Bayly Andrew; Tolley AnneANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Chair. Life is sometimes delightful and it's particularly pertinent that the good Minister for Climate Change is sitting in the chair at the moment because one of the important aspects that the Finance and Expenditure Committee turned its mind to was of course the tax treatment for petroleum mining companies. The bill sets out how we might make it more advantageous so that offshore mining companies—and of course New Zealand companies—want to take advantage of our geological conditions in New Zealand to mine for these resources and what the bill promotes is to improve the tax situation for these particular companies. Of course I find that intriguing today given that the Minister for Climate Change was asked twice no less—twice—as to whether in fact he thought we should be continuing to explore for gas as a transitional fuel and of course we couldn't get a straight answer on it. Of course we've had the Prime Minister also confusing the situation saying Of course we're not going to allow any future mining of this petroleum resource." So I thought it was very appropriate to talk about this.So as you may know Madam Chair—and I'm sure you do because you're very knowledgable on these things—the current tax treatment for petroleum companies is based on a spread-back process which allows prior income tax periods to be reopened to include losses arising through expenses such as decommissioning or other such expenses. So what the bill does do—and it applies from 2018-19 and later income years—is that it confirms that use of money won't be applied when companies go back to a prior period of losses or profits and use the more current costs as a way to offset either some of those losses or some of those profits.Of course the main impact of the bill is to replace the existing spread-back process for petroleum mining companies and under these new rules a petroleum miner will be eligible for a refund for any development expenditure that has not been deducted at the time commercial production ceases or a decommissioning cost. But these clauses not only relate to that but they also relate to the relinquishment of a permit decommissioning ceasing commercial production restarting commercial production and farm-out arrangements which of course are very common in the petroleum sector.So I just find it slightly intriguing that here we are. As a committee we've been beavering away doing these things and working out a more effective way to promote the petroleum industry in New Zealand because of course it's one of our major export earners. Here we have had in the last couple of days the Government on another hand saying "Oh we don't want to do that. We shouldn't be doing any new such development." and yet we've got a bill before the House which is actually contrary to that. So I think—now that the Minister of Revenue has reassumed the chair and I'm looking forward to his response—why should these improvements that are designed to assist with the exploration of oil and gas in New Zealand actually be in the bill? I'd love to hear the response given we've got contrary views across all the three partners of the coalition Government. Hopefully we're going to get some clarity at some stage because I am really looking forward to it. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Well the member may well be but unfortunately he missed his opportunity because that's Part 3. Those clauses are in Part 3. I'm having a look at clause 265—ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. The clauses actually refer—I do take it from actually 17 bar 21 33 38—it goes right through to 172(3) as you've said but also 265 and 266.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yes I agree. But we're on Part 4 which is clauses 285 to 320—OK.Andrew Bayly: Yeah—there must be another one.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Ha ha! But it was a very entertaining speech."