Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill

The National Party have the first call. I call Melissa Lee.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise to support this bill in the second reading. Having actually sat through the select committee process, sometimes members have to reflect back on how far ago we have actually discussed this bill and how many people participated in the select committee process in terms of our submissions. This Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill was referred to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee of the 52nd Parliament on 27 May 2020. The committee called for the submissions and there were, in fact, 11 submissions from interested groups and individuals. We heard oral evidence from four submitters at a hearing by video conference and we received advice from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and I thank them for the process that has taken place. I think when this bill continued on in the 53rd Parliament, the committee tried to re-open the submission process because we felt that, given the distance in time from the time of the last Parliament to this one, we thought perhaps that there might be more people interested in the subject matter and perhaps submit more. But we didn’t have too many people interested, so we just basically continued on.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Gas Act of 1992 to provide and enhance information disclosure requirements for the gas market and to ensure that settings around the enforcement and penalties are suitably robust. The bill does not actually make substantive changes in itself but amends the framework to expand the scope of regulation-making powers. A number of changes require gas industry participants to report forecasts of supply and demand of gas reserves and I know that there were some concerns in terms of commercial sensitivities from some of the submitters who were not very happy if disclosure actually meant that competitors could potentially have information that they would actually like to keep not public because it would mean that they might end up not being competitive. This is also reflected in the response to the 2018 Pohokura outage.

One of the issues with the Pohokura outage—it wasn’t an issue of lack of information but an issue of lack of gas, actually. But this bill will allow New Zealand to understand just how bad the situation is in terms of this Labour Government decision to ban gas exploration in Taranaki. But I digress, the gas crisis is, in fact, the direct result of the policy implementation by this Government and it is, effectively, decimating a whole district, actually—a whole area of Taranaki which actually relies on the gas exploration business, a lot of supply and support businesses that support the people who are in that industry—and I think that we will actually see the impact of their decision going forward into the future, because we are short on gas. We are going to be running out of gas because we stopped exploration. The other thing is that we are importing more coal from overseas and our carbon footprint is going to be bigger as a result of the decision of this Government.

💬 Maureen Pugh: It is bigger.

Yes, Maureen Pugh. You are right. It is absolutely bigger.

Business actually needs certainty. They need good regulation, good policy, to make sure that they can plan for the future, and sometimes they don’t actually have that—particularly in the gas industry sector—and I feel devastated for those people who are involved in that industry. It is estimated we need $100 million of investment per year just to keep the production levels that we currently have. This has dried up and we have seen gas production fall 40 percent in three years. This has resulted in job losses at Methanex and timber mills. New Zealand Steel have reduced production and, as I said, we’re using more coal and Huntly gas station is burning four times as much coal—and that is definitely a humungous increase in the greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the framework in which this bill actually works in terms of the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill—the responsibility of the businesses involved in their duties is something that we actually support and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on this, the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. It has been a privilege to be on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee as we have worked our way through this. Now, firstly, I want to thank the previous Government—the previous Parliament, should I say; the 52nd Parliament, who began this work. That was before my time, and I’ve had the pleasure of coming on board and getting involved to learn, to understand, but also to work on behalf of my constituents in my electorate, where this is personal. I want to say a big thankyou, also, to the Hon Dr Megan Woods, our Minister who has brought this piece of legislation to the House, and to my select committee colleagues who have been part of forming this, taking it to select committee, and hearing the submissions, as it has moved through the parliamentary process.

Now, I didn’t really want to get into it, but my colleague and member on the other side of the House, who I sit on the select committee with—Melissa Lee—just sort of forced me to go there because there is some misinformation going around, in around the fact that we’ve suddenly stopped exploration. Well, we haven’t stopped exploration. This bill isn’t a response to the announcement in 2018. We know there are a lot of other things that went on. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that the last time we discovered gas offshore was the year 2000, I believe. That’s the last time. It wasn’t that suddenly in 2018 we stopped and there was nothing left. But it has been hard to find already, which is a separate point. And then onshore, I think, off the top of my head, forgive me if I’m wrong, it was around 2006 that was the last time there was any kind of onshore discovery of gas. So for the member to say that because of the ban—that keeps getting thrown around here—that we have to bring this legislation in is incorrect. Putting an end to new permits offshore doesn’t affect this at all.

Then, I was encouraged this morning in select committee, we had the Minister Dr Megan Woods speaking about the energy sector, and, again, the “c” word keeps coming up in this House.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Not the “c” word!

The “c” word does. It’s a bit disingenuous, again, this “c” word, because I know—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Just say the word “coal”.

It is a dirty word. And I know that member does—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: The member can’t say the word “coal”.

“Coal”. I can say “coal” as much as I like.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Isn’t it embarrassing that the member can’t say it?

I’m not embarrassed at all, because, like I said, the Minister in select committee this morning was really upfront. In fact, as always, she owns this space, and talked around how “Yes, there is coal in use”, that’s why we as a Government are exploring our New Zealand battery options, because we have to transition, we must transition, and we will transition. We can either lead the world or we can stay in the coalmines of the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries. But we are in the 21st century and we must move on. We need to find resilience, and hence why we are looking at the New Zealand Battery Project. But I am digressing from this bill because I felt like I had to in terms of what was just said across the other side of the House, which was incorrect.

The other thing, also, was around job losses. I am very sad that the Waitara Valley Methanex plant has been mothballed. That really does grieve me as the member for that area, because one job loss is too many. The previous speaker did talk about the job losses around oil and gas and how somehow this bill is responding to that—which, again, it isn’t. But we know, again, that Methanex, which is a great employer in my electorate, had to mothball it on several occasions in the last 20 years, as they always do.

💬 Simon Court: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I had the benefit of attending a wonderful dinner last night with Speaker Mallard, and we received the benefit of his advice on Speaker’s rulings. I’d just like to bring the attention of the House to 44/4: a member may not accuse another member of making a statement they know to be incorrect—in other words, making things up. I think that Mr Bennett did, in fact, accuse the former speaker from the National Party of making information up.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s not what I heard; a debating point is what I heard. I take a dim view of people interrupting other members who have a right to speak. Debate the points.

For me, it was, really, obviously, in terms of just trying to clarify some statements in this House while the masses watch on television and in the gallery.

Again, it was a pleasure to be in the select committee process—I think this was one of the first bills that I’ve worked through—and to be able to have the submissions from a number of submitters and several oral submitters to talk, and many of those were in the gas industry, so it was important to them. So we were able to hear some of the information, some of the issues they had, and also to take on board some ideas that they brought to this particular bill.

