Court Simon; Smith Stuart; Woods MeganSIMON COURT (ACT): Minister just coming back to this question of minimum stockholding obligation for ships that are within New Zealand's exclusive economic zone being acceptable but those outside not Minister it's about nine days' sail from Brisbane to Auckland. There are very large refineries in Brisbane. Currently the average stockholding for petrol and diesel is somewhere between 20 and 40 days I'm sure and this bill proposes to increase it I think by just a few days for each. But Minister if we've already got somewhere between 20 and 40 days' stockholding onshore currently and refineries in Brisbane are 10 days' sail away doesn't that mean that there is actually no risk to the supply chain that needs to be solved by building tankage onshore—question one—and couldn't it simply be resolved by allowing for agreements even agreements with Australia as you've mentioned to deal with this issue with no legislation required no cost to the suppliers no cost to consumers?Minister you also didn't reply to my question about what is the cost to consumer. How much is this cost of building this additional stockholding going to cost if you average it out per litre of petrol of diesel? Minister that's what taxpayers and consumers want to know—how much is the Crown on the hook for and how much are consumers on the hook for? Minister I'd appreciate it if you'd answer those two questions.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair. My question to the Minister is pretty simple: has she been surprised and perhaps shocked by the actions of Norway and the United Kingdom who both had curtailed and said they were not going to open up more oil and gas exploration and yet both of those countries have opened up new licences in the last couple of months? And also the Americans have given the go-ahead for a giant $50 billion barrel oilfield in the north of Alaska. Does that—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Can the member ask a question that's within the scope of this particular bill?STUART SMITH: It is—I am yeah. So—[Interruption] I think the Chair does that Minister.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I am the Chair.STUART SMITH: Yes but the Minister was making comments there—gesticulating. So as that—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Even if the Minister in her response covers a little bit that you might think makes it in order in terms of being in the scope of this bill this bill actually doesn't cover that so I'm asking you to please—STUART SMITH: I'm coming to that—I'm coming to that. So given that those countries I've mentioned Norway the United Kingdom and the US have decided that their fuel security is such that they have to open up more exploration does that make the minimum stockholdings that we hold in New Zealand—does she think that makes that more or less tenuous than would have otherwise been? These are recent developments before this bill went to the drafting stages so was that ever a late consideration in terms of fuel security around the globe?Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS (Minister of Energy and Resources): In terms of those questions and in terms of the member's question as to whether this is necessary and could we not do this just with arrangements and do we have enough I point the member to the fact that this is a framework that we need to put in place to ensure our resilience and not just hope that we have that resilience. I point the member to the situation in December when our jet fuel stocks were well below the necessary levels of fuel resilience. What this bill does is ensure that our stocks will not fall below those requirements that we need. This provides the time insurance and security to get those additional ships here with much less chance of disruption. These time frames were arrived at through careful analysis of what we needed to ensure that New Zealand could ensure its resilience.In terms of the cost there has also been a careful balance in coming up with the number of days for stockholding—fuel resilience against minimising cost and cost to the consumers. So the average stockholding requirement is based on expert advice regarding the quantity of stocks that are held. Therefore we expect no new storage is going to be required in order to hold this level of stockholding. Fuel companies may need to change their management practices but the advice we're getting is there won't necessarily be new stockholding requirements.In answer to the tip of the contribution from the member in the National Party that was within the scope of this bill the answer is no.