Smith Stuart; Parker DavidSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Chair. You missed the Hon" you gave me earlier; I was hoping that might stick around a bit longer.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): I've been put right in the interim thank you.STUART SMITH: Well you've got a version of it. Thank you. And thank you Minister for the answers that you've given. I want to talk about and get some information about seabed mining. The Minister will be aware that the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill has been introduced to Parliament—a member's bill that seeks to ban seabed mining and retrospectively ban existing seabed mining consents.I'd like to point out to the Minister that he will be well aware that the oil and gas ban had a very significant effect on New Zealand's reputation in terms of our sovereign risk. I know from feedback from business contacts that significant lending institutions overseas now view New Zealand as very high risk in terms of sovereign risk and that has a chilling effect on investment right across—not just in the oil and gas sector or in mining sectors or extractive industries—that is "New Zealand Inc." is seen as a sovereign risk. So I would like the Minister to clear up: does he have any intention to ban seabed mining and if he does does he have any intention to retrospectively ban existing mining consents—seabed or otherwise? And what evidence has he seen—if he has seen any—that shows that seabed mining can be carried out without detrimental environmental effects? Thank you. Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Thank you Mr Speaker. We haven't in the Labour Party taken a position on the Prohibition on Seabed Mining Legislation Amendment Bill that the member refers to which is a Māori Party member's bill. So I can't illuminate the member any more in respect of that. In respect of the earlier ban on the issue of additional mining areas other than on land we stand by that decision because we recognise that you can't keep developing fossil fuels and meet your climate targets as a world and we think that was appropriate. New Zealand isn't running out of gas—Simeon Brown: We'll just import the coal from Indonesia!Hon DAVID PARKER: The member opposite said we just import the coal from Indonesia—that's got absolutely nothing to do with the offshore oil ban. And the member will be aware that under the New Zealand electricity system in a dry year we are reliant upon Huntly and supplies of coal for it. Until we get to the point where we can retire Huntly we'll continue to need it which reminds me of a question that Simon Court raised that I didn't answer which was this tension between climate and consenting renewables. That is a very real tension. You can't resolve all of those tensions through legislation because you can't say that all renewables ought to be always consented. Sometimes they ought not to be because there's an alternative project that would be better with less environmental damage. But members will be aware that I'm quite interested in quite a controversial plan down south in respect of Lake Onslow that would be controversial to consent but should still be able to be properly considered as being part of the energy mix that we need in the future so that we can retire Huntly for example and therefore not need to import coal in a dry year."