Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. For the benefit of those watching at home this is the second reading of the Energy Resources Levy Amendment Bill. This is a time when we discuss what evidence we've heard at select committee and we come back and we debate the select committee report essentially.David Seymour: What happened to the select committee?STUART SMITH: Well I'm coming to that Mr Seymour. If we'd had a select committee hearing that would have been a very good appropriate time for us to all learn about what this bill is really going to mean. At the moment we have the Minister's word—or assessment of it—that it's very good it has little or no impact where we have to take her at her word.But actually going to the departmental disclosure statement which one of the members just before—Dr David Clark who just took a seat—was at pains to read out in 2.3 what was written underneath it That the Treasury's regulatory impact analysis team determined that the proposed amendment to clarify obligations relating to the fossil gas levy exemption in the Energy Resources Levy Act 1976 is exempt from the requirement to provide a regulatory impact statement on the grounds that it has only minor impacts on businesses individuals and not-for-profit entities." What he didn't say is further down in 2.5(b); it goes into the explanation underneath it says—and I'm just going to the last sentence—"No quantified estimates are available as costs and benefits cannot be accurately estimated for levies that may be claimed as exempt but the amounts involved could be significant involving millions of dollars in lost levies." In a select committee that's where we would tease these things out; we would actually ask that question. How can they have no effect and on the other hand it can have millions of dollars? Mind you—silly me—we have just had a Budget where billions have been thrown out; $7.1 billion of extra funding. So a few millions of dollars is nothing to this Government. Billions mean a lot to them but millions don't. It's easy to spend other people's money when you don't care about where it's coming from—Melissa Lee: That's so Labour.STUART SMITH: It is so Labour. You're quite right Melissa Lee. I want to go now to who we may have had evidence from at our select committee hearing. I would expect we'd have had the oil and gas companies. They would have come along and they would have highlighted to us what impact this would have on them.I've just put some thoughts down on paper. I think the economics of a field are based on—parts of that assessment would be the levy that was liable in that field. Now that could put that at risk so that changes the whole economics of the field which means it's probably uneconomic or it may well be. So that means it's another hammer blow to the oil and gas industry which I think is ironic.Because if I can give a little analogy here when Henry Ford's first Model Ts rolled off the production line—which made the first motor vehicles available at much lower prices and they were available to all—they had a significant problem with pollution in New York. Horse manure was stacking up; dead horses in the streets. They really needed to deal with that and along came Henry Ford in the nick of time. So we saw a massive change from horse-borne transport in New York to motor vehicles.But what they didn't do was they didn't go around and shoot all the horses. They didn't say "We've got cars now. We're just going to shoot all the horses we don't need them any more." But that's essentially what this Government is trying to do. It's another hammer blow to the oil and gas industry: "Let's get rid of it; let's destroy their confidence. They won't invest; they'll slowly wind down."But what they've forgotten is the lessons from history and they should listen to history because they're all history—most of them—on 14 October. But it's absolutely putting energy security at risk. We would have heard all this from the oil and gas companies. But we could have also heard from the oil and gas users. That would be someone like—oh I don't know—Genesis Contact Energy Nova Energy and then of course not to mention the glass companies the steel mill all of those companies who are reliant on gas.One of the things we have to remember about a just transition is that it is completely unjust if you want to decarbonise by deindustrialising. But these guys are deindustrialising New Zealand to decarbonise but they are doing it by accident. They don't even know what they're doing because they don't understand business and how it works. It's basic economics but I digress. So those oil and gas users would have given us valuable information at the select committee hearing.Energy experts—they would have also given evidence at the select committee and that would have been very helpful to inform the committee on the benefits or otherwise of this bill and from a more dispassionate view—they aren't necessarily invested one way or another in the oil and gas industry. So that would have been very valuable information for the committee. We could have heard from economists. We probably would have heard from an excellent think tank such as the New Zealand Initiative who do a really good analysis on things like this—independent analysis that would have really informed the select committee's decision-making processes.I think one of the things that they would have pointed out is the costs at the margin that really drive prices in the market. And this bill will have an impact on the costs at the margin. It will drive up prices; it will increase energy costs. As we all know—well most of us do—the cost of energy drives the cost of just about everything else.We are in the midst of a cost of living crisis and as my colleague Hon Gerry Brownlee pointed out in his speech the Government or the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance in their speeches—I made a comment on the quality of them earlier so I'll resist doing it again—talked a lot about the cost of living crisis and how they were trying to do something through this Budget to alleviate it. And yet the first bill that we are debating is going to add to it. It will add to inflation which will add to the costs of every household. They don't have to be someone who enjoys a gas-heated shower as I do as well. Either way I also enjoy—David Seymour: How long?STUART SMITH: I don't time how long it is. You can get an app to do that now but I don't do that. But those people will find it and the costs of other everyday goods and services because they are reliant on gas and energy to survive.So it's a great pity that they didn't think about this further. It's a disservice to New Zealanders that this did not go before a select committee to have though all the evidence from those groups and members of the public no doubt. I expect we would have heard probably from the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce. I think they would have come along and given a view on that and it would be a valuable one. They would know—they're out on the cutting edge of it. But also there are being oil and gas discoveries or certainly good shows in other parts of the country as well. Unfortunately all of the potential royalties from those could have left billions on the table—not millions billions. But that is unfortunately not going to happen now.I think that we have come to a point where New Zealand is on the cusp. We are really at significant risk and the sovereign risk that this will be increased because of this bill and because of the hastily ill-thought out ill-prepared oil and gas exploration ban that was announced by the Prime Minister in front of schoolchildren in Paris—well that's probably appropriate actually quite frankly—just for a photo opportunity and putting all of our economic futures on the line.I think it's a pretty poor effort to do this and if the Minister had believed this was a worthy bill she would have come and talked to us. But she didn't. So we oppose this bill."