Young JonathanJONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): New Zealand is a great country. We are world leaders in so many areas and ways. We wish our best to the All Blacks with the Rugby World Cup coming up and of course Team New Zealand—what an amazing boat they have launched. We wish them the best in defending the America's Cup and—SPEAKER: Thanks for your help. JONATHAN YOUNG: Yes indeed. It was a great morning to be there. Even if we read in some legislation talking about being world leaders occurs in some aspects of legislation which I'm not so sure about. For example if you read through the Cabinet papers on the zero carbon bill you will read a statement that says Codifying the 2050 Target in primary legislation and having a detailed plan for meeting it could assist in: … ensuring New Zealand is world leading". We all want to be world leaders but sometimes we have to think about how we're going to get there and what it's going to cost. Let me tell you about an area members of this House where New Zealand is world leading in terms of climate. We are the first and perhaps the only country that is leading the transition away from gas to using more coal—think about that. What we see in the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment's (MBIE's) New Zealand Energy Quarterly reported not long ago was that natural gas usage for electricity generation for the year ending 30 June 2019 decreased by 19 percent. The haters of hydrocarbons will say "Fantastic! We've seen a decrease in the use of natural gas." but the same Energy Quarterly also reported that coal usage for electricity generation for the year ending 30 June 2019 increased by a whopping 62 percent. Mr Speaker I know you enjoy commentary around the energy sector. That is a graph that I have produced from MBIE's data. So seeing a decrease in the use of clean-burning natural gas is I think a loss when you see an increase in the burning of coal which has twice the carbon dioxide emissions. The country is using more coal because there is not enough gas—let's be clear about that. In the midst of a primary fuel shortage—because this is what we do have in New Zealand—the Government in their wisdom decided to ban the search for more gas which I disagree with. In fact I think that was a reckless decision. I actually think that using gas instead of coal is a better way to transition and in fact MBIE said that in their advice to the Government last year in April. They said "Gas has a role to play in transitioning to a lower-emission economy. Halting exploration"—they went on to say—"would also close off the option of using New Zealand gas supplies to reduce coal use." Here we see a year later that is exactly what is happening. I say that it was a big disappointment that we did not have that thorough advice-listening consultation process and we did not do the proper economy analysis.A lot of people got upset about that. They got upset because they thought that they were intelligent committed science-based New Zealanders and companies—and even the offshore ones—who had some contribution to make. It wasn't just an offence against their intellect it wasn't just an offence against democracy but it was an offence against the solution that people could find. So single-mindedness can be an offence against a solution. This is why we have a Parliament. This is why we debate. This is why we have officials. This is why we consult. This is why we take legislation out into the community. This is why we have a select committee process. It's so that we can find a solution that fits and works for New Zealand and what we're seeing now is the very thing that we don't want to see.Coal is not our future. Yes it's used at the moment because we do not have enough renewables and we have depleted gas supply. Whether that's through infrastructure or whether that's actually through a lack of nature resource it's affecting us. So what I say in terms of this energy space around the policy that we need to have is we need to have a broad conversation. We need to see natural gas as a very important component to transition and we need to see that it is supported and we need to look for more in this country and not close off that future which I think can lead us into a better more sure transition. Thank you sir.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."