Now, this bill is here to strengthen the regulation-making powers in the Act to provide for enhanced information, disclosure requirements for the gas market, and to ensure that settings around enforcement and penalties are substantially robust. Now, we need this; we need to ensure it is in place. And the previous member—and I know, as I rewatched some of the speakers earlier on, when this was first talked about, around the Pohokura site, in terms of the outage that we had there back in 2018, and in terms of our security when it comes to gas, and, of course, information to disclose and what penalties might be involved.

So this bill also seeks to clarify the current policy intent, that regulations made under the Act for arrangements relating to outages and other security of supply contingencies may apply across all industry participants and, also, to consumers—but, of course, not to domestic consumers.

So I think back to when we had our submissions in January, via Zoom, and to some of the concerns. I note here that there have been some proposed amendments and some information, and there was, obviously, the legislative scrutiny as well, and I feel that we’ve landed in a place where both sides of the House can agree. There are some things that we don’t agree on, but in terms of we need to ensure that this is here because the security of our gas supply is very, very important.

Now, the Gas Act has been around for a long time. And 1992 was my last year of high school—I know, you can’t believe it, you thought I was only starting school then; I was just finishing, actually! Careful, careful. So it has been around for a long time. I believe, back then, some of our climate discussions, some of our challenges around gas supply were probably a bit too far in the future for many. We should have had our eye on the challenges of gas security but, unfortunately, I’m not sure that this bill, particularly back then, was thinking in that space.

The Gas Act is the principle piece of legislation that regulates us, the Government of New Zealand and the natural gas industry. Looking at Part 4A of the Gas Act, it sets out the co-regulatory model for governance of the gas industry. This means that an approved industry body, that’s the Gas Industry Company, co-regulates the gas industry through making recommendations that secondary legislation be made by the Minister. This secondary legislation is referred to as a “gas governance arrangement”.

Now, I also want to note that the Gas Act also provides for gas governance rules to be made, rather than regulations, and that these can be made for all purposes that regulations can be made for. Rules are notified by the Minister in the New Zealand Gazette.

So, as a member of the select committee and bringing it back to the House again, today, for the second reading, I support this piece of legislation—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: So hard to go home.

—and I know that, Barbara Kuriger, thank you, that you do as well—but we need to keep our eye on what is important, and this is ensuring that the information disclosure and penalties amendment bill of gas; this isn’t here to talk about the “c” word; it’s not here to talk about what people like to refer to as “the ban” because—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Say it, Mr Bennett, it is “coal”.

—I can say “coal” many a time, thank you, madam. It was a wonderful thing. We here, on this side of the House, support the fact that we need to ensure that companies in New Zealand are regulated, are ensuring the gas supply, that we keep the lights on, and that we transition—we transition away from coal—and we are committed to that. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I rise in support of this bill on behalf of the Green Party. It is really, really important that we do have adequate regulation and the requirement for disclosure of information, and that that is properly enforced for areas that are strategically important to us, like aspects of our energy and electricity system.

I do want to respond to some of the comments that were made by other speakers in this debate. I think this is really, really important, because I have seen discussion out there on Twitter and elsewhere about what’s happening with electricity prices right now and why we’ve increased imports of coal.

I think that, firstly, we’ve got to be very clear: the investment in infrastructure is something that has years and years, if not decades, of lag time, and there is no question that there’s no way that the policies of this Government have in any way contributed to the fact that we’re importing more coal this year. What it is directly due to—and I would find it hard to believe that the National members claiming this actually believe it, because they are intelligent adults and I’m sure they’re able to understand this—is that from the end of 2008 until the end of 2017, when the National Party was in Government, absolutely no planning or investment or incentives were put in place to transition us to sustainable renewable electricity. There was no long-term planning done, there was no framework put in place, and there was no direction sent by that Government that there would be a transition away from fossil fuels, until, of course, now, in 2020—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: What about John Key’s cycleways?

That’s ridiculous. Those weren’t even about transport. The cycleways which the member is referring to were about tourism. They were about tourism, because they’re not actually in towns and cities—they’re about recreation. But, I mean, the Green Party supported it and worked with them on that, but the point is that the previous National Government’s entire economic development strategy was based on things that increased pollution and increased carbon emissions.

So we can take it from those members that they don’t actually believe in climate action. They don’t believe in climate change. There is a window of time that is running out for us to respond to climate change so that we can avoid an economic, health, and humanitarian catastrophe for ourselves and future generations. We only have nine years to drastically reduce emissions.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: So we’re burning coal.

Yes, it would have been much cheaper and easier and we would be much further ahead and advanced on this journey, and we would not have to be importing coal this year if the last National Government had done one single thing to set a direction of transition to renewable energy. But they did not, and so how dare they believe that voters are stupid enough to believe it when they claim that the Labour Government’s policies have anything to do with importing more coal during a dry year when we all know it takes many years to plan and build and develop the infrastructure that will enable us to have security of supply from a renewable source in a dry year. Yeah, we could have been 10 years advanced on that journey, thanks—no thanks—John Key’s National Government.

So then the most ridiculous thing that they’re claiming is that, somehow, sending a very clear signal to business and to the rest of the sectors of the economy that we are transitioning away from fossil fuels and, therefore, we’re not going to be releasing new permits for exploration for oil and gas offshore because we already know about more oil and gas than we can afford to burn and have a habitable climate and habitable planet. So it just seems kind of insane to be looking for more of something that we cannot actually afford to burn and have a habitable climate.

You would think anyone that understands basic maths, science, and physics would embrace this, and in most parts of the developed world, the right-wing Governments have embraced this knowledge of climate change and have worked on a transition. If we look at Germany, for example, they are well advanced in a transition and they have made significant progress, while the right-wing parties in New Zealand are in total denial about the fact that we actually need to change what we’re doing.

But, not only that, they had this lottery approach to economic development, where they’re like “I know how we can get some more money. Let’s go out there and invite all these companies around the world to come look for oil and gas offshore in our incredibly sensitive marine environments, and if they find some oil and gas, we can sell it and we’ll make some money out of it. That’s how we’ll get rich quick—that’s how we’ll get rich quick.”, except, what these guys don’t realise—and, I mean, they are pretty poorly informed on most issues, admittedly. My father-in-law is a petroleum geologist; in fact, so is his wife. They’re absolutely experts in this. They haven’t lived in New Zealand for 45 years, because they had to leave to get jobs after they got their PhDs in geology in the late 1970s, but they put in very informed submissions on the Government of the day’s plans on oil and gas exploration back when the National Party was in Government, in 2009 or 2010, I think. They said, “This crazy. These plans are absolutely crazy. We do not have the infrastructure.” They weren’t proposing even raising the level of royalties that would have made it worthwhile for New Zealand. Firstly, there were very poor chances of finding any oil and gas in deep water in New Zealand, and very low chances that it would be economic. It turns out that my in-laws were absolutely right: of course nothing was found over nine years of exploration.

