Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Green Party is supporting this bill. Based on the debate that I've just heard I think it might be useful to just go back to the history of this because the previous speaker Simon Court was implying that this bill had just been dreamt up in the last year as a response to high cost of living. But in reality in December 2018 the Government asked the Commerce Commission to undertake a study into factors affecting competition for the supply of retail petrol and diesel. Now I would think people who care about functioning markets would understand that that is the purpose of the Commerce Commission—it's to look into those areas where there might not be sufficient competition and consumers as a result are paying higher prices than they should be and that results in higher profits for those fuel companies. But it's not an economically optimal situation.So just to quote from the draft report which you know—I realise the member previous was elected in 2020 so he may not have been aware of the history of this. A draft report was released in August 2019 and then there was a full and final report. But the Commerce Commission chair said As a result of our study we consider many fuel companies have been making persistently higher profits over the past decade than we would expect in a workably competitive market." So anyone who's taken fourth form economics I think understands that markets are not efficient in and of themselves. They need to have Government—which is all of us which is all of the people working together to make sure that we're creating the conditions in which consumers get treated fairly and there isn't profiteering. And that's essentially what this bill is about it is preventing profiteering—so it's for the benefit of New Zealanders.Obviously the ACT Party is in denial about profiteering or as their founder Roger Douglas pointed out yesterday the party now is all about profiteering it's all about the top 1 percent getting richer and richer. I mean that's their raison d'etre. And you can you know tell that's who funds them. So the goal of the ACT Party seems to be that consumers do get ripped off by big corporates who are able to make excess profits over and over again. They don't believe the Government should step in and try to fix the situation so that we do have competitive markets because they just believe that if you just leave things to the market—you know with no intervention whatsoever—it's a good thing if a small number of people get richer and richer and richer and make excess profits off selling a commodity that is actually slowly smothering the planet on which we live when we use it.You know we do know that fossil fuels are creating a blanket of pollution that is smothering the planet. And as a consequence of that in the last week—I know the ACT Party are probably climate change deniers as well as profiteering deniers. In the last week we've seen the hottest days on record. In the Northern Hemisphere they had three of the hottest days ever recorded in human history in at least 10000 years. Now that is a very concerning situation because it does mean that climate change global warming global heating caused by the use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution—and of course land-use change cutting down forests etc.—Simon Court: Point of order Madam Speaker. The member has raised what I consider to be an imputation of improper motives against the ACT Party by using the term "climate change deniers". I would ask the Speaker to consider whether that is in fact in terms of Standing Order 120 offensive or disorderly.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Speaking to the point of order.Simon Court: I'm still on my feet.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): He's still giving his point of order. Then I'll come to you.Simon Court: Thank you Madam Speaker. Because the imputation is that the ACT Party refuses to accept the reality that the climate is changing and that humans' effect on the planet because of our anthropological activities has no effect on the climate. And that is quite incorrect. That is not our position and it's not a debateable point. There is an imputation which is incorrect.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Speaking to the point of order. I believe that if you look at the Hansard you'll see I said "probably climate change deniers" and I absolutely believe that that is a debateable point based on the content of his previous speech where the speaker was saying they were going to get rid of all the climate legislation.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): I will allow the member to continue on with her speech. This is actually a robust discussion and when the ACT member was giving his speech earlier on I could have stopped him at many points. I call on the Hon Julie Anne Genter.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Madam Speaker. Just to make the point that it is really important that we have a plan to reduce fossil fuel use in a very rapid time frame. People all around the world will have been experiencing these extreme weather events—extreme flooding and storms here in New Zealand—but now the hottest days in over 10000 years in recorded human history. There will be consequences if we don't have a plan to rapidly phase out fossil fuel use.At the same time because this work started at the end of 2018 before COVID before the inflation before the invasion of Ukraine it is still making the point that there is a lack of competition in the wholesale fuel market because the major fuel companies as the Commerce Commission wrote—Z Energy BP and Mobil share joint infrastructure network which includes coastal shipping operations storage terminals regional ports and it did include the refinery before that closed. And they use that network to supply 90 percent of the nation's fuel through their own branded retail sites or via other distributors. So it's the combination of infrastructure sharing and restrictive supply relationships that gave the major fuel companies an advantage and that resulted in higher profits over a sustained period of a decade that was—you know has nothing to do with global energy prices spiking because of the invasion of Ukraine or to do with supply chain issues to do with COVID. So the purpose of this bill is to implement a recommendation of the Commerce Commission—that is to ensure that consumers are not being fleeced.We know Aotearoa New Zealand we're a small country. We're not as big and populous as other competitive markets. So we do have a problem getting competition in some of these areas particularly where there's limited infrastructure. And it wouldn't benefit New Zealand to over-invest in the infrastructure either. So this is a sensible solution that the Commerce Commission recommended and indeed their recommendation around the transparency around a terminal gate pricing regime is based on an Australian equivalent. So when the National Party and the ACT Party try to pretend that this is some sort of outrageous thing the truth is either they don't know what's going on in the world—which is entirely possible—or in comparable jurisdictions to us like Australia where they have a similar terminal gate pricing regime or whether they're just playing politics on this bill because they think they can get a hit on the Government by dramatising and talking about the bill without giving the full context of the bill and the study into it and what the purpose of it is.The previous member also of course raised the issue around fuel taxes. And I thought he made a really good point where he said people are happy to pay taxes when they can see what they're getting out of it. And as we heard from the Minister of Transport yesterday Waka Kotahi repaired over 60000 potholes last year. They massively increased their maintenance and renewal programme thanks to the coalition Government with the Greens last term increasing the funding available for maintenance and funding of roads after a significant under-investment in maintenance and renewals from the previous National Government. That's on the record—very easy to go out and claim that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! If the member would just come back to this bill thank you.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: But the point is that there's a very good reason why we have fuel taxes where they are and that's because there is a cost to building and maintaining our road network and investing in our transport network. And to be fair the fuel tax doesn't even cover that. No the fuel tax doesn't even cover the cost of roads that Government is building and maintaining. So the reality is taxpayers are subsidising roads quite considerably and they aren't necessarily the most efficient and certainly not the most climate-friendly way of solving our problems in the future. We need to invest in much better public transport regional rail and things right across the country.But the Green Party supports this bill because it is a sensible recommendation from the Commerce Commission addressing a problem that was a longstanding problem with excess profits. And of course we should. I think New Zealanders would like to see a Government ensuring that they are protecting New Zealanders from profiteering and from climate change. And that's why of course New Zealanders should vote Green at this election."