Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon SHANE JONES: I move, That the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Why is this bill needed? To overcome the most dismal, destructive decision visited upon the energy landscape of New Zealand, when the gangrene tag team decided to cancel the oil and gas industry in New Zealand. Not only did they destroy—destroy—the appetite of the investment community to back our country and use indigenous resources; no, they went on a foolish flight into the future, thinking that everything would be devoid of emissions. And here we are, importing Indonesian coal as a consequence of the gangrene tag team. Make no mistake about that.

Of course, we need natural gas. It not only represents a fast track—on the point of fast track, wait! There is more good news. There will be a host of energy projects, there will be a host of mineral projects—but I must not be diverted. Electricity generation cannot rely solely on geothermal, hydro—shall I say—wind and solar. Therefore, we need a renewable resource, and we have acres of it, hectares of it, miles of it—indeed, off the coast of the South Island. We will now reopen, with the passage of this bill, the opportunities that were denied the industry, to maintain energy security through further exploration, extraction, and development of this rare but valuable indigenous resource.

Our gas fields have been in decline, driven down by the ban decision, at which point, investors, explorers, and those companies who had grown to love New Zealand were given the cold shoulder by that regime, by that Prime Minister with that vanity-seeking decision which will go down as the worst decision ever visited upon New Zealand’s energy policy environment. Let me mention no firm beyond Winstone Pulp International—closing down because of escalating energy costs, because we do not have the necessary mix of indigenous sources for energy. We are going to open them up, we are going to exploit them, and we’re not going to be guilt-tripped by these fanciful accounts that the planet is boiling. We are lifting well beyond our weight as New Zealanders, not only in creating food but showing that technology and common sense will maintain the quality of life highly sought after by millions of others who seek to come here. We need communities that are strengthened by having access to energy that is reliable and secure. We cannot throw our lot purely on renewable resources that suffer intermittency, and we need to move beyond Indonesian coal.

It is a tragedy that because the gangrene duo destroyed the gas industry, now we have worsened our current account deficit, bringing in Indonesian coal—that will transition to something better, otherwise known as New Zealand - based gas. Not only will we get rid of this wretched ban offshore in Taranaki, it will send a signal to the rest of the world that this Government is open for business. This Government knows that a transition must take place, but what fool leaps out of an aeroplane believing that they’re going into a new transition without a parachute? A fool dressed in green—that’s who does that.

Now, since the ban was announced, we’ve watched a dwarf-like condition emerge in our natural resources sector—from 88,000 square kilometres to just over 8,000 in terms of permitted exploration. The reversal of this foolish, dangerous, juvenile, puerile pursuit of climate purity will be reversed and we will now find ourselves in the clover-rich territory of many applications to develop our petroleum resource.

Beyond seeking further applications for petroleum exploration, we will also have a very efficient process for allocating those permits. This will be called the block offer, and it will be defined, like this Government, through the feature of common sense and pragmatism. There will be alternative permit allocation systems.

There has been, sadly, the development of misinformation around decommissioning. For the benefit of the House and the thronging number of people watching this speech, I can assure you that the regime that’s been in put in place, sir, to deal with decommissioning is not only based on a clear understanding that we must manage the risks in such a fashion that the regulations that are put in place are proportionate to the risk. No more of this business of understating costs and overstating risks.

From time to time, this industry, sadly, has been misrepresented. We all know of, and we’ve learnt some valuable lessons in terms from, the Tamarind imbroglio, but we cannot burden the investment community with such stringent regulations that they no longer are willing to invest in our country. Therefore, there will be flexibility in how mandatory financial instruments are held. There will be a limited trailing liability. By that, I mean there will be the ability for the State, in the event that a very ugly occurrence takes place, to hold people responsible. We will ensure that our decommissioning strategies, our decommissioning practices, are commensurate with other jurisdictions, something that was, sadly, ignored and abandoned by the last regime.

I cannot overstate how dire our energy situation is in New Zealand. Look no further than the other side of the House for the ruination of energy policy, energy security. [Points towards Green Party members] Look no further than that small portion of the House for the destruction of confidence and certainty, thus leading to a chilling effect within the community willing to invest in New Zealand.

