see here. Smile and wave boys and off we go." Yet what we see here today is another example of a callous Government having identified an industry that is absolutely vital that can't pick up its business and go anywhere else because their business is in delivering energy from New Zealand to Kiwis that has decided to put a charge on them that's going to end up hitting consumers in the pocket. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! The member's time is up."