But it’s completely ridiculous to assert that sending a signal in 2018 that we’re not releasing new permits for exploration has anything to do with a shortage of gas right now, because there is no way that if additional permits had been released in 2018 or 2019, we would have magically found a bunch of gas and had it up and ready for production by 2021. These are people who know absolutely nothing about the industry and make the most ridiculous statements. It just drives me crazy having to listen to it, because they take themselves so seriously.

OK, so let’s just go back to the actual facts about what’s happening here—all right. Almost 40 to 50 percent of our actual gas supply in New Zealand is used by Methanex and exported overseas for, let’s see—we have no royalties. I don’t believe we get any royalties from them. They pay almost no tax in New Zealand, and they employ fewer people than a supermarket. So how is this of benefit to New Zealand that a strategic asset, which is the gas that they’re using and then selling products overseas that don’t benefit New Zealanders—they barely pay tax in New Zealand—

💬 Simon Court: About 80 percent of their products are used here.

No. They barely employ people—

💬 Simon Court: Paints, resins.

Oh, so we buy them back? Great! No.

If the strategic best use of that gas is in electricity production or in people’s households, we do have to ask ourselves the question: why is 40 to 50 percent of it going offshore to produce products that are not directly benefiting New Zealand?

So if we are going to address the climate crisis, we have to have a rational, costed plan for how to do that, and sending early signals to the industry makes sense. That’s what Barbara Kuriger said earlier in this debate: industry needs certainty. That’s exactly what the Government has given them, and absolutely we’re going to have catch up on the lost decade in which no policy was developed, no planning was prepared, for us to actually transition to sustainable renewable electricity.

So I’m just tired about hearing the very high-level talking points from the National Party and others who are totally disingenuous in their debating points, claiming that the Government is somehow responsible for a dry year and the fact that 10 years ago, when the UK had established its climate commission—no, more than 10 years ago. It was 2008. From the time the National Party was in Government, from 2009 to 2017, there was no climate commission, no evidence-based plan. In fact, they were just like “Let’s go full hog on increasing agriculture emissions, trying to look for oil and gas that wasn’t even there, that wouldn’t have been economic to produce, in the hopes that we get rich quick by producing more fossil fuels that will burn the planet.”

Clearly, my explanations are never going to get through to them. But I know the people watching at home understand that they’re not right, because just before me, we had the Labour member for New Plymouth speaking, and so, clearly, if New Plymouth was truly upset at the Labour Government—that’s why they elected a Labour MP.

So I think the National Party is deeply in denial about the level of just how popular they are, with one out of four voters, at most, having confidence in them. But I think that’s dropping quickly, the more they open their mouths and express their absolute ignorance about how we’re going to respond to climate change, and their total lack of care for those who are worse off in this country, and their ignorance about colonisation. That’s all I have to say.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate the Green member’s passion. However, I’m still not entirely clear whether they support this bill or not, but there was certainly a lot of information offered to the people who may be watching at home.

ACT opposes this bill unless certain changes are made to make it more effective and actually to deliver on the outcomes that the bill proposes to deliver. The purpose is apparently to strengthen the regulation-making powers in the Act to provide for enhanced information disclosure. It assumes that there’s some problem with information disclosure with the current system, but I want to offer members an opportunity to have a look at some of the information that’s already being disclosed. But before I do, let’s just come back to the reason why this bill came before the House. It’s because there were a number of recent gas outages, primarily the 2018 outage that came as a surprise to some gas users, and certainly the Government, at the Pohokura station. We know that outages can affect gas availability and prices, and they also affect the electricity market, which relies on gas, because energy made with gas supplies about 20 percent of New Zealand’s energy.

Now, this regulation appears to be another example of Government overreach. Essentially, it’s an industry where the Government has already shown a record of reactionary and failed policy, driven by emotion, chasing clickbait and favourable headlines rather than actually delivering policies which benefit business and create jobs and make communities more sustainable. The Minister made some comments, or their delegate did, when this bill was introduced about whether ACT has a full tank or not. I can assure the Government that ACT is fuelled up and we are here for the long haul, and we are standing up for better regulations to make sure that businesses are able to deliver what they need to do for our economy and jobs for communities.

According to the Government, this bill does not provide any changes that impose immediate costs on business. However, there are costs likely to be imposed on industry and, therefore, consumers. This bill is actually a threat to industry. It is threatening those businesses which employ thousands of people and are already fulfilling their disclosure obligations. This bill ignores the fact that there is a voluntary regime that is working very, very effectively right now. That is why ACT is opposing this bill in its current form without the amendments that we’ve tabled—that’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 41—which make sure that an adequate cost-benefit analysis is undertaken before any further regulations are made.

We took on board the feedback from stakeholders during the select committee process, to come up with this amendment, because the stakeholders were concerned, not just that they’re going to lose jobs and lose production and that their businesses are going to be affected; the stakeholders are concerned that gas supply issues are only going to get worse, and even though the Government claims that this gas information disclosure bill is designed to create more stability and provide more certainty, what we know is that the single-largest disruption to the gas supply industry is going to be due to the Government’s oil and gas ban. Whether that’s taking effect now, it is certainly the intention of the Government to eliminate gas as a fuel. They’ve started by eliminating exploration permits and we’ve seen every permit outside of Taranaki surrendered, and that’s where we’re going. So adding further regulation to ensure visibility on the supply side seems bizarre given the Government has signalled its intention they don’t want any supply at all.

So ACT believes that it’s a disingenuous bill and actually it’s a knee-jerk reaction to being caught on the hop only a short time after making their flawed, clickbait, headline-grabbing oil and gas exploration ban announcement that, lo and behold—lo and behold—there’s a gas shortage. Now, some may have tried to connect the two, and sometimes it’s difficult to connect bad Government policy to bad social and economic outcomes; sometimes it takes years before we see massive brain drains of people going to countries like Australia or just not bothering to come back to New Zealand even though it’s some kind of safe haven, some kind of oasis that we hear from the Government. So who knows how long it will take for their bad policy to kick in, but we certainly have a shortage of gas right now.