This bill means that capital will be freed up. In addition to that, as “King Coal” of the mining industry, it’s my pleasure to announce we will have the most permissive regime in the entirety of Australasia for tier 3 minerals. These are relatively risk-free mineral activities, and we want to free these investors, we want to free these fossickers, we want to free these people who are actually going to develop jobs, develop industry in mineral rich areas from the unnecessary dead-weight hand of the bureaucracy, other than the light touch that may, from time to time, be required.

Now, there may be things said about the emissions impact. It’s important that we act with credibility towards our net zero 2050 goals. That is why gas is necessary. It is a far less harmful, emissions-wise, fuel to use than the coal which we currently have. To all the coal owners of New Zealand: I still have your back. Emissions from energy generation are more manageable when we rely on gas.

Once this bill is passed, the changes will take effect immediately. There will be, however, challenges in terms of staging the implementation—secondary legislation, otherwise known as regulation. When we get to the committee of the whole House stage, there will be a few refinements made and, at that point, New Zealand will see the full value of a pragmatic approach to energy security and the sector.

I want to acknowledge the efforts of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. I look forward to seeing the amended Crown Minerals Act serve New Zealanders now and into the future. I commend this bill to the House.

There were 5,524 written submissions, and of those, 96 percent opposed this bill—96 percent opposed this bill in that short, truncated time that was allowed to be through select committee. This bill does nothing for the future of New Zealand. This does nothing to build solutions for our energy future. It takes us backwards; it slows us down. It slows down the innovation into clean and new energy industries.

Now, as the Minister was speaking, I was looking up the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee report, and his own officials said this in response or regards to the fact that the 2018 decision was the end of the world and everything we put from there, and the gas industry left—and it’s just nonsense; it’s completely wrong. This is what the Government officials, his officials, said: “Exploration activity in New Zealand has been declining since 2014, before the 2018 ban on new petroleum exploration outside onshore Taranaki. This has been consistent with global trends in upstream oil and gas investment, which peaked in 2014.” This whole narrative of the fact that 2018 was the end of the energy industry is completely false, and that Minister is completely false when he states that, because his own officials, his own officials in select committee, told us that 2014 was the peak and the beginning of the decline.

Again, looking in Taranaki particularly, in terms of our last big major gas discovery, the year 2000—so that’s 24 years ago; 2014 was the major—

David MacLeod: This year.

GLEN BENNETT: Those large ones, as I say, the large major ones, the year 2000.

David MacLeod: This year—Greymouth.

GLEN BENNETT: Oh, so they’re finding them. The New Plymouth member just said this year they’ve found more. We don’t need this bill then, right? We don’t need to bother with this, because it’s already happening. The reality is that we did not ban offshore. We did not ban offshore; we stopped issuing new permits, Mr MacLeod, as you would know.

Hon Member: You’re from New Plymouth.

GLEN BENNETT: They were able to have new discoveries, which they did, so you don’t need this. And yes, I live in New Plymouth, as I said.

Carl Bates: Who’s the MP for New Plymouth? Oh, Mr MacLeod. Just checking the MP for New Plymouth.

GLEN BENNETT: Yes, and? So the reality is—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I would encourage members not to have conversations across the House.

GLEN BENNETT: Thank you. The reality is that the 2018 decision meant that permits continued, and as Mr McLeod said, there was a new discovery—the largest one was 24 years ago in the year 2000. When the Minister talks about the disarray and the appetite for new investments, as he mentioned, that’s just not going to happen, because we look at the evidence from the Government officials—that 2014 was the last time it was done.

As we go through and look at this piece of legislation, as I said, there were more than 5,000 written submissions, and we vehemently oppose this because this actually slows down innovation. This slows down our decarbonisation because the line in the sand of 2018 was around encouraging—

David MacLeod: Coal.

GLEN BENNETT: —no, that’s not true—investment in innovation; to look at decarbonising. And yet nothing changed in 2018. There were no new ones waiting to come on board, as people try to say; there were other reasons for what happened there. We look back at this and we just see it as a backwards step. We look at tonight in the House, when we look at our agricultural climate emissions obligations that just went through second reading, when we look at the Fast-track Approvals Bill, which, again, is a backward step for our environment, is a backward step for our climate. This is what this Government is on about and what they are doing, and it makes absolutely no sense, because we need to have a line in the sand. If we don’t, then we’re just going to keep doing what we’ve always done and we’re going to continue to pillage the land and our climate.

