Young JonathanJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you sir. I'm pleased to stand in support of this bill. This bill was prepared—and I'm pleased the Minister has continued on with that work—by the Hon Simon Bridges in his role in the transport portfolio. We see it as sensible and necessary and we certainly do support not only world's best practice in terms of any exploration that happens offshore but also ensuring that those companies who have the privilege to operate within our jurisdiction also carry the financial ability to put right anything that does occur. We're very happy in that regard to add our support to this. We do note that the Minister has doubled the upper limit cap of the regime that was put forward by the previous Government but looking at the scaled framework that is in the notes we see that essentially the Minister has added three further areas. In her press release she is saying that the proposed upper limit has been set at $1.2 billion instead of $600 million to futureproof the regime in the event that a future installation proceeds at a higher-risk deep-water location. We do understand that there are different elements of risk according to the hydrocarbon that is being explored for or produced and also there are different elements of risk regarding which side of New Zealand that you are exploring from because of prevailing weather. So our pre-election Cabinet paper recommended a scaled framework of a maximum of $600 million but I'm sure as the bill goes through the select committee process the members of the committee will be able to investigate and hear the rationale behind what the Minister has proposed.Certainly I think that as long as there is the ability for companies as the Minister has just said to be able to access the insurance product—the policies that are consistent with internationally available best-practice policy wording a very precise and concise set of documents that is available on the international market—and as long as that is available and we do not see any limitations around this upper limit regarding those I believe that this will be a way forward. We would be keen to hear from the Minister at some point in time; just her rationale.When we look at the scaled framework and see what components make up that higher level it's interesting that it's based on whether it's gas dry gas or whether it's any other type of hydrocarbon whether that's crude or condensate. It's also based on the volume of what that liquid may be that reaches the shore. The limit that we had put in the previous bill or the workings of it was up to a maximum of 200000 and she has taken it over 200000; she's taken it to over 280000. Also the total length of shoreline that may be affected by any sort of incident being 1200 kilometres or more—that in itself has the highest number of points. So there's a very simple scaled framework which people can download on the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment website and investigate that and see where they would sit.We do note that particularly in Taranaki where all the offshore installations currently are there is a range of insurance cover already in place from $170 million right through to about $390 million. So this is a practice that is already put in place but what the Minister is doing now is lifting that upper limit for those sorts of occurrences that may occur.We believe that oil spill contingency plans are already part of the plans and the permitting regime that operators have to comply with and satisfy New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals and that the party responsible for the stopping of the release of oil must demonstrate they have prepared for all spill scenarios and have access to equipment and have financial means to contain a spill at its source. All of that is put in place before the permit is even granted. So what this bill is essentially doing is now putting in place the financial assurance that if those aspects are ever needed to be put in place the financial ability for that to occur is present.Like other members of the House we believe that we have very good operators here in New Zealand. All exploration and production does carry a degree of risk. However oil spills are extremely rare. New Zealand has never experienced a significant oil spill from an offshore installation. The largest was a 23 tonne spill from the Umuroa floating process ship off the Taranaki coast back in 2007 when an offtake ship a vessel was offloading and the umbilical pipeline became unattached for a short period of time. From that a 13 kilometre stretch of beach off the Taranaki coast was temporarily affected by this spill. That's the only account in 60 years of offshore operations. So we are thankful that we have world's best practice. We have companies that pursue world's very best in terms of health and safety not only for their own people who work on these installations but also for our environment—the environment which we appreciate as being pristine and must be cared for.So we very much support the intent of this bill. As I said there'll be some questions we ask at select committee and I'm sure that we can find those answers from officials. There'll be others no doubt who will submit and seek answers as well. I do commend this bill to the House. Thank you.