Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): Yes I am—my apologies. It's my pleasure to rise and speak for the first time in 2019. It is a pleasure to see so many Ministers in the House this evening and a number of people including the last speaker who would like to be a Minister I suspect. It's a very warm welcome to you all.Actually this evening I was going to speak on what is a very technical bill that has cross-party support across this Parliament and I'm still going to do that but I can't help but respond to some of the comments made by Deborah Russell just prior to me which are not really anything to do with this bill.Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Dr Deborah Russell.LAWRENCE YULE: She talks about—Dr Deborah Russell talks about transition and change. This bill is really around the regulatory processes around the Crown Minerals Bill as was drafted in 1991. As my colleague Maureen Pugh has said if you take aside oil and gas for a minute and just talk about minerals such as coal gold and the likes then there are around 4000 jobs—4000 jobs—in this industry alone. What this bill and what this change does is to maintain the effectiveness and efficiency of the regulatory regime against the largest risk we pose in that space and that is about the changes in permitting and the changes in company ownership over time. Why is this House concerned about that? It's concerned because there are obligations that go with those consents and those permits and the ministerial approval. We cannot have a situation where a corporate—large or small international or Kiwi-owned—seeks to use a change in company ownership to somehow get them out of those obligations. I probably liken it to the most recent pretty significant failure in a regulatory sense and that was the leaky homes scenario. Effectively what happened in the leaky homes scenario everybody—builders went out of business deliberately to take themselves out of those obligations insurance companies said they weren't covered and the agency that allowed a whole lot of those products on the market the Government agency said It's not our fault." And I remember at the time that local government ended up picking up a lot of that up.In a simple sense what this bill and this change seeks to do is to make sure that the obligations on those that get the permits under the conditions they get are carried through as was intended at the start. That's really all this bill does. It provides that a person must get prior consent from the Minister before obtaining the power to exercise or control over 50 percent of that shareholding. Fundamentally through the select committee process and through the submissions we've received it was clear that there needed to be some stick in that equation. If you knowingly do something without ministerial consent and you know you need ministerial consent under these clauses then you create an offence—or even if you ought to reasonably know. That was a conversation that was held at the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee.So there are processes set out for the change of control and a person is not liable to conviction for an offence that relates to obtaining 50 percent or more power without the Minister's prior approval while the application is being considered by the Minister or if the Minister consents to the application. In other words in the global market we operate in and in the fast-moving part of business you cannot wait on ministerial approval often for changes in shareholding or control or investment decisions. So all you have to do under this clause is notify and start the process and as long as you've started it then generally you are immune from subsequent claims that you have known because you've advised the Minister up front.We heard in the select committee—a number of significant entities came and talked about the practicalities involved in changing ownership in the middle of some of these consenting processes. The select committee wisely said that we need to understand those implications. It was universally supported in the select committee and I think it's reflected in this legislation.I also want to talk about what was a little bit more of a controversial issue and that was the authorisation for a geophysical survey on adjacent land. In other words if you have a permit and you have authorisation to undertake geophysical surveys on land subject to a permit relating to extraction a company is allowed to get a permit to do geophysical surveys on adjacent land but only that. So in other words there is a permitting regime for the survey but a whole new permit would need to be applied on land next door. So in our view this is quite a simple piece of legislation. It's nothing to do with a transition as Dr Deborah Russell has said. It is simply changing some legislation to provide the people of New Zealand with some certainty for changes in corporate ownership and to make sure that the responsibilities and obligations that have been put in place at the time of those permits being issued are actually carried on with.Some of the commentary we've heard from the other side—Mr Mark Patterson; a little part of his that actually made some sense to me was around his criticism of oil and gas and transition. Some members on the other side have talked about that. I respectfully say to them that that might be all very interesting. We strongly agree on this side with the approach but it's nothing as part of this bill.So in the short time I have left I just want to say that I congratulate the select committee on the work that was done; as Maureen Pugh has said to me or said to this House 10 months to get this through. It's the first piece of legislation that I've observed as a member of Parliament go through the system and the members of the committee across the board worked well to get the result we have. It's a relatively simple piece of legislation but I think this type of approach and the decisions and this third reading show what can be done when you have a sensible piece of legislation that is transitioned over a parliamentary term and that we end up all supporting.So it was a little bit of a shame for me to hear tonight references to oil and gas and what this side of the House might think about some of those decisions because they're nothing to do with this. This is a very specific piece of legislation that we received very specific and detailed advice on from a significant number of players who operate in this industry. It's not an easy industry to operate in. There is a lot of risk. The consenting is done very thoroughly which means that there are significant obligations placed on the consent holders and it's this Parliament's role to make sure that those obligations are carried out.In closing I just wish to thank members of the select committee for the work that was done for the fact that it has been finally reflected in this third reading and that after some 10 months we have a very sound sensible set of changes to a piece of legislation that was brought in in 1991 which actually looks after the people of New Zealand and the obligations that are set at the time of consenting. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."