Now, we look at the impacts that have taken place in terms of what it means—what are the mitigating factors that are going to be put in place—when this bill becomes law. What are their decisions to make sure they meet their obligations in terms of international reputation? This has the potential to have impact on trade. Just today, I met with executives from Microsoft who talked about investment in New Zealand. A key reason for them looking at some options here is around our renewable energy, the fact that they can be in a place where their product is using renewable energy. So, to bring this back and just to flip things around, it makes no sense from an economic perspective, let alone from the fact around climate and our environment. This is just not good law. This is a step backwards. This is offering no solutions. It’s terrible and we will not be supporting this.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is the night of climate change denial in the House tonight. We have gone from the biggest emitting sector, agriculture, and here we come to this next biggest emitting sector, energy. Energy is an interesting one in New Zealand, because we have this phenomenal renewable energy generation in our country: electricity. Electricity accounts for only a fraction of our emissions. Most of our emissions in the energy sector are actually from burning coal and gas, from heat generation, and from transport. We are unique in the world because we have such a phenomenal renewable electricity capability, and our big emissions are coming from our dependence on fossil: on oil for moving vehicles around, on burning coal for dehydrating milk powder, and on burning coal for producing steel.

David MacLeod: Electricity?

STEVE ABEL: But the opportunity—electricity is a fraction—

David MacLeod: Coal?

STEVE ABEL: —of our greenhouse gas emissions, and some of it comes from coal and some of it comes from gas.

Now, the Green Party, you’ll be surprised to hear across the House, supports that nuclear energy, that massive hydrogen nuclear energy super generator in the sky called the sun. It’s amazing that that produces trillions of gigawatts of electricity—of energy, I should say—every instant it hits the Earth. If only we had a way to capture that energy! If only we had a way to capture that energy—we do have a way to capture that energy!

Instead of looking to the sky, where this magnificent orb of energy is offering us a free source of fuel for future generations and for present generations, these “fossils” are digging in the ground. They’re looking down in the ground for the gas and the coal and the oil, those old dirty fuels that we know we need to get off our dependency on if we are to have a livable planet. They are not looking to the future. They are not looking to the sources of energy that can power our society without causing catastrophic climate change. They are undoing the important steps that were taken by this House to move us away from that dependency on fossil fuels, in the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. They are undoing that and they’re going to bring back the big fossil fuel explorers, in the hope that they might find some skerrick of gas or oil.

The Minister talks about how gas is a cleaner option than coal, at the same time as the Minister intends to increase extraction of coal. So what’s the point? It turns out, actually, the Minister is incorrect on that. Gas, when you take into account the fugitive emissions, is actually a worse greenhouse gas polluter than coal.

David MacLeod: So you want more coal?

STEVE ABEL: We do not. They want more coal. They want more coal, they want more gas, they want more oil. What is more, that dependency on those fossil fuels costs us, because, as the member alongside me pointed out, gas was in significant decline, actually, before the ban came into place. Gas production peaked in 2001, and it’s been steadily falling since 2014. Gas companies have made strenuous efforts to find new extractable gas, sinking over a billion dollars in development drilling between 2020 and 2024 with scant results—scant results.

This is not the means for us to achieve energy security in this country. The means is for us to massively increase that renewable generation, to get off our dependency on fossil, gas, coal, and oil for transporting our society. It is absolutely specious and spurious and incorrect when they say that somehow the reason we have energy challenges is because of a lack of gas. It is because of a lack of the ability of this Government to imagine a world without those fossil fuel dependencies and to actually invest in those sources of energy that are native, that we control and we own: the wind, the sun.

David MacLeod: They’re on fast track, Steve.

STEVE ABEL: The fast track will open up coalmines. The fast track is going to do seabed mining that’s going to destroy the seabed. The fast track is going to be doing all of the things that increase our emissions. It’s an everything soup. It’s a total mess. It is not a plan for dealing with the challenges of climate change. It’s the coal-ition Government, it’s the oil-and-gas Government, and it is a Government that is in denial of that challenge of climate change.

