Woodhouse Michael; Tolley AnneHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I must say I nearly fell out of my seat when I heard the intervention from the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway in his explanation on behalf of the Government as to why a shortened report back was necessary. Quite paradoxically I'm sure I heard him say the words that the reduced process will enable submitters to be able to be heard in a timely manner. Now nothing could be further from the truth.Indeed the track record of the Labour Government on shortened report-backs is by any measure a poor one. I well recall being in this House late last year when the Government moved a similar motion—David Parker was the Minister who did so—on the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill. It was in the dead of the year in December when actually I recall most legal firms who would have been submitting on the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill were getting ready to up sticks and go on holiday for about four weeks. That Government said that that was going to be plenty of time. I can't remember the exact report-back date—it was sometime in late January or early February. They believed—and the words that Mr Parker used were very similar to the words that Iain Lees-Galloway has just used tonight—that that was going to satisfy the expectations of this Government for reasonable submissions to be prepared then tabled and then heard. But it is now a matter for the record that the Government had to come back early this year and extend the report-back date for that bill because quite patently it was not sufficient to be able to give those submitters time to submit and indeed the Government and their officials time to consider those submissions.I suggest to you that there is a very very strong nexus between the experience of a shortened report-back date in the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill and the motion by the Government to do exactly that on this bill. So it's for that reason and based on that experience that I am going to table an amendment to the motion of the Hon Dr Megan Woods that the words 29 October 2018" be replaced with the words "1 March 2019" because I believe that is the absolute minimum that is required for this House and the select committee that will hear the submissions on this bill to give their due consideration.I'm going to explain why that's going to be so important to the people of the area of this country that I represent in Dunedin and Otago. Off the coast of Otago is a massive—massive—potential field of gas and it is a matter of record that that has been explored through permits that have been granted by the bloc offer process over the past few years. Now it is also true that the life cycle of these block offers and the time that it takes to take a survey to a viable exploration to commercial realisation of that works in a cycle of decades—not weeks. And the fact that the Government would consider that it's appropriate for these companies who are affected by the decisions that this bill when passed if passed will impose on them to somehow conjure up a meaningful submission to this Parliament and its select committee that will enable the Government to consider carefully what it means for them the people that work for them the constituents in Otago and ultimately the people who will benefit from that gas exploration—because I am a firm believer and I'm not going to sway into the policy areas that gas is a very important transitional fuel in our efforts to reduce carbon emissions globally. It is very important that we consider whether or not there is merit in making this change and the only way to do that is to extend the report back and enable the stakeholders who are in my view negatively—very seriously negatively—affected by the impacts of this bill to be able to consider carefully and articulate clearly to the select committee what those impacts are.It behoves us in this House to make sure that we have a robust process to enable that to happen and I cannot imagine how any report-back period that is shorter than the time between now and 1 March 2019 goes anywhere near achieving that goal. And it is somewhat poignant I think that on a day when democracy in my view is under attack by the bill that was being debated for days and completed in the committee of the whole House today we are now once again undermining the very important democratic process of enabling the public to have a fair say on what—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House is suspended until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)"