Falloon Andrew; Rurawhe AdrianANDREW FALLOON (National—Rangitata): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It's with a real sense of sadness that I rise to speak this afternoon on the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill. The reason for that is although I haven't been a member of Parliament for all that long—about 13 months only—in that time I have never seen a Government so shamelessly wreck the economy in pursuit of an international deadline.I unfortunately didn't sit on the select committee that considered this bill. It went to the Environment Committee which I think surprised most of us on this side of the House. Historically Crown minerals legislation always goes to the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee so I unfortunately didn't sit on the committee that considered this bill. But I have read through the submissions which I think is a lot more probably than what some members opposite on the committee did. I want to turn to a couple of those submissions and the first one is an excellent submission by the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand which is the industry group for the oil and gas industry. They posed quite an interesting question which I think members opposite need to listen to and that is: what do we do with oil and gas now?Members opposite might be interested to know that only 50 percent—50 percent—of oil and gas that's extracted or used in New Zealand is used in motor vehicles. The member prior to me Gareth Hughes made a lot of statements about the environmental impact of oil and gas on our environment and I think members opposite would accept a lot of what he said. However 16 percent of the produced oil and gas is used in everyday non-combustible products. So it's a whole range of things. It's medical and cosmetic products. It's all sorts of things that have zero impact on the environment. So to have members opposite talking about this vast environmental impact that oil and gas has they forget I think that there is a vast range of other uses for the oil and gas that we extract in New Zealand.Their submission goes on to say that New Zealand produces all of its natural gas domestically which provides just over 20 percent of our electricity supply. So I ask members opposite: where is that going to come from? If we cut off gas supply and the use of gas for electricity where is the shortfall going to come from? I have to tell members opposite because it's in the Government's own advice that the shortfall in the short term is going to come from coal—from coal. Gareth Hughes mentioned earlier that Oh well of course gas only has a marginally better impact on the environment than coal does." Well that's wrong—it's half. It's half. Natural gas is half as polluting as coal is and so to suggest that cutting oil and gas exploration is going to somehow have this dramatic effect on the international climate change situation is an absolute farce given that we're going to have to burn more coal.The other natural gas that we use in New Zealand is not just used for electricity supply; it's also used for making petrochemicals like methanol—and I'll touch on Methanex later on in my contribution—but it's also used by 400000 households small businesses schools and hospitals. So I again ask members opposite: where's that going to come from? Where's that shortfall going to come from if we don't use gas? Later on in their submission they say—and I'll quote them briefly—"If our gas supplies run out then New Zealand will need to import gas from overseas and/or develop renewable energy at an unfeasible rate." That I think underlines the point that I'm making which is that if we do cut off oil and gas exploration in New Zealand we're going to need to import it. If we don't import it then we're going to need to move to other sources of electricity and in their words at an unfeasible rate. It's not something that's possible—that's why we're going to have to rely more on coal.I want to touch on also the submission from Methanex because they're a very large employer in the Taranaki region. In fact they are the only methanol producer in New Zealand. They say that methanol is a vital chemical ingredient in a range of things from furniture building materials biodiesel solar panels wind turbines to pharmaceuticals. So I ask the members opposite again: where is the polluting impact of those things that that methanol produces? There isn't one.I then want to point to the contribution that they have on the Taranaki economy. They employ 270 people and 3000 people indirectly. They add an estimated $640 million to the Taranaki economy and $834 million to the New Zealand economy. It's nearly a billion dollars—nearly a billion dollars. So I ask the members opposite: where is that contribution going to come from? They're shutting down an $800 million industry. One company alone—one company—produces more than $800 million of revenue for New Zealand and it's something that's unfortunately going to go. These of course are all the jobs and the economic impact that exist right now but I do want to touch on my own local patch of Rangitata and specifically South Canterbury where there are going to be dramatic impacts in Timaru because of this bill that's being progressed.New Zealand Oil and Gas have the licence to explore for oil and gas in the Barque development. They say that this bill makes development of the prospect materially less likely. Members opposite have talked at length this afternoon about how this bill isn't going to impact on current operations or on licences where they already exist but this is a company that does have that licence and even they are saying that it's going to have a dramatic impact. I want to quote their submission because I guess members opposite probably don't understand why it's going to have that impact and the reason is that they need to go off and find international investors to support the development.In their submission they say "Since the 12 April announcement some of those companies have declined to progress further. We present a sample of their comments"—number one—"Looks interesting but given state of play in NZ at the moment I don't think we will get much airplay internally. So will pass on this one"—number two—"I'm sorry to inform you but we excluded New Zealand from our area of interest for new ventures after series of opportunities review and recent political issues"—number three the final one—"It's been an education for me seeing the reaction by even discussing NZ here! … the NZ government has thrown a spanner in the works stopping future exploration licences."So I recommend that reading to members opposite because there is a material impact on regions like South Canterbury which all the provincial growth funds in the world will never account for. This is a company that wants to develop this prospect they have the licence to do so and yet they're saying that it's unlikely to happen because of the legislation that's being progressed through Parliament.I do want to also just return to Taranaki for a moment because again members opposite have said that there's no impact on current operations by this bill. Well I think what they need to do is actually go to Taranaki because they haven't done that yet. They need to go to Taranaki and talk to Fitzroy Engineering Group. Fitzroy Engineering employ 400 people—400 people. They are a large company based in New Plymouth who service the oil and gas industry. On the day that the Government made its announcement they instituted a hiring freeze. They haven't employed any new people since the announcement and it's completely down to this bill.I want to talk about process. I know some people probably feel that process isn't important but when you're in Parliament process is sometimes all you have. Members of the public might be a bit confused as to why we're debating this legislation because we only debated the first reading of it four weeks ago—just four weeks ago. This bill has been off at select committee for just one month. Submitters had two weeks to provide their contributions and in the last two weeks the Environment Committee has been hearing those submissions. It's incredibly incredibly disappointing and alarming that at not one point did that select committee travel to New Plymouth.Jonathan Young our senior MP who is responsible for oil and gas issues moved a motion for the select committee to travel to New Plymouth to go to Taranaki and to hear from the companies and the people that are affected. There are 11000 people directly or indirectly employed by the oil and gas industry. The vast majority of those people are in Taranaki. To have submissions heard only in Wellington has disenfranchised those people. I would have even suggested to them to not bother frankly coming to Wellington and having submissions here but just go to Taranaki and hear directly from the people there the people that will be affected—not the people in Wellington not the lobby groups and not the media in Wellington but the people who will be affected in Taranaki. At not one point did members opposite bother to travel to Taranaki and talk to people up there talk to the businesses that are affected talk to the employees that are affected and talk to the families that will be impacted by this disgraceful piece of legislation. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This is a split call—five minutes."