The reason that we have had such overwhelming submissions on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, on which I had the pleasure to sit against this legislation, is because it takes us so far backwards. It even goes against the advice of the International Energy Agency that gas production needs to stop from 2021. We needed to stop extracting and investing in new oil and gas exploration in 2021.

Suze Redmayne: It’s either gas or nuclear—what do you want?

STEVE ABEL: The hydrogen nuclear reactor in the sky called the sun is what we need, and we need to be doing solar and wind and geothermal and using the existing hydro, and that is the means we do it by.

Once again, this Government is prepared to put the cost of its failure to deal with climate change on future generations, a cost that, in the simplest terms, if we are to import carbon credits for our emissions, could be around $23 billion by 2030—$23 billion. That is the cost of this sort of unimaginative, backwards-thinking legislation. All these guys can do is undo the progress. All they can do is go back and retreat to the old fossil fuels, which have no future. Gas is a finite resource. One of the messages of the fact that the industry hasn’t been able to find any gas is that it’s running out. In the ground, it’s running out. The easy-to-access gas has been accessed, and so why would you go searching for a finite source of fuel to supply as power for your society when there is an infinite source of fuel in the form of sunlight, in the form of wind, in the form of rain falling from the sky? Those are the obvious sources of fuel to power our society.

What is more, if we are to deal with the existential challenge of catastrophic climate change, that is exactly where we need to move our society towards: away from our dependency on fossil fuels. That is the challenge that this Government, in its denial of climate change, is failing to grapple with. Saying you believe in climate change and then doing all the things that make the problem worse has the same effect as denying climate change in the first place. That is what this Government is doing. It is, effectively, denial by inaction—or, in fact, denial by making the problem worse, by opening up oil and gas fields, by digging up coalmines, by failing to actually seize the nettle and do what we on a planetary scale need to do if we’re going to avoid those extreme weather events, avoid those droughts and those worst effects of climate change.

We will not be supporting this. What is more, when there is a change of Government, insofar as it is a Green-influenced Government, we will be bringing back the ban on oil and gas exploration. We will be bringing it back, and I just want to put the industry on notice—as we did at the earlier reading—there will be no compensation for the loss of the permits that are issued by this Luxon Government, under a Green Government. We’re telling the industry now.

David MacLeod: Terrible.

STEVE ABEL: And you know why there’ll be no compensation, the gentleman from New Plymouth? Because of the consequences of climate change. Climate change is the biggest threat to human life and human wellbeing on this planet this century, and what is the compensation for the people who get washed away in those extreme weather events? What is the compensation? We will not be compensating those industries that are driving our planet to catastrophe. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity. I’m taking this call on behalf of ACT, and we are supporting this bill, the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, in the second reading. We are actually quite proud to see that we are delivering on our commitment—an election promise that we made. This is part of the ACT-National coalition agreement that is being fulfilled through this legislation, and I want to acknowledge the Minister in charge, the Hon Shane Jones, for his work on the bill.

As this is the second reading, before I talk about the select committee process, I would like to just say that the Green member Steve Abel, as he concluded his speech, the way he said that they are quite determined to bring the ban back if they ever come back in Government, that just shows they don’t understand how to support the economy. They don’t understand how to give that confidence to investors.

There are several reasons why we should be actually supporting this bill, and there is still opportunity for those members to reconsider their position. What I understand is that, yes, they want to stick to their impractical, ideological agenda—because it will be really embarrassing now for them to change their position—but there is still opportunity, because, if they decide to support this bill, they might get more thumbs up than they would if they stick to their impractical, ideological agenda. That’s something for those members to consider.

I was actually quite amused to see the way members said that they actually support sun. Thank God they support sun. Thank God they didn’t oppose sun. What would have happened if they opposed sun? I would like to say to that member that oil and gas is also formed through natural geological processes. If those members support nature, oil and gas is also natural, so we need to support that.