But look, in terms of what the stakeholders told us, some of them said they strongly support the bill, and of course that raised immediately the risk of commercial information being disclosed between market participants. Others said that there should be significant restrictions in place to make sure that commercially sensitive information is protected.

They also suggested there’s already a voluntary regulatory code, and I’ll give you an example of that. [Holds up a graph] Here is the voluntary information that tells Government and tells energy consumers and other producers how much gas is being used by businesses large and small. [Holds up another graph] Here is the current disclosure, and you can go on the Gas Industry Co. website and you can click and download this right now. This tells you when the next outage is going to be. Again, it’s very difficult to see why this piece of regulation is needed. [Holds up another graph] This also tells you how much gas is being stored right now in the Ahuroa field and the fact that a lot of gas is being stored to take care of our dry-year risk, this dry-year risk that the Government believes it actually needs to build a multibillion-dollar dam at Onslow, flooding a UNESCO-level wetland—the largest hydroelectric dam on what will no doubt become a very technically difficult construction site, and unlikely to be delivered within the lifetimes of any of the current members of this Parliament.

But that’s how much gas is currently being stored. This deals with the dry risk.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Hmm, the gas chart.

This is a gas chart. It’s true that ACT is gassed up. We’re fuelled up. We’re here for the long haul. We do our research. We don’t come to this House and just make wild statements and wild guesses about the kind of policy that should be promoted by this House and should be passed.

So that’s why ACT has actually proposed amendments to this bill through our SOP 41, because ACT believes that when the Government makes laws, it should only make laws that are absolutely necessary. Where a business is demonstrating social responsibility and when they’re operating in an environmentally friendly way, in a transparent way, in an efficient way, and in a way that provides highly paid jobs in communities like Taranaki, supporting industries in places like New Plymouth, the Government should recognise that and recognise their value to the regions and to manufacturing in our major cities. ACT says the Government should leave those businesses alone. That’s what we say, and that’s why we’re opposing this bill unless our amendments are taken up.

So, with that, Mr Speaker, I will say thank you for showing me some flexibility today with the previous comment that I made. But I will finish by saying that the ACT Party opposes this bill unless the amendments as tabled under SOP 41 are made. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I rise today to take a call on the second reading of the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill, which amends the Gas Act 1992. I’d like to begin my remarks today by acknowledging the Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, for her work to ensure that we get our regulatory settings right for our energy market. I know this is just one small part in our Government’s focus to make sure that we have a more sustainable and resilient energy sector.

Now, this bill was introduced to the House, and had its first reading, last term, before I was privileged to be elected as a member to this House. However, I understand this bill stems from work that started way back in 2018, when the Minister asked officials to determine if information disclosure arrangements in the gas market were sufficient and fit for purpose. It was off the back of concerns that were being raised about the prolonged gas outages at the Pohokura production stations, and I think it’s worth noting that that gas field provides 40 percent of our country’s natural gas supply. Combine that with the planned outage at Kupe and the dry spring conditions, leading to sustained high wholesale prices for electricity, and historic prices on the gas spot market. This is all combined to highlight the need to ensure that disclosure of information is timely, particularly when it may have significant downstream impacts, or potentially cause security of supply risks, as we’ve seen. A number of parties at the time voiced their concerns about the variation of the level of information that was being disclosed by gas market participants, particularly if this information—as I said—was going to have a significant impact downstream, including to businesses who may not be involved in the natural gas industry.

Coming back to the present day, this bill seeks to expand the scope of regulation-making powers, and it does this by amending section 43F of the Gas Act. This section sets out the scope of regulation-making powers, and the proposed changes will enable gas governance arrangements to be made that provide for a broad regime for sharing information, which will have a significant impact and which may contribute to the risk of critical gas shortages. The bill also clarifies that the existing policy intent, that regulations made under section 43F for arrangements relating to outages and other security of supply contingencies apply across all industry participants and consumers. This expanded ability to make regulations to enable governance arrangements that provide for the broad disclosure is important when you consider the context. That is, as a country, we’re currently experiencing a drier than average hydrological condition, so it’s very important that necessary information can be easily disclosed and communicated in a timely way, so that people have the ability to plan ahead accordingly. In addition to that, the official statistics on gas supply show that we have about 11 years of gas supply remaining, which hasn’t changed much for the past two decades, and that’s with further exploration continuing with existing permits. That’s why it’s crucial that we continue to explore and invest in alternative forms of renewable energy.

Now, as you may recall, I grew up in a small town in South Taranaki, in my electorate, called Waverley. It’s a great place, traditionally, for dairy, sheep, and beef farming, but recently we had a new farm spring up almost overnight. Between Waverley and Patea, we now have the Waipipi Wind Farm, which is a $277 million investment by Tilt Renewables, into constructing a 31-turbine windfarm across 7 hectares of prime South Taranaki coastal farmland. These turbines are the biggest turbines ever built in Aotearoa, being 4.3 megawatt machines standing at 160 metres tall with a 130 metre diameter rotor. It’s the first wind farm to be constructed in New Zealand on flat land, and this farm will produce enough clean energy each year to power about 65,000 houses, and save us the emission of roughly 250,000 tonnes of carbon. I confess, I quite enjoyed watching the construction progressing each time I drove up through the electorate last year, and on more than one occasion I was required to pull over and wait, as the blades were being transported past from New Plymouth on their way to the Waipipi Wind Farm—it was an impressive sight to see.

I also note that this bill makes changes to the Gas Act penalty regime. The bill amends the penalty regime for industry participants, by increasing the maximum civil penalty able to be imposed by the Gas Rulings Panel for breaches of gas governance regulations from $20,000 to $200,000. This addresses concerns about the low level of pecuniary penalty available to be currently issued by the Gas Rulings Panel, particularly for situations where there are a wide range of consumers that may be affected by a potential breach. The bill also creates a penalty for consumers who are not industry participants, who will now be subject to civil pecuniary penalty instead of criminal penalties if they breach gas governance arrangements. This will ensure equitable treatment between industry participants and consumers, and non-industry participant consumers. It will be used to deter breaches of regulation by these consumers, including some of the larger consumers of natural gas. This penalty will also have a maximum of $200,000, and will not apply to residential consumers.

I’d like to acknowledge as well the work of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, who reviewed this bill and listened to a number of submissions. Following that process, I note that several important changes have been recommended by the committee to address some of the issues raised by those submitters, including a change that will ensure that a failure of an industry participant to follow a Gas Rulings Panel order will continue to carry a criminal penalty. This will help ensure that appropriate incentives are in place for the industry to comply with orders from the panel. The bill represents a step forward in improving how information that may highlight the risk of critical gas shortages, or the potential significant price impacts from gas shortages, is released to the market.

