Seymour DavidASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the House is resumed. When the House rose for the dinner break we were considering the second reading of the Energy Resources Levy Amendment Bill. I call David Seymour.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Energy Resources Levy Amendment Bill and I'd like to organise my comments into three areas. One is around the retrospectivity issue. Two is around the process and procedure that has brought about this debate. And three is around the wider issue of energy and in particular the drilling for and exploration for and discovery of natural gas in New Zealand and the way that New Zealand's regulatory environment—and particularly the laws made by this Parliament—affect the prospects of investment jobs and growth for this country.To take first and foremost the retrospectivity argument: let's be clear that retrospectivity doesn't just mean the rule will only apply for revenue taken on gas today. So right now if you take gas in New Zealand then you will pay a royalty to the Government because the Government has claimed that it has a right over that and you have to pay them and that's just the way it is. That royalty can be anywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent of that value and how much you pay depends on when you discover the gas. What this Government is saying is Oh no no no no no. That doesn't matter any more. You won't get any kind of exemption from paying higher royalties because of when you discovered it—you will now pay the rate that we say." And they are right that it's not retrospective in the sense that you've got to pay money on gas that you extracted in the past but that is a very narrow and naive view of what retrospectivity means. What retrospectivity means is that decisions you made in the past under one set of laws will now be judged differently under the law of today. And it's an important point.We don't need to explain why it is that many things that people did in the past should now be judged by today's laws. The question is always: can you be prosecuted based on the law at the time you did the act? It's crystal clear in the criminal area. If we had a world where Parliament could change the law and then ban things that certain people had done in the past and then punish them even though it wasn't illegal to do it at the time we would be a very different kind of country. In actual fact when it comes to retrospectivity there's a very salient example in the world today: President Xi came to power by persecuting—or prosecuting depending on your opinion—many people who did things years ago when they were thought to be OK under new rules that he has since implemented.That is why you need the rule of law. That is why people need to be able to invest in New Zealand—knowing that if I decide to invest in New Zealand under a law right now then I am not going to have the rules changed on me by some future Government and the returns on that investment decision I made—way way back when—are suddenly less than I might have thought because the Government changed the rules even for decisions I made in the past. In that very real sense this legislation is retrospective because it changes the rules on people who thought they had a deal. People say "Oh but it was 36 37 years ago to 1986." But that is the nature of capital investment. When you're in the oil and gas industry you spend billions of dollars in the hope of getting returns over a long period of time.So that just shows the total unreality the impracticality of this Labour Government. Perhaps the most extraordinary contribution of all was from one Labour member who agreed that it was retrospective but said it was OK to have retrospective legislation if and when something is inherently unfair. Now you just think about that for a moment. The whole purpose of the rule of law is actually that you have a set of rights that you can objectively defend against improper prosecution or improper prejudice from the State. And then you have a Labour member who says "Yeah we agree in the rule of law until we decide that something is inherently unfair." Well that is completely insane and shows a total misunderstanding of the rule of law and retrospective legislation.That brings me to the second part of my address which relates to the procedure. It's going to be very interesting to ask the Minister of Energy and Resources who were all of these people that—she said in the House—approached her and asked for clarification. Because as she would have you believe people who pay the royalties—I think this is what she was saying the Minister—actually came to her and said "Please we would like to pay more. Can you clarify that we have to pay more? We're sick of these loopholes where we can't pay as much you know tax as we'd like to."Hon Gerry Brownlee: They're embarrassed.DAVID SEYMOUR: That's what they were. They were probably the people that signed that letter. They might have been some of the people that signed that letter. They wanted to pay more tax. I think the Minister should get up and explain who they were and why they wanted to pay more tax why they wanted this "just clarification" as David Clark explained in a rather Orwellian manner.Now it's just a clarification but I think also the reason that the Minister should do that—because in some circumstances she might say "Well it's private and confidential." But there's something really interesting that's happened here. You see normally a law is put out and it's introduced and everyone can view it for three days and look at it and think about what they're going to say and whether they're going to vote for it. This one was just dropped on the Table at about 4.30 today and we've had a couple of hours in order to actually think about it and analyse it let alone see what people in the community think. So I think it behoves the Minister who has said she was approached by people in the industry to explain who those people were and why they suddenly wrote to her—because we're not going to get any other chance. There's no select committee hearing. You see for folks watching this at home they're rushing it under urgency.And that takes me to the third and final point which is about how New Zealand attracts investment jobs and growth and how New Zealand transitions to a lower-carbon future. I just make two points. One is that when the Government frequently changes the rules and especially retrospectively people who have money and want to invest it—they actually have to think hard about what's our scenario 10 20 30 years down the track. What sort of place is this New Zealand? Because for a long time the New Zealand reputation has been: well look New Zealand doesn't really have a huge amount of oil and gas but when you go down there you can trust the people you can trust the courts you can trust the Government. Those people in New Zealand they are fundamentally good people. They wouldn't just change the rules on you because the leader of the country's Government decided she wanted a PR opportunity at Victoria University. You know they wouldn't change fundamental practices in the industry without so much as a Cabinet paper let alone a consultation—or at least that's what people used to think about New Zealand.What I say on behalf of myself and I'd dare say the National Party is when we win this election we can change the laws back to be rational. But the thing that we can't do is persuade the world that New Zealand is a safe place because it's the other guys they can't trust. The damage that this Government has done to New Zealand's international reputation as we've seen from the various Labour Party speeches they don't understand. Perhaps the saddest part of this whole debate has been the two members one from New Plymouth and one from Taranaki-King Country I think who seem to have no idea why they're here. They represent the people of Taranaki and yet they're totally unable to say anything other than the one minute that they're allowed by the Labour Party whips to speak. To give out pleasantries and pointless illogical word soup about you know can I rub my belly and touch my head or something—I mean people of Taranaki those are your representatives.I'm sorry that you've had to suffer this for three years but I hope you'll make better decisions next time because New Zealand is not going to achieve its dream of being a First World nation and an island paradise when we have Governments that are so hostile to people who come from across the seas to do business with us to trade value for value and to get stronger together. We will become more kind of a big Fiji and that is not a vision that the ACT Party wants to see for New Zealand. Thank you Madam Speaker."