Young Jonathan; Williams PotoJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): First can I say congratulations to the previous speaker Paul Eagle on his first general debate speech in the House.On Monday afternoon Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the rally on Parliament's forecourt that the Government was actively considering" an end to oil exploration. Four hours later the Prime Minister told her weekly press conference that—and I need to quote this—"What I'm pointing out is that every Government around this time of year actively considers how it will manage block offers and that's what we are doing." And I would say that she is doing both things at the same time. She's using block offers consideration to be the mechanism to stop oil exploration.And you might say well I'm cynical. You might say that I'm taking a biased point of view. Well today Greenpeace are giving Jacinda Ardern the benefit of the doubt because they don't know what she's doing either. Those first words that I read out in my speech come from Richard Harman of Politik. And Hamish Rutherford from the Dominion Post said "I was on the steps of Parliament and I've listened to the audio again and unless the Prime Minister whispered it or my recording cut out she did not once mention the block offer. She gave a clear impression she was talking about the end to oil exploration." And this is what I want to talk about.Let us consider some facts. New Zealand emits 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. That figure is dropping per capita but it's not dropping far enough. Of those emissions 50 percent are from the agricultural sector—they are working hard to bring them down—and around 4 percent are from the oil and gas exploration and production sector through flaring and they are working hard to bring it down as well. Flaring used to happen all the time but now flaring only happens in emergencies. There are different plant designs to enable that. There's different forms of oxidisation processes to reduce the need for flaring and international companies like Statoil and Shell intend to remove it completely from all of their operations. That is the reason why there are emissions from the exploration and production of oil and gas.So what I'm saying is that if the Government succeeds in removing oil and gas exploration and ultimately production from New Zealand we will still be importing crude into the Marsden Point oil refinery for jet fuel diesel and petrol. Our liquid fuel emissions will not change one iota except for the introduction of electric vehicles. So taking out this industry of 4300 people in Taranaki who earn over $100000 each and another 4000 people in New Zealand who earn their income through this industry will not change New Zealand's liquid fuel emission profile.All it will serve to do is be an example to the world of what we will do to make some effort towards climate change mitigation. But it's not going to change anything here. And in fact every expert I hear in the world is saying there is a place right now for companies who can produce natural gas. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said one year ago in their report to the German Government that "Limiting the rise in global mean temperature to well below 2°C would require an energy transition of exceptional scope depth and speed" Then they said "As recent IEA estimates show global energy-related CO2 emissions stalled for a third straight year in 2016."—so 2014 2015 and 2016 energy emissions have stalled.They give three reasons. Number one: growing renewable power generation. That's a good reason. The second reason is switching from coal to natural gas. So yesterday here in question time Todd Muller asked James Shaw: would he support us exporting natural gas to coal-dependent countries? James Shaw said no. And this is where I find it to be intellectually outrageous of this Government that they would throw a sector and a region under the bus when they could be utilising the skill and the work of this region to export gas to coal-dependent nations and reduce emissions around the world but they won't do it because they want to make a statement.Jacinda Ardern went to APEC and said "Look at me and follow me." and she's the Joan of Arc of climate change. James Shaw is the only Green climate change Minister in the world and he's got a reputation to build. And we are making wrong decisions in this Government. We're seeing wrong decisions take place—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I apologise to the member. Thank you."