I’m sure that no one would disagree that energy security is critical for supporting a productive, sustainable, and inclusive New Zealand economy. That’s why the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill is important. Because this bill ensures that appropriate regulatory requirements can be put in place for supporting security of supply and to improve outcomes for energy consumers. Therefore, Mr Speaker, I am happy to commend this bill to the House.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call, I call Joseph Mooney.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a short call on the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill on behalf of the National Party. The National Party supports this bill. The bill amends the Gas Act 1992 to provide for enhanced information disclosure requirements for the gas market and to ensure that settings around enforcement and penalties are suitably robust. However, the bill does not make substantive changes in and of itself but amends the framework to expand the scope of regulation-making powers. A number of the changes require gas industry participants to report forecasts of supply and demand of gas reserves. This is in response to the 2018 Pohokura outage, but it also can be linked to the Government’s decision to ban offshore oil and gas exploration.

If enacted, the bill will clarify that the gas Government regulations could (a) specifically provide for arrangements relating to gas outages and other security of supply contingencies in relation to any markets for gas and (b) require data and information to be provided and disclosed for any industry participant or consumer. National supports more transparent disclosure around current, pending, or possible gas outages, but we need to remember why we are here. This bill is needed because New Zealand is fast entering a gas supply crisis. The Pohokura outage wasn’t an issue of a lack of information but, ultimately, an issue of a lack of gas. This bill will allow New Zealand to understand just how bad the situation Labour has put us in is—it’s why we support it.

It’s also important to state why we are here. This is a direct result of Labour’s 2018 oil and gas ban. When the gas ban was implemented, Minister Woods said, “Don’t worry, we have 100,000 square kilometres of gas exploration already permitted.” She said, “We have permits that go out for 30 years; the sky isn’t falling in.” What she didn’t say is that gas doesn’t come out of the ground by magic. Businesses need certainty to invest big sums of money, and they need to invest money in things called plant and equipment to get gas to our houses and factories and our electricity generation. Our trading partners have reduced emissions by using natural gas and turning off old coal-fed power stations and industrial heating. We instead are reducing significantly our supply of gas and discouraging investment in exploration of new gas fields.

In Otago, Beach Energy made a decision to abandon existing exploration permits off the South Island as a result of the Government’s oil and gas ban. And while the Government call it a just transition, the plan for the future was nothing but a short-sighted policy to appear as a leader on the global stage in climate transition. Officials warned the decision would cost billions in royalties, destroy thousands of jobs, and likely increase global emissions, yet the Prime Minister and energy Minister Megan Woods still ploughed ahead with ideological policy. This is something we need to be cautious of in this House. We do need gas; we don’t need hot air.

This Beach Energy decision to abandon the existing exploration permits effectively ended any offshore exploration outside of Taranaki. It is a blow to Otago’s economy and it will mean significant job losses. Gas exports could have also helped our recovery from the COVID-19 economic crisis. A significant gas find in the South Island would have allowed industries presently reliant on coal to transition to lower emissions fuel—which is what other countries are doing—while boosting New Zealand’s exports.

I note that in the last year alone New Zealand imported 1.1 million tonnes of coal, and we’re on track this year to import 2 million tonnes of coal, and a lot of that coal is what’s known as dirty coal. So instead of reducing our emissions profile, we are actually increasing it by short-sighted policies that don’t focus on the fundamentals.

I note that the previous speaker, Steph Lewis, spoke about the pride at seeing wind farms being built, and I certainly encourage the growth of wind farms, but we need to be conscious that this is a complex energy environment. Today alone, wind is operating at 10 percent of capacity, so we need to have an alternative energy supply, and this is why this bill is here, because we need to have gas to supplement our energy supply. So we need gas to reduce our energy profile, to reduce our emissions profile, and ensure that we can power our economy and make sure New Zealanders have electricity to turn on the lights.

So this is a small step that is required in the environment we find ourselves in, but I would encourage the Government to reconsider its short-sighted ban on the exploration of gas around New Zealand so that we don’t have to import dirty coal from other countries.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to stand. I was a little bit confused with the last member’s speech and just wanted to make the comment—in fact, all of the members across the House who are voting for this bill, it didn’t sound like they were. They sound like they’re pretty much just against this bill at all. Anyhow, it would be really great to hear them actually speak—because they were involved in the creation of this legislation and are actually supposedly voting for it—around some of the positive aspects.

So anyway, I’m taking a short call on behalf—I’m covering the Māori Party slot here today, and I’m really surprised that the Māori Party aren’t here, given that they’re—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member should not mention the absence of anyone.

Sorry, yes. Absolutely. They’ve chosen not to take a call, and I’m really sorry about that because I know that they certainly would’ve had lots to say on this issue, given that they’re so passionate about the Taranaki region. Nevertheless, sir.

So I’m particularly surprised to be speaking on this bill today. I have not sat on the select committee that was involved—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: The member should tell us what she knows about gas.

I know lots about gas. I’m a great barbecuer. Nevertheless, back to the speech I think.

So this bill is particularly around amending the principal Act, the Gas Act 1992. Look, it’s really in place to help with some assurance and security around supply and goes through a number of things to ensure that the gas governance regulations require data and information to be provided and disclosed by any industry participant and consumer. And it goes through a number of things that must be disclosed or discussed. So these are about the volume, the price, the forecasts of supply or demand, the info about actual or potential outages, the info about the risks to the security of supply, and information to help other industry participants and consumers make informed decisions. Now, I think that all of that’s really important, because I guess, as we move into a period of time where we are trying to move to 100 percent renewable energy, that we actually need to know what the supply looks like out there. We need to know what is coming up in the future. Apparently 11 years of supply is left, I’m not sure if that’s the case or not, but this bill puts that information right up the front, and we are still investing in this area. I sat, last term, on the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill 2018, and it was absolutely my pleasure to be there—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I’m finding it hard to follow.

—looking at the new—the member is finding it hard to follow because he’s not usually here on a Thursday. He usually gets thrown out on a Thursday so he can go home early. That’s why the member is finding it so hard to follow. Have a cup of coffee, Simon Bridges—have a cup of coffee.

💬 Hon Member: Lot of gas over that side of the room.

Lot of gas. So it was a real pleasure to sit on that bill and to understand that—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: What’s she doing sitting on the bill?

—as a Government, we’re moving forward—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Get off the bill. Leave the bill alone.

—around looking towards some alternative. I think it’s Thursday afternoon, and the member needs his nap.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I’m waiting for a valedictory.