In the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, I must say that I want to thank all the members, those who are regular members; and also all the members, those who subbed on the committee. I especially want to thank the select committee staff because we heard from 104 submitters and the select committee staff did an amazing job of supporting the select committee members to do what we are required to do.

As it happens in all select committee processes, we do get form submissions, and in this case also we did get some form submissions: 11.6 percent of submissions were form submissions—there were a few variants of form submissions—and this percentage excludes those form submissions which look like form submissions but there was a bit of doubt. The select committee also took the initiative of inviting key stakeholders. So the process was quite thorough and I’m really proud of the select committee process.

This bill must pass. It’s very important because we cannot continue to see our young ones and our bright ones leaving New Zealand looking for better opportunities. It started happening because of poor decisions made by the previous Labour Government. This bill is not just about oil and gas exploration per se. Yes, it is, but it is also about the creation of more jobs, higher-paying jobs. This is also about making sure that the energy supply is secure and affordable.

On one side, it is to support the economy; on the other side, it is to reduce the cost of living, because if the energy cost goes up, obviously the overall cost of living for people will go up. Making big announcements to grab international headlines doesn’t feed families. Those headlines, which the previous Labour Government made—and, actually, announcements were made to grab those international headlines—don’t feed families, they don’t warm people’s cold houses, and they don’t give any assurance to businesses that they will not have to stop their processes because of lack of energy.

On this side, we are quite committed to ensuring we have a balanced approach. We have a long-term vision, not short-sighted like them that stifled our economy. We are really proud of this and we want to see that this bill goes through the House as soon as possible. I am very happy to support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an honour to speak at the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. During the select committee, there was quite a bit of really interesting information from officials and from those who submitted on this bill. One piece of information that I found very fascinating—and I had to ask again, was this really true?—was that one of the assumptions that was made when the ban happened was that the area that was under consent would stay around the same and the rate of exploration, which had been trending down, as others have mentioned, would continue at that same rate. Imagine if the graph looked kind of like that at the time. They expected that to continue down, and that was one of the assumptions: that supply and demand would keep up. However, what happened was that it went like that, and supply dropped off a cliff and we saw demand stay the same. So that gap between supply and demand went through the roof.

That was why we saw the peak pricing go up over the past winter, when we had the driest hydrological year that we’ve had on record. We’ve had not as many sunshine hours and quite low wind speeds. That meant that our renewable energy wasn’t working so well, so the peaking prices had to be up. We did end up burning more coal, which was one of the unfortunate side effects. The International Energy Agency recommends that you switch from burning coal—as one of their recommendations for how we reduce our carbon footprint. They recommend going to gas—and they also recommend using nuclear. Nuclear is their biggest option, and nuclear power will be generating a record amount across the world in 2025. It’s not something that we can do here; however, we can have lots of options for renewable energy. In helping that transition, gas will be part of it. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, te Pīka. I stand on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to speak against this bill. Look, I think there’s not too many in the House equipped to be able to talk about this from the perspective of those who it actually affects the most, which is Taranaki. The amendments that are being proposed—and I need to preface my kōrero by saying there was a ban put in, and while Taranaki iwi supported that, there was always concerns that there wasn’t the follow-up with the degree of transition and investment that was needed to achieve that. I don’t want to stand here looking like I’m on either side. Actually, I’m speaking on behalf of the concerns of Taranaki. I substantiate that by looking at the concerns that they raised.

I think, first of all, what we need to remember is that we all seem to agree that we need to move away from what it is that we have now. Some think that we’ve got more time to milk mother Earth, and some think that a ban without sort of a great big futuristic plan is going to be enough. Last year, we got a little bit of hope when there was consultation and discussion with a cluster of energy people and interests within Taranaki. And we were hoping that that would be the phase B of the ban, that we would start looking at what could be a future-focused energy solution for Taranaki. The feedback that Ngā Iwi o Taranaki provided is that they were strongly opposed to the removal of the oil and gas ban. They strongly opposed the proposal to repeal section 58 of the Crown Minerals Act. They strongly opposed proposed changes enabling the prospective permit-holders to apply for permits outside of the block offer process, and the notion that consultation was not required, particularly for hobby mineral mining permits, and the interpretation that the Crown was now going to be applying to adequate engagement with iwi and hapū.

