Woods MeganHon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): Madam Deputy Speaker that very short offering from the member that got an urgent debate and couldn't make full time Paula Bennett could be no greater example of a Government that is out of tune [Interruption]—of an Opposition that is out of tune with what this country needs.Now I would actually like to talk the member that has just taken her seat through what has actually happened today because what we see on the Opposition bench seems to be a complete lack of understanding. Today what we announced was that Block Offer 2018 would be restricted to onshore Taranaki only. Furthermore the Prime Minister made an announcement that we would not be offering further offshore acreage in this country. And that is a sign of a Government that has the courage to raise its eyes above the three-year political cycle and stand up and show the leadership that this country lacked for the nine long years that those members opposite were in Government.Today we have had the Leader of the Opposition say that he will reverse this decision if he gets back into Government. This is simply irresponsible. This sets communities up for a fall and is not something that we on this side of the House are willing to do. We are not willing to put communities in Taranaki or anywhere else in this country through what mining communities in England went through in the 1980s because the coal mines were closed down overnight and no one had had the foresight to plan for what was going to happen to those communities. I am not willing to put more people in this country through what we went through with rapid changes in the 1980s.We have an opportunity in front of us to show that leadership to ensure a smooth transition to the kind of future that we will be facing. We have two choices. The Opposition choose to bury their heads in the sand; we choose to face the future show leadership and implement a plan. Furthermore what the Leader of the Opposition showed today is that he has absolutely no plan to meet the Paris targets that a Government that he was part of signed up to. If you're not going to do this how are you going to meet New Zealand's international obligations—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't need to.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Sorry—well actually we all do Madam Deputy Speaker but I take your point. What would the plan be to meet our international obligations? Rather than headlines that we got from the proponent of the debate I'd like to have a serious discussion in this House about that. What is the plan? When those members opposite were in Government they had no plan to reach our international climate commitments bar costing us a whole lot of money by trading in international units. We have a plan on this side of the House to actually cut our emissions and to be able to do it that way.And I'd like to point out that when Simon Bridges became the Leader of the Opposition he staked his claim that he was moving National into the centre on the environment. Well he failed at the first hurdle. He failed to show leadership. He harked back to the past and showed that he has no ability to lift his eyes above the three-year horizon and show the kind of leadership that Jacinda Ardern and this Government are showing for our communities in this country.We had the crocodile tears from the deputy leader of the National Party about how she is gutted for small businesses she is gutted for communities and she is gutted for the jobs that are winding down. I'll tell you what keeps me awake at night and that is that if we fail to plan for those very communities we will have workers in those communities in 20 and 30 years' time that will be facing a desolate future. Those shop owners those plumbers those small-business owners—they rely on there being a vibrant regional economy in those areas and that is exactly what this Government is committed to investing in. Only on Friday we saw Shane Jones visit Taranaki and start the Taranaki transition plan with an investment in feasibility studies on alternative industries. That is what responsible Government in this area looks like. It is that willingness to think ahead and have that kind of courage and not melt at the first opportunity like the Leader of the Opposition Simon Bridges did today.One of the things that I also thought that was very interesting was that the member that has taken her seat used to be our climate change Minister and to show the lack of understanding around this issue was quite frankly alarming. She told us that she'd looked at the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand website and that there was 11 years of supply there. That is right Ms Bennett. We currently have consented for drilling somewhere between seven and 11 years of gas in this country. But what we also have is 100000 kilometres off the coast of New Zealand consented for exploration. That is roughly the size of the North Island. The North Island is 113000 square kilometres. We already have that much acreage off our coast held in exploration permits. We are told that one of these prospect fields these exploration fields alone the Barque prospect has 11 trillion cubic feet of gas by some estimates.Chris Bishop: Let's go find it.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Now let's be really clear—Mr Bishop says Let's go find it." Well all the holders of that exploration permit need to do is put in a mining application and they will be able to proceed. That is the whole point of what has happened today. The current exploration permits will be honoured. This is where the Opposition fails to understand what is required for the future. If an exploration permit currently exists it still exists in the same way it did last week. The holder of that permit has the ability to transfer that exploration right into a mining right if it can fulfil the criteria that is set out under the Crown Minerals Act. Nothing has changed. There are 100000 kilometres off our shores where these rights exist. So I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and realise that actually this is what a real plan for the future looks like.We currently have 31 live petroleum exploration permits. We also have 22 of these offshore. This is more than enough for us to be able to enter into our security of supply. Now I've also heard some particular hyperbole from the Opposition today around the fact that the lights are going to go out. Well Madam Speaker I would put to you that if that is the case that was a failure of leadership by the previous Government over the last nine years because any exploration permit that would come about as a result of Block Offer 2018 will not be available for drilling or mining rights until somewhere between 2040 and 2045.Chris Bishop: Oh that's not true.Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: This is the kind of time frame that we are talking about. I'm being told that's not true. Do the math—at the very earliest maybe 2035. But this is the long-term range we think about in terms of these rights. If there is a threat to our security of supply it's because the previous Government failed to plan for it. But let's be very clear [Voice strains]—sorry I have the flu—we do not have a threat to our security of supply. Furthermore this is a responsible Government that has a plan to put in place the first road map that we have around our energy future to renewables.We have a target: by 2035 to be at 100 percent renewables. We will chart that out. Of course security of supply is one of the considerations that I had to consider when making this decision today. It's one of the most serious considerations that has to be considered along with affordability and the sustainability of the energy system. These are the things we must consider. We know that by 2035 in a normal hydrological year we can be at 100 percent renewable. Being at 100 percent renewable in a normal hydrological year doesn't actually discount the fact that you will need to peak and we will still have gas on tap at that point because the current permits that we have in play for mining let alone exploration go through to 2046. There is no threat to security of supply here. I think the National Party need to show some leadership in this area and stop scaremongering around this. There are many things for us to consider.The other argument that the former climate change Minister Paula Bennett put up was the bogus discredited argument around carbon leakage that if we cut off gas in New Zealand we're just creating emissions in other parts of the world. That is simply incorrect. That is not the way it works. The gas that we produce in New Zealand is not exported; it is used domestically. We have renewable options other than gas to use in this country. In order for us to be able to export gas we would need to build liquefied natural gas facilities.Now Chevron have just made an investment in Australia to be able to do just that—$46 billion worth of investment went into that plant. I do not see that level of infrastructural investment going in here. The only way in which we—Hon David Parker: How much renewable would that buy?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Exactly—how much renewable would that buy? But if we have a look at the only way that our gas can be transformed into a form of energy and exported it is through processing into methanol which Methanex does. Now the calculations I have around the world methanol supply that is produced for energy use here in New Zealand is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 percent of world methanol production. This is not going to make a huge dent in global emissions.The other problem with the carbon leakage argument that the deputy leader of the National Party put up is that it assumes the rest of the world is standing as still as the National Party is on the issue of climate change. The rest of the world is changing. I think the Opposition should open their eyes and have a look around and see that the world is changing and that people are taking action. That is exactly what we have done on this side of the House. We are three parties that form this Government that share a common vision of the need to plan for our future—the plan not to leave our communities laid by the wayside to not leave them out there to dry. We know threats are coming. We will not stand by and wilfully ignore them like the Opposition is prepared to do. New Zealand First is committed to the regions and to the job creation in those regions. To ignore this problem would be kicking the can down the road and leaving those regions exposed in 30 and 40 years' time. That is not something that we are willing to do.We are joined obviously also by the Green Party who have long fought hard on this issue of offshore oil and gas exploration. Together we come together to form a Government that has New Zealand's best interests at heart that is planning for its future. Instead what we saw from the Opposition is them failing at the first hurdle when they say that they're going to move to the centre on environmental matters. Instead they retreat into outmoded old-fashioned populist thought that doesn't actually imagine a future in the 21st century. They are locked in the 20th century with no view to the future no plan for it unlike us on this side of the House that are absolutely committed to making sure that we have just transitions where industry our communities and workers are looked after and that we are not leaving them on the wayside. It is not the crocodile tears of the deputy leader of the National Party who says she worries about the plumber and the shopkeeper and the small-business owner. They are abandoning them if they fail to plan for the future and that is not something that we are prepared to do.I am proud to be part of a Government that today announced a real plan for that future one where we can make sure that we invest in people and regions to ensure they have a positive future and not one where they are left by the wayside because someone failed to plan. Thank you very much."