The member is waiting for a valedictory, yes, as are we all. So I think probably, on that note, I would like to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I’m just trying to find my notes. There’s some comedians in the House today. But can I say it’s a privilege and honour to always take a call in the House and as a newbie, like I said the other night, get used to and learn when we get into the House what we’re doing and how to speak. Really good to have members like Simon Bridges on the other side of the House to role model that to us, and we can hopefully pick up those tips—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Hey, I’m helping you get to 10 minutes.

Kia ora. Oh, thank you. Make sure you heckle heaps so I can make sure you get into my speech.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: I can be 2½ minutes of this speech.

Well, that’s fantastic. That’s what we want and that’s as much as I needed to filibuster, so that’s great, Simon Bridges, thank you. That’s working together across parties—fantastic.

So, as I said, it’s a privilege and an honour to take a call on the Gas—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Filibustering with hot gas!

Well, and you too, Barbara Kuriger—another good mentor to be able to help me fill in my 10 minutes’ time, so kia ora for that.

So yes, a great privilege to take a call on the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill—jump in whenever you like, Simon Bridges and Barbara Kuriger. First of all I just want to thank the Hon Megan Woods for championing this bill forward, and of course the 52nd Parliament that we know Simon Bridges and Barbara Kuriger were part of, but I wasn’t obviously. So I wasn’t part of the select committee either.

💬 Hon Member: They missed out.

Yes, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and I’m still not part of that but absolutely support the work that they’re doing—amazing mahi they’re doing—so thank you for that. Also just to thank, I think, the 11 submitters that did submit on this bill. So while I wasn’t on that select committee, my understanding is that this bill looks to strengthen the regulation-making powers, as has been said before, in the Gas Act, provide and enhance information disclosure requirements for the gas market, and ensure that settings around enforcement and penalties are suitable and strong.

I read about, and was obviously affected by, the outage in 2019 at Pohokura gasfield, which I believe holds up to about 40 percent of our natural gas supply, and they were prolonged and actually coincided with other gas outages and gasfields at that time. And also during that really dry time as well. We know that this led then to record natural gas spot market and wholesale prices, which emphasises the need to regulate settings regarding disclosure of important information to the market. So—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: The member and her Government are making it go away and now they want to measure it.

Oh, OK. I don’t know if I’ll take that into consideration, Barbara Kuriger, but thank you for another couple of seconds. So we did hear from those 11 submitters and also acknowledge that there were some concerns by some of the industry, and that was around they felt that the regulation-making powers went beyond what was required and were heavy-handed—I believe was the language used at that time. And while we hear those concerns, we also believe that this legislative regime is set up appropriately to consider non-regulatory options before we impose any further regulatory options. And we again go back to the fact that we need to have the powers to make sure that we don’t have another episode like 2019.

Some of the other submitters, though, were for this bill; for example, Mercury, who were in strong support for this bill. They said “In the absence of one or more significant upstream exploration discoveries, natural gas in New Zealand will become increasingly scarce over the next decade. As identified by the Interim Climate Change Committee [at the time], these remaining gas reserves are critical if we are to become a low carbon economy as it is the most efficient bridging fuel available to support the electrification of transport and process heat.”

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Now, that’s true.

Oh good, so that is correct! And that is from Mercury. And they also go on to say, “Natural gas may be required further out than this in the absence of a alternative solution to New Zealand’s electricity dry year risk”. And again going back to the outage in 2019, that’s what we are trying to avoid. So really good to be able to have Mercury support that also.

We also, just quickly, had Transpower—and this isn’t as long—that also agreed with the amendments to the regulation-making powers. They say that it was “necessary for gas governance on matters that may have a significant downstream impact on, or may contribute to, the risk of critical gas shortage.”, which we know that there is. And they supported the regulatory-making powers of disclosure for production and shortage outage proposed in clause 9(3), inserting new section 43F(2)(e), which is “providing, in relation to wholesale or any other markets for gas, for arrangements relating to outages and other security of supply risks, including imposing requirements in connection with those matters on any industry participant or consumer (other than a domestic consumer.” Then the market information proposed in new section 43F(2)(f): “providing for the provision and disclosure of data and information by any industry participant or consumer (other than domestic consumer).”

So again, that brings me back to why this bill is so important and also the amendments in that Gas Act which will ensure the regulatory requirements and ensure that transparency and that disclosure of information is strong and is right.

💬 Hon Member: Really important.

Absolutely. And this bill also made some changes to the Gas Act’s penalty charges. So it took it, from my understanding, from $20,000 to $200,000, and hopefully that will act as a real preventative. In that, the penalty regime for the industry participants increasing the maximum civil pecuniary penalty able to be imposed by the Gas Rulings Panel for breaches of gas governance regulations—and again, like I said, it’s from $20,000 going to $200,000.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Why is the Government filibustering its own legislation?

Oh, look, I’m not just filibustering, because it’s been good to be able to have your input as well, Barbara Kuriger, but it is important. We know that there’s a limit—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: Is there not enough work?

Well, look, I know a little bit about gas. This is what I do know. [Interruption] Well, I’ve got children, that’s the first thing. But, secondly—

💬 Simon Court: There’s gas in Ōtaki.

Well, when I was in England actually, Simon Court—when I was in England that was the first time I ever cooked with gas.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

Yes, yes it was. I can’t say that I was a fan straight away. It took me a little while to get used to it, but I understand now the need for it.

💬 Hon Member: It’s the best.

Well, yes, but I also understand the limitations now that we have. We are not just going to be going—you know, just—

💬 Simon Court: Simply the best—better than all the rest.

I think—was it 2006 the last time that gas was discovered, Simon Court? So, you know, we have to be, I guess, tapu or scarce with our use of gas and how we’re using it. And it’s also making sure that we regulate that market too, to make sure that again when things like 2019 happened—that there are penalties around that and that they can’t hold on to the gas that is so scarce already. So that’s part of the purpose of this, Simon Court.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: They’re sharing it right now.

Oh, am I?

💬 Barbara Kuriger: To keep the lights on.

That’s right. It’s about keeping the lights on, I know. And we’re going to—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: They’re sharing it right now with this Government to keep the lights on.

Well, listen, the Government’s doing more than keeping the lights on for New Zealanders. It’s making sure that New Zealanders are able to keep their lights on by increasing benefits so people have enough money to pay for the lights on, and also this Government has also introduced winter energy payments so we’re able to afford to run our gas heater if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford one and you’re also able to make sure that you can pay the power bill if you’re able to, if you are on the benefit now, because of this Government with its winter energy payment. So yes, Barbara Kuriger, this Government is definitely helping New Zealanders to keep the lights on and it’s also making sure that it’s fair and that we don’t have another episode like 2019 and we’re making sure that we regulate the information that goes out and we make sure that we take care of the little gas that we’ve already got while we also take care of the rest of New Zealand. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and it’s my pleasure to speak on this bill, the Gas (Information Disclosure and Penalties) Amendment Bill. I have to confess I haven’t been on the select committee which has dealt with this bill, but, like all New Zealanders, I’m deeply concerned about the effective running of the gas industry, which, of course, has been thrown into chaos by this Government’s hasty oil and gas ban. Apparently, New Zealand is so rich—so rich—that we don’t need to look for oil and gas, and that comes as a surprise to people. There’s only two countries in the world that we’ve been able to find who think they are so rich that they don’t need to look for oil and gas. It’s us and one other place. I wonder whether people would know where the other country would be that is so—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: France.

France. France is the one. But of course, the French have nuclear energy and a pipeline from Russia. But everybody else think it’s a reasonable idea to look for some stuff in order to get around, but we are so rich that we don’t need to.

Having said all that, the direct genesis of this bill was in relation to the Pohokura outage in 2018. That, as people who are tuning into this debate on their wirelesses back home will remember, was an outage of that oil rig in particular, which led to a shortage of gas supply and high electricity spot-market prices in 2018. There were complaints made at that time to the Electricity Authority, the regulatory body, which raised concerns about whether gas supply outages were being fully disclosed to the market. As a result of that, a policy decision was made by the Government—and we broadly supported it—to put out a discussion document across the sector to get an opinion about whether further transparency, information transparency, was required. That’s what this bill seeks to do: to strengthen the regulation-making powers in the Act to provide for enhanced information disclosure.

Now, so far so good. That sounds all very well and good. We should do that. But then I asked—and we broadly support this bill, but there is widespread concern, however, across the sector about what is becoming very much the fashion within this Government. That is to say they come up with a bill which gives it the power to make regulations requiring all sorts of information in a particular industry, and when they pass their bills, they always give themselves plenty of opportunity to pass plenty of regulations. So they go broad, and the result of that is to give themselves every bit of room that they need to make whatever regulations they feel that they need to.

The problem with that is that the people who are trying to make a living in the sector look at that and say, “Oh, well, we don’t know what’s coming down the road next, and will this Government abuse that power?” They look across to Megan Woods. They look at Megan Woods, and they look at Kelvin Davis, and they think of Phil Twyford, and they look at Jacinda Ardern, and they think about the possibility of another UN speech coming up, and they worry—and they worry. They think of Judith Collins and—not Judith Collins. They think of Jacinda Ardern, and they think of a UN speech coming up, and they’re worried that she might do something else that will have a massive impact on their livelihood and their ability to make a living and create jobs and provide for their families and for the communities’ families.

That uncertainty, unfortunately, has been one of the things that this Government has introduced into our economy in a shocking way over the past few years, because who can make the capital or is going to be likely to make the capital investment that we need to grow our economy and to become more productive if we don’t know what’s coming down the track, if Megan Woods decides one day that she’s just going to impose a ban on your particular industry or that she’s going to require a whole lot more information—commercially sensitive information, potentially—to be disclosed? So it’s that uncertainty that fills the minds of many with dread.

We’ve seen another example of that. I was in the select committee yesterday on education. I’ll diverge very briefly from the topic, around early education, where, again, this Government has come in, in the dead of night, introducing urgent legislation, changing that sector dramatically, and the consequence of all that is that anybody investing in any sort of business in this country feels unnerved and wonders who’s going to be next to feel the cold, dark hand of this Government on their shoulder—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Dark, hairy hand.

—dark, hairy, cold hand on their shoulder—in the middle of the night, imposing new regulations and new requirements, or telling them that they don’t like their business, and they don’t like it. Fundamentally, what we’ve just had in the last month is a Budget—a big-spending Budget, one of the biggest-spending Budgets in the history of this country. Nothing about—[Interruption] oh, and they applaud.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order!

Well, why not? I mean, it takes enormous skill. It takes enormous skill—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will resume his seat. Thank you. This is the second reading speech. I’ll ask the member to come back to the bill.

Indeed, and it takes enormous skill to spend money wisely.

Anyway, so I looked for the regulatory impact statement on this bill, and it’s an interesting one. When you introduce legislation that imposes new regulations on particular industries, one of the disciplines that, thankfully, this Government has retained from the previous Government is that it’s supposed to go through a regulatory impact statement. So one of the basic sort of questions was: was there a regulatory impact statement to inform decisions around this bill? And the good news is there was. The second question is: if so, did the regulatory impact assessment team in the Treasury provide an independent opinion on the quality of that regulatory impact statement? The answer to that was no. No, they didn’t.

Then they said that the regulatory impact statement identified above did not meet the threshold for receiving an independent opinion—it wasn’t anywhere substantial enough. And has any further analysis been offered for this bill? All we’ve seen is just another example of the Government coming in, putting out a discussion document, getting feedback from the stakeholders, they say “Yes, we agree that there should be some more information being made available.”, and they develop a voluntary code and it happens. All the information is being made available, but the Government decides they need to legislate anyway on top of that, and then they come in with very broad legislation which leaves that uncertainty within the broader sector about what’s coming next and how will their shoulder be tapped, in what way, for new information.

The only point of reference that I make to the previous decision around the banning of oil and gas explanation is the link between the two is this bald assertion that we’re so rich that we don’t need to look for oil and gas, and somehow we’re going to make a living in this country and we’re going to maintain the high living standards that we all aspire to in order to provide for our families, but every few months we’ll just chop off another limb of our economy, and everything will be fine. So oil and gas goes because we don’t really like that. International education goes because we don’t like that. We don’t really like the farmers, so we’ll give them the bum’s rush. We don’t like mining, so we’ll do that. And somehow—somehow—we’re going to still continue to make the living that we make.

So it’s the cavalier way in which the Government chops off arms of our economy that worries us, but, secondly, it’s the capricious way in which they make their decision making and announce it on the basis of no independent analysis. It’s that uncertainty around decision making that has that inhibiting effect on investment, because, ultimately, how do we make the economy more productive? It comes back to private sector investment as one of the great drivers of productivity increases. You only get improved productivity if people are prepared to invest, but who would feel confident to invest in a sector like this when, at any given moment, Megan Woods can hove into view and bring new regulation into place and change the rules and pull the carpet out from underneath you? That concern is what we’re worried about, and I can very much sympathise with the industry on that score.