We can talk academically all we want, but the reality is there is only one area and one group of people most impacted by the decisions that the Government makes in Taranaki. When the iwi and the hapū who have more experience than anyone else in this room with this particular sector say that they have concerns, one would hope that these Governments would listen. What they’ve said is that we have absolutely nothing coming out providing a solution of what happens next in Taranaki when the finite source runs out, and that’s really concerning. What is the degree of investment that’s going to be followed through? When we look at some of the things that have changed, why is it that we have had iwi who were responsible for some of the best-practice engagement with these companies whom we’ve now relegated to absolutely no consultation, or the sense of inadequate consultation processes, or consultation processes as demonstrated by the Crown? There has been some real absolute advancement from Taranaki based on its misfortune of having more experience than anyone else.

I think some of the things that we sort of saw were the work that was undertaken for the energy strategy for Aotearoa, the gas transition plan, the critical minerals list—there was a clear difference between Crown-owned minerals being open for business and the risk of the appetite of the oil and gas sector, and therein lies the reconciliation that Taranaki is appealing for. It wasn’t to sit there and say, “Absolutely no.” It was to sit there and say that if we forced a ban, the proposition would have been that Governments would have been forced to have themselves and their agencies look at plan B. Sadly, as much as we talk about just transition, it wasn’t funded, it wasn’t resourced, and today Taranaki are expected to wear the flipflop of another Government. The decommissioning issues, the funding issues we have when companies don’t fund themselves to remove out of our backyard, and the absolute catastrophe that the opportunities that could be going on around our area are being ignored for same old status quo.

I want to make known that I’m disappointed in this particular Government, because there are some progressive people who should have experience and should know better. I’m hoping that, while this is going to go through, no doubt, there is a better approach to what the energy solution for Taranaki should be that includes iwi and hapū and the knowledge and experience that they have. Kia ora rā.

I’m truly astounded by the contents of this bill tonight, and I’m astounded by the crystal clear short-sightedness of it all. Because I ultimately believe that people are good, it makes me feel like this Government simply must not know. They must not understand the implications of actions like this, that actually are against and take us further away from a livable planet which we so desperately need. If this Government understood the science, if they understood the overwhelming, indisputable evidence that developing new oil and gas fields has repeatedly been found to be inconsistent with our 1.5 degree goals under the Paris Agreement, they would not be passing this bill. If they really knew and really grasped that we are the last remaining generation who can actually take action and have a chance at stemming the worst of climate disaster, they would not pass this bill.

Tonight, I invite this Government to step into the world, to really be present, because we are seeing in our face, day after day, climate disaster after climate disaster. I want to acknowledge particularly the harrowing climate impacts that we’ve seen in Valencia, Spain, where we’ve just seen the deadliest flash floods that they’ve had in Spain’s modern history. It’s killed at least 214 people, and, actually, dozens of people are still unaccounted for. Now, we saw the images of cars just floating their way down the street, and this was torrential rain that was the amount of an annual rainfall for Valencia, Spain, that fell in eight hours. This is happening around the world, it’s real, and we actually need to take action to change the fate of this planet, to change the physics and the atmospheric settings that are increasing these climate disasters.

I recall, in my time as a councillor on Environment Canterbury, the council went from not believing that it had a role in opposing oil and gas drilling off the Waitaha Canterbury coast—we went from that to actually outright opposing oil and gas drilling off the Waitaha Canterbury coast, and I’ll tell you why we did that. We did that because we actually listened to the community, we listened to the evidence, we listened to academics, to iwi Māori, who actually came in and talked us through the very real implications. Now, our whole council changed their position to actually support that.

Yet here we are with this bill, where the Government have all the evidence available to them and they’re simply not listening, not understanding, and not knowing. They’re passing a bill like this which is so damaging and so destructive when it comes to the public having such a limited say—the five days that they had—for such a significant bill that can have such significant impacts for Aotearoa. It doesn’t make environmental sense, it doesn’t make economic sense, and it’s actually really dangerous if this Government, as they claim, are serious about emissions reduction and they actually do want to honour our international climate commitment and play our part in creating a livable future.

