Rurawhe Adrian; Mooney JosephGAS (INFORMATION DISCLOSURE AND PENALTIES) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed from 6 July.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members when we last debated this bill we were on call No. 9. This is a split call—I call Joseph Mooney.JOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise on behalf of the National Party to support this bill the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. This bill amends the Gas Act 1992 to provide for enhanced information disclosure requirements for the gas market and to ensure the settings around enforcement and penalties are suitably robust. It does not make substantive changes in and of itself but it amends the framework to expand the scope of regulation-making powers. A number of the changes require gas industry participants to report forecasts of supply and demand of gas reserves. This is in response to the 2018 Pohokura outage but it also can be linked to the Government's decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration.National supports more transparent disclosure around current pending or possible gas outages but we need to remember why we're here. This law is needed because New Zealand is fast entering a gas supply crisis. We heard earlier today during question time about the amount of Indonesian coal that New Zealand is currently importing which was about 1.1 million tonnes last year and is on track to be significantly more than that this year. That is a direct correlation to the decision by the Labour Party in the last term to prohibit the further exploration of gasfields.This bill does allow New Zealand to understand the situation that Labour has put us in. When Labour banned gas Minister Woods said there was nothing to be concerned about: we have 100000 square kilometres of exploration already permitted we have permits that go out 30 years. She said the sky isn't falling in. What she didn't say is that gas doesn't come out of the ground by magic. Businesses need to invest businesses need confidence to invest significant resources into both the exploration and the extraction of gas. It is estimated we need $100 million investment per year just to keep the production levels that we have. This has dried up and we've seen gas production fall 40 percent in three years. It has already resulted in job losses at Methanex in timber mills and New Zealand Steel have reduced production. Huntly is burning four times as much coal. Greenhouse gas emissions are up. Wholesale electricity prices are four times higher than what we had in 2018.That is an important issue for low-income or fixed-income families. The price of electricity is a significant cost on households around the country and particularly in times when it's cold as in now—i.e. in winter. Many families in New Zealand have fixed incomes and they have a set amount they can spend on electricity they have a set amount they can spend on food and a set amount they can spend on rents. Unfortunately we are seeing unintended consequences from what you might say are well-meaning policies by this Government but policies that don't take into account the real practical implications of decisions that they make.We are seeing that in the housing market with the price of houses sky-rocketing and the price of rents increasing $100 per week and we're seeing this in the electricity market with the price of electricity increasing significantly having a direct impact on families and on businesses. It's certainly something that I've heard in my electorate where businesses have had to reduce production of milling timber for example because of the cost of electricity on the spot market.The other thing is the alternative sources of energy are important in the balance of the mix provided the electricity market can rely on. I note that just in the last couple of days there was a very significant storm in Central Otago which knocked down power poles and meant households in a big storm including significant snowfall weren't able to heat their homes for well over a day and night in some instances.So the supply of energy to our homes and our businesses is a matter of significant importance and unfortunately Labour has taken an ideological approach to reducing the supply of gas without looking at what is going to replace it and having a replacement strategy in place and actually generating electricity for our market. The direct implication we're seeing is that we are now importing significantly more dirty Indonesian coal as it's often called than we were only two years ago. I will conclude my comments there.