Kuriger Barbara; Rurawhe AdrianBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm not sure that it's a pleasure to take a call on this particular bill. In fact if it didn't get finished this afternoon it would be no great blow to the National Party because the decommissioning bill is another blow to energy affordability and security and it's a complete overreach. I listened to what the Minister said in her speech in and around the legislative statement and none of us would've ever wanted to have happen what happened at the Tūī field with Tamarind because that's one of those environmental things that shouldn't happen but unfortunately it did. It was a one-off and this industry is actually very good at doing its decommissioning and putting steps in place to make sure that the decommissioning happens.The saddest thing about sitting on the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee—and I'm not part of the select committee that looked at this bill but I did sit in and a lot of this happened on Zoom during the most recent lockdown when we were in level 4. I was sitting at my kitchen table back in Taranaki listening to the submissions and I found that while the Minister who just spoke said that there have been quite a lot of changes to this bill actually the amount of changes that were made to this bill was quite disappointing. I have worked with some bills where Ministers were quite free and open to making changes and I didn't find that same sort of flexibility when it came to working with the committee on this particular bill. I found that particularly the Government members of the committee were very quiet during the submission process and that gave us a great opportunity to ask a lot of questions which is good in itself but I would've liked those members to have taken a bit more interest in advancing this to get a bill that was much better than what it is.We don't think this bill is necessary. We believe that the industry is taking care of it. When we were in the committee stage I just wanted to make note the other day that the Minister of Energy and Resources Minister Woods—despite us going through the facts—was talking about how much the Tamarind Tūī issue cost this Government and there's no denying that it was a cost to the Government. But we're also putting it to the Government that every year this industry contributes around $2.5 billion to the economy it brings in around $750 million worth of export receipts and it generates approximately $500 million in royalties income for the Crown. Now the Minister made a comment that with the money that Government had to pay out for the decommissioning imagine how many hospitals and schools and things we could have built and I don't dispute that. But I also at the same time when we spoke about the bill made the point that coming from Taranaki I have seen many many buildings functions and activities in the community—assets of the community—that have been funded by this industry. I made particular note of the swimming pool in New Plymouth the New Plymouth aquatic centre and I was really disappointed that the Minister chose to scoff about a swimming pool when actually that missed the whole point of this. I did explain to the Minister that you have two sides on every ledger. There are benefits and there are costs and unfortunately with this bill the Minister has focused on the costs and completely forgets about the other side. Mr Grant Robertson might be more interested in the other side of the equation given that he tends to be the one that measures where the money comes from. I also would acknowledge that Minister Robertson is always acknowledging where the agriculture money comes from and it's not something that we hear a lot of from Ministers on the other side of the House either.So when this bill started we supported the intent of the bill because we do support decommissioning—but as I said so does the industry—and we acknowledge the responsibility of the petroleum sector to decommission gasfields in a safe and lasting way. But this bill like a number of bills is a huge overreach and it's just an example of another bad bill that we have standing here this week which is going to probably during the course of this day get passed through Parliament if the length of the Government speeches this week is anything to go by.The bill is applied retrospectively. It will impact on existing permit and licence holders. It alters their rights and duties and some of these have been in place for decades. Where else do you make a contract and a deal and then the Government comes along and retrospectively replaces the contract or the expectations that a company has with something else? It's not normally—although once you've got a precursor who knows what's likely to happen. It will reduce New Zealand's appeal as a location for petroleum investment and at the moment we've already seen in 2021 a shortage of gas we have seen low lake levels and we don't have enough renewable energy to get us through the next few years. So what I suggest is that if this bill is going to take us down a track where it's going to discourage further international investment it's just going to take us further and further away from the goals that we have to get to our renewable energy targets.The BusinessNZ Energy Council says that the proposed rule would create a perpetual liability on energy businesses and it should be strongly opposed: We can think no other situation in New Zealand where a business is legitimately sold and the seller is responsible for any liabilities that might be accrued by the new owner." It's a fundamental change to how we do business in this country. The Government talks about this being one of the strongest regulatory legislative components that there is in this industry in the world and I notice that when this Government talks about things—particularly the Prime Minister—everything's about being the best in the world or on the top of the world and everything is so important. It is always wanting to be the first or the best in the world and I notice that the Prime Minister hasn't yet that I've seen picked up the KPMG report from about three weeks ago which graded 32 countries in the world on their zero-carbon readiness. They graded 32 countries and New Zealand rated ninth—so we've got a bit of work to do—and agriculture rated first. Now we do have work to do in agriculture as well but penalising those who are at the top of the game doesn't exactly help the others at the bottom of game produce zero-carbon ready food.The cost of this bill greatly outweighs the benefits. The proposal is estimated to cost a net $1 billion and for every $1 spent we will see 11c worth of benefits. Hon Member: 11c?BARBARA KURIGER: I'll just repeat that because I can hear some shock coming from some of the National members behind me: for every $1 spent we will see 11c worth of benefits. Now not much has been making sense in some of the other legislation we've been doing this week—you know all the stuff around traffic lights businesses and uncertainty and there's huge uncertainty in the energy industry. There's huge uncertainty in the electorates of some members who are sitting behind me from Auckland who every day have to be out there talking to their businesses and trying to console people who are trying to go to sleep at night and are waking up in the morning and finding that their business has just lost a whole lot more money without any understanding from the Government.So for every $1 spent there's 11c worth of benefits. That might be a good enough calculation for the Minister of Energy and Resources. It might be a good enough piece of numerical data for the people on the other side of the House today but it's certainly not a good enough return for this side of the House—the National Party. We value this energy industry which has not only contributed to the energy security of New Zealand; it has contributed a whole lot of other things. I'm really disappointed that this bill is going through the House and we in the National Party oppose it. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."