But I’m conscious that time is racing by, and I haven’t had a chance to deal with some of the specifics in this electorate, but I will when I get a chance. One of the elements that I do want to draw attention to—oh dear, I’ve run out of time.

This afternoon, we’ve heard many things on this bill that I did not expect to hear. This is the bill on gas information disclosure and penalties and we’re going to talk about what we’ve heard in this House but I’m only going to talk about the points that are related to this bill.

Could I say to the members opposite that they need to wake up and smell the roses because—do they know what—when we asked for submission on this bill, guess what? The major drivers in our economy—one of the biggest companies in our economy: Mercury—expressed strong support. Todd Energy and Nova Energy support amending the Gas Act of 1992. Vector generally agrees with the information disclosure and penalty provisions of the bill. There’s more: Firstgas Group endorses the information disclosure provisions of the bill. Haast Energy Trading overall supports the information disclosure. Transpower, emsTradepoint, Major Gas Users Group, Gas Industry Company, and Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand accept and support the overall direction of this bill. These are major players in our gas sector and they support this bill. Do you know what? This Government on this side of the House has worked hard to support the market. They’ve worked hard to build the infrastructure of this market so that the market can be the market—i.e., that it can actually run smoothly so that a market economy can happen and that we can actually compensate when failures happen in a market.

What happened in the market was the market did fail. We had an outage in 2018. We had an outage where people were left in the dark and the cold. There were companies that couldn’t actually operate. There was a huge cost on our economy. Those were significant failures of the market and what this bill is able to do is support the market so that the market can continue to function the way that it was designed, that way that it was supposed to. When markets fail, it costs the economy and let me tell the House that that cost was $2 million a day—$2 million a day of cost to the market, to the economy. Look, when we are talking we need to recover from COVID, when we need to grow the economy, we’ve got to stop avoiding costs like this to the economy, right? Two million dollars a day—that’s a huge cost and, not only that, but it actually puts other industries at risk. It’s not just about the energy sector but all we know that the energy sector is interconnected with all aspects of our community. We know that our health sector relies on it; our transport sector relies on it; our elderly in their homes, our children in their homes all rely on it. So that’s why we owe it to the people of New Zealand to have a properly regulated gas market so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of having clean energy, to make sure that we actually provide the amount of energy that is needed.

Today, I really was looking into this bill and I’ve really learnt another lesson in market economy. We all know that in a market there’s a supply and a demand side. In the supply side of the gas market, it’s the changes in our natural gas supply level and then, obviously, you have to peg that against the different changes in our export and import as well, but also our storage levels as well. When the storage level gets low and when the demand gets high, the fact is that affects our demand side of our gas market here in New Zealand—the economic growth, and we’ve all seen that in New Zealand; even in a post-COVID climate we’ve seen economic growth getting better. The weather—so when we have a dry year, and right now we’re seeing that there has been a drier than average period that we are going through right now, and also the cost of competing fuels and we’re seeing that with fossil fuels as well.

So we’re seeing that the market has to readjust and the market has to go—I remembered today during the debate, my colleague here, Glen Bennett, member for New Plymouth, has told us that the industry chases the money. That’s something we’ve heard in this debate and that is exactly what happens. The market chases the money and so when Government doesn’t provide the right infrastructure for the market, they just go to wherever the money is. But we know that doesn’t always work for everyone. It doesn’t work for the country of New Zealand, so we need to make sure that there is a regulation in place to make sure that this market is actually running smoothly.

We know that 26.5 percent of gas is used to generate electricity in our country so this has a follow-on effect, almost like a supply chain within our economy and within our energy market, where gas and the level of natural gas we have in the country actually affects our energy and our electricity prices. As this Government—and I want to recognise the Hon Julie Anne Genter here, who had a brilliant speech in this House this afternoon talking about the importance of waking up and smelling the roses in terms of the emergency we’re in in terms of our climate, in terms of the importance of looking after our natural resources—the importance that we need to have a just and an equitable transition into the economy or into our industry that’s based on clean energy, based on electricity. But we know here that gas is a very, very important fundamental crux to that—

💬 Barbara Kuriger: So why ban it?

So we need to make sure that the gas that we have in this country actually supports the electricity ambitions that we have for this country.

💬 Barbara Kuriger: So fundamental the Government’s banned it.

Can I just put on record that we are still right now looking at gas at the moment. We just have to go to the electorate of my colleague here—Angela Roberts, right—and we can see that the farmers in Tikorangi are still looking at gas and we know that we are still looking at the fission and the right mix within our economy, at how our energy should be supplied. So it’s very important, I think, that we find the right balance. We need to make sure that we look after this nation, the land that we stand on, the globe in terms of our carbon emissions, in terms of our clean energy. But at the same time we need to make sure that that transition to clean, green energy is just. And this is why we are passing through bills like this. It is to make sure that our infrastructure for our gas market is the right one. It’s to make sure that people actually disclose their supply levels to that we can actually plan ahead, and planning ahead and information, symmetrical information, is so important.

I feel like I’m going back to my economic study days where these things are the fundamentals of our economy—of the study of economics, where we have to look at the symmetrical information when the market fails; when we as a Government have to intervene to make sure the information is right, and make sure that we actually make good decisions for the future, that we can actually futureproof our energy sector to make sure that we are able to actually for outages to back up our electricity supply, to make sure that there won’t be increased price spikes, to make sure that we won’t have sudden $2 million a day losses in our economy because, God knows, that that is so absolutely detrimental to this economy if it ever happens, especially during a post-COVID phase.

I’m proud to endorse the new penalties that we have in this bill as well, that were mentioned during our select committee stage, increasing the $20,000 penalty into a $200k penalty as well so that we can actually regulate a market which largely burns the other players in a market, rather than criminal penalties that we had in the past.

We also looked at information disclosure and we note that there has been concerns about information and how it might be something that’s commercially sensitive. So we want to make sure that the market—the infrastructure is right for the market so they can actually disclosure feeling assured that this is for the benefit of all New Zealanders to make sure that all New Zealanders get the power supply to get the energy levels supply that they need, that they deserve to keep their good living standards here in this nation. I would also love to thank not only the Hon Megan Woods for actually introducing this bill into the House but also my colleagues on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and our great chair, Jamie Strange, who actually had to reopen submissions this side of the election just to make sure that we’ve captured every single voice out there and we did. [Interruption] That’s right. And obviously my good colleague here, Glen Bennett, and I see the members opposite, Barbara Kuriger and Melissa Lee—I think we’ve done great work on this bill and I commend it to the House.