Young JonathanJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you sir. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this motion to have a report-back date of 29 October.SPEAKER: Oh sorry. I should actually have put the question. We're now speaking both to the question and to the amendment so the question is that the amendment as well as the motion be agreed to.JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you Mr Speaker. I do support the amendment of 1 March 2019. I believe that the shorter period is going to restrict the opportunities for New Zealanders not only to have their say but for the Environment Committee to be able to analyse and request any further information that they may require in order for them to make I believe responsible recommendations back to this Parliament.What we understand in this industry is that it is highly technical. We noted just a couple of days ago how the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Energy and Resources were struggling to understand the analysis that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment had made regarding potential losses of revenue. The Minister said it's like gazing into a crystal ball. How is it possible for the committee to fully understand the technicalities of analysis of projected earnings not only for the Crown but also for the industry in such a short period of time? The select committee process is not just for the public and the industry to have their say; it's for the committee to be able to investigate what they do say and I think that is incredibly important.I think it's important to say at this point in time that the industry—led by the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ) who viewed the debate yesterday evening—have come out to say that they do not want to participate in the 2018 bloc offer without a thorough democratic process. So if the rationale for shortening this process is to be able to present a 2018 bloc offer then they're not going to participate in it because they want that process to be factually based and scientifically analysed they want people to have their say and they want the committee to be able to do a thorough job on this.It is highly technical. Since the April announcement it's been a torrid time in this particular area and I think it does not serve our democracy well—nor does it serve this Parliament well—to rush this through too quickly. I understand that the Government wanted to be able to offer a 2018 bloc offer. Ordinarily a bloc offer would come out in March or April. The last one was March 2017. So if the Government are going to present the 2018 bloc offer in January 2019 what's the process for the 2019 bloc offer especially since they have said there's—SPEAKER: Order! Order!JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you sir. I understand what you're saying. SPEAKER: No no. The member has to sit down when I stand up. I think from the look I'm getting from him he does understand that I'm going to rebuke him for going beyond the questions before the House now.JONATHAN YOUNG: I understand that.There are elements of this bill which are going to require quite significant investigation and those elements of the bill are going to be around the fact that other regions outside of Taranaki are now going to be excluded from being able to have permits. So you've got regions like Southland Northland and the East Coast where there'll be industries who would want to submit and there will be councils—district councils and regional councils—who will want to submit one way or the other that now given this new unexpected addition to the bill will want to gather information will want to have it analysed will need to call council meetings and will need to have debates perhaps also engage with their communities and to come to a position on whether they want to submit to this process. When we look at the Taranaki region as you know the results of having this industry there has brought great benefit.These councils—regional district councils—may wish to submit and say that they object to their region being excluded. Now this provision in this bill was not forecast and so this is something that has now come to their attention unexpectedly. So to give them—it's not just a four-week chance for submissions; the committee have to report back within four weeks. That means that they're going to have to have departmental reports prepared. That brings right down a constraint of time for councils to be able to do the work that they want to do in a very rational reasonable and responsible way. For that reason and also for the reason of PEPANZ's comments I actually think a 29 October report-back date is unreasonable for such an important piece of legislation.Can I also say that another aspect of the bill which was a surprise addition is the referral to conservation land. It means that for the industry in Taranaki to be able to analyse all the conservation land and all the different portions of conservation land from the schedules in the Crown Minerals Act and also schedules in other Acts which the bill refers to—and ascertain whether they have any seismic information on that perhaps even go and physically inspect to see whether it's actually high-value conservation land or whether it's just land that the Department of Conservation received back in 1987 when they were formed that is unwanted land and whether there is prospectivity there. If you talk to anybody in the industry—you can't do that in four weeks. It's impossible. So what this provision in this bill does is it just automatically creates an exclusion and that is unjust. There needs to be a natural justice in the process where people are given the amount of time that they need—not sitting on their hands but actually if the time is so truncated that they cannot do the necessary work—whether it's a district council or a regional council and whether it's to have a reasonable and thorough investigation of land that the Crown owns and whether that has any prospectivity on it. So what it does is it actually makes this process look like it's an exclusion all the way through rather than actually putting it before the public and saying This is what we are proposing. We want the committee to have the time. If they need to ask officials for further information then the officials have got the time to collect the information." so that we end up with an informed decision so that we don't end up with statements—"You are burning up the earth."—that sound to everybody just a complete bias. We want to have a Parliament that the people of New Zealand can respect the process of. It needs to be sound and rushing through things like this that do not give people the adequate time to do the work to present the information—SPEAKER: Order! Order! I'm now going to warn the member having listened to the debate last night. He is now becoming quite repetitive. I want new argument.JONATHAN YOUNG: Thank you sir. Finally in my closing couple of minutes I do think and I would like to say and I think it needs to be said—even if it's repeated sir—that this Parliament ought to be respected by this nation. I think that's a serious statement. I do think that this bill or the process through it from the announcement through to the claims of consultation has brought great disrespect to the process. I was strong enough to say that it was systemic disregard and I would not like that to be known about this Parliament. So if it is in fact the case that the sector are not going to participate in Block Offer because they feel that it's undemocratic then why would not the Government actually decide to—for example coming back to Michael Woodhouse's proposal—have a report-back date of 1 March 2019 and just have a Block Offer 2019 and forget 2018. The 2018 bloc offer has been just a misery of an absolute I guess travesty of process.So in my final comments—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Now the member once again is debating the bill and not the motion.JONATHAN YOUNG: Well the reason why I said that is because this is why I believe we need to extend the report-back date. I support Michael Woodhouse's amendment and commend that to the House. Thank you sir."