Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): That was a speech of two halves my word. On one hand we heard a calm and reasoned exposition of Mr Young's support for the provisions of this largely technical and uncontroversial bill and it will be worthwhile reflecting a bit on those provisions a little later in my remarks. On the other hand we had Jonathan Young unleashed—a volcanic man of oil and gas. We could smell the crude on his breath as he leaned over the microphone. What we learnt in his address is that Jonathan Young is genuinely contemptuous of the concept of a just transition. That was put very very clearly in this speech—Hon Members: Rubbish. MICHAEL WOOD: We can check the Hansard for that. It does bring the question to mind: if one does not believe in a just transition away from an energy sector and an economy powered on fossil fuel then one must believe in either no transition at all or a transition that is not just. Those are the only other options. So it actually I think behoves the National Party to be really clear on where it lines up on this issue which is one of the most important economic and social and environmental issues that our country and our world will face in the coming years and decades because we can make choices at this point in time. But if we don't start making choices to have a transition that is measured and that is just and that allows economies and regions to shift their modes of production and energy generation and to move the jobs in that direction—if we don't make these choices and investments now then either we don't make them and we're ignoring the crisis of climate change that is bearing down upon us as we speak—Jonathan Young: It doesn't need your help. No it happens slowly. MICHAEL WOOD: —or it will happen all of a sudden and where will those people be then? So on this side of the House Mr Young we stand firmly on the side of a just transition and we do it proudly and we're going to stand by those communities and those people as we do that. Just kicking the ball down the road is doing those people and those communities no favours at all. Coming to the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill this is as I've said and I think other speakers have said largely an uncontroversial bill. I did note there was a submission from Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand which was largely supportive and I think for the current Government that's pretty good going. The bill addresses a number of inconsistencies within the Crown Minerals Act 1991—a couple of loopholes which have emerged over the years. I do want to acknowledge the work of the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee on this bill. It sounds like it was a good select committee process and—as I'll come to—there are a couple of sensible changes that were suggested during select committee hearings in response to submissions that were received. It's also important to say as the Minister has indicated that there's likely to be a wide review of the Crown Minerals Act coming a bit later in time but this was a bill that could proceed at the moment that makes some sensible and largely uncontroversial changes. The most important change I think as I've had a look at this bill are changes which close some of the regulatory gaps that we have at the moment and the key one which has been identified by previous speakers relates to the fact that across the sector we have it seems two quite significant trends. One is that there is an increase in divestment and acquisition activity and on the other hand there is a feature of the industry whereby older fields are sometimes being acquired by smaller players who are able to use particular technologies to increase the production on mature oilfields. This is leading to quite a bit of acquisition and divestment activity within the sector and of course—and it seems to be accepted on both sides of the House—we have to have absolute confidence and certainty that the operators of these facilities and these fields are organisations who are competent who will do the job in an effective way who don't pose risks in terms of health and safety or environmental risk and who can at the end of the process be trusted to have sufficient financial capability to be able to wind down those operations appropriately. So that's why we have the ministerial process of approving changes to the ownership of these operations. The gap that's been identified within the course of this bill is when we have a change of ownership of one of these entities. That seems to slip through and doesn't necessarily have to go through the approvals process so that's being tidied up. The key things that the select committee picked up were firstly the need to ensure that we don't have people who are caught midstream if those processes began before this bill comes into effect and that's I think fair and just that we allow for that to happen. The second thing is to bring a knowledge test in so that if an operator comes above the 50 percent threshold but possibly because of transactions of which they were not aware genuinely then they are not going to be pinged by what are actually quite substantial fines of between $50000 and $800000 depending on the circumstances that are in the Act. So I think those are very sensible and reasonable changes made by the select committee which support the intent of the Act which is to close the loopholes and tidy up this important piece of legislation. The other changes mainly relate to wording changes and removing inconsistencies with other pieces of legislation. So it's a sensible bill. It seems to have wide support in the House. I commend the select committee the Minister and other members who have worked on it and I look forward to further work in this sector from our dynamic Minister of Energy and Resources the Hon Megan Woods to ensure that we do have a just transition to lead New Zealand into the future. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker.