Young Jonathan: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: General Debate[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14200. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Well today on the front page of theTaranaki Daily News we saw Greenpeace’s estimation of the oil reserves off the North Taranaki coast—40000 barrels a day. That is double the rate of flow of the Maari field which is offshore from South Taranaki.I have got to say that Greenpeace’s modelling is the best advertising I have seen of New Zealand’s prospectivity. That should get the attention of oil explorers all over the world. We are the new Mozambique or the Texas or the Norway of the south. The royalties and tax revenues coming from these fields will make New Zealand one of the wealthiest countries in the southern hemisphere. There will be schools hospitals roads operations and continual New Zealand superannuation for 65-year-olds.I want to look at the example of Norway and what it has done with the significant reserves it has been able to extract. Norway is so similar to New Zealand in many ways. It is the second-least densely populated country in Europe. It is a very long country—1600 kilometres long. We are just a little bit longer at 2000 kilometres. The capital city Oslo is the largest in the nation with a population of nearly 1 million people. Auckland of course has an urban population of 1.4 million people.What has Norway done with its extensive reserves of petroleum natural gas and minerals lumber seafood fresh water and hydropower? That country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world. That is good news. On a per capita basis it is the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas outside the Middle East. Listen to this: “The country maintains a welfare model with universal health care subsidised higher education and a comprehensive social security system.” Why do they have such social advantages in Norway? Simply because of petroleum production. The OECD ranks Norway third in social mobility and fourth in its 2013 Better Life index.Forbes ranks Norway fourth in its list of the world’s richest countries which compares countries by GDP.This is the bizarre thing: all these social improvements in Norway have come through its oil and gas production. These are the same social improvements that the Green Party advocates for except the Green Party does not want to pay for it. It does not want to see the source of this social change and social uplift being the work and the generation of an industry in oil and gas.The Green Party along with its red friends says no to just about everything. Unless of course you are David Cunliffe—then you say no to the TV cameras and yes to big business behind the public’s back. Do you doubt that? Not one little bit. David Cunliffe promised the world to his union supporters at the Council of Trade Unions. He promised a living wage and extended parental leave but then he backtracked when talking to the media immediately afterwards saying “We don’t know when.” and “We need to be fiscally responsible.” Labour members get all angsty about oil exploration on the East Coast but turn up in droves in Taranaki licking the boots of the oil barons. That is what they do.Labour is a two-faced party with no clear and distinct policy. Its members are still divided and still incoherent. They have shallow one-liners but no depth and consistency in their policy. This is not the time—in fact it is never the time—for that sort of fractured group to be anywhere near the Treasury benches.Do we want the same progress wealth and social infrastructure that Norway has? Yes indeed. Taranaki stands out as an example of that. Statistics New Zealand released the first official analysis of regional gross domestic product. That study covers the period from 2007 to 2010 and on a regional basis Taranaki recorded the highest growth in GDP due to the expansion of its oil and gas industry during this period. Taranaki’s economy increased by 46.9 percent in size over the 4 years the largest increase of any region due to expansion in oil and gas production. The region boasts the highest GDP per person beyond any other region in the country. Taranaki’s strength—just as I close—in mining and agriculture gave us the highest gross domestic product per person of $73200 against a national average of $43700. That is 67 percent higher. Thank you.