I did want to point out one of the most extraordinary parts of this bill, and that’s the purported aim that this bill will increase investor confidence. Te Pāti Kākāriki really want to point out that we don’t want such damaging and risky activities happening here in Aotearoa, that no investors should have confidence when it’s companies and investments whose businesses will directly threaten not only our fragile ecosystems but a livable planet. We cannot have thriving economies if we don’t take serious climate action now. This bill goes against that, and Te Pāti Kākāriki oppose it outright. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to contribute to the second reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. This bill is about energy security, it’s about jobs and incomes, and it’s about ensuring our transition to a low-carbon future. As a member of the fantastic, hard-working select committee that considered this bill—

James Meager: What’s that one?

DAN BIDOIS: That’s the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee—a hard-working committee. I just wish to echo for the House today some of the key themes that we heard in select committee.

We heard that gas is an important part of our energy transition to a low-carbon future. In fact, I want to commend the submission from Genesis Energy, who submitted a really robust and thoughtful submission around this point in particular. We heard about the unintended consequences of the 2018 ban—that New Zealand became closed for business. I commend the Energy Resources Aotearoa submission, in particular from John Carnegie, who backed this point up quite steadfastly. We heard about the negative impact of this ban in 2018 on our emissions, and submission after submission that we heard actually proved the point that, because of the oil and gas ban, we actually imported more Indonesian coal. Because of that, this increased our emissions profile.

Now, I do just want to say a very special thankyou to the select committee and to the officials, because, as was pointed out, we didn’t have a lot of time to hear from submitters. Actually, we had five days. When this ban came into place, the Government at the time actually gave only 10 days, or two weeks, and we actually heard more submissions on this bill than the previous bill had in 2018. I must say, I was reading the report from 2018, which does inform us for this, and they raised a lot of the same concerns—that iwi weren’t consulted back in 2018. I actually just want to commend all those in the select committee for doing their due diligence and making sure that this bill was scrutinised in less time than the 2018 bill. We had actually more than double the submissions as a result.

This is an important bill to secure our future, to help secure our low-carbon future, and it is about jobs and incomes. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Speaker, thank you. It is occasionally a good idea for us to actually debate bills like this, because it’s very important that I correct the last speaker. I’m on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, and while I do think we’re a hard-working committee, when I was on that committee, we had a lot of submissions that we didn’t get to hear—a lot more than I was comfortable with. We didn’t get to hear them because this bill was absolutely rushed through, and we couldn’t get the clerks, even in the time that we did have, to be available to listen to people and to listen to their submissions.

Now, that really worries me. We rushed through a bill. We gave people some time—about 12 hours’ notice—that they were going to have to speak. They were rung and were told that we would be hearing them in the next few hours, and the submitters were upset about it. A lot of them cried. It was quite a hard process to listen to. They were overwhelmingly concerned that the Government was burying its head in the sand about climate change, and I share that concern tonight.

I’d like to start by talking about one of the little practical things that concerned me. I was very proud in the last Government that we dealt with the situation that had arisen in the case of the Tūī oil field. Tūī was a situation where the taxpayers, those hard-working New Zealanders, who we’re supposed to be so proud of giving and caring about their money and wasteful spending—well, those taxpayers forked out for a company that had, basically, taken all of the resource of the country and then left us high and dry, as taxpayers, with disintegrating pipes, and we had to make them right. Now, we had put in place a regime that meant that there would be security in that sort of situation so that it wouldn’t happen again. We’re taking that away tonight, and I’m extremely concerned that we’re doing that.

David MacLeod: What?

HELEN WHITE: Yes, sir, if you read the bill, you will find out that we are taking away the level of security that we had, because we made people pay money upfront and we made them responsible. There will be hard-working New Zealanders tonight who work really, really hard and who don’t earn that much who may well be responsible for and liable in the future for the make-do of the pipes that are at the present time already available but will actually be left in a state of disintegration because we have a very changing situation there, and I am extremely concerned about that.

Now, that’s one little thing. There’s a much bigger picture here, and it involves what we stand for in New Zealand and it involves what we have as a real peril in terms of our planet. There’s something called a carbon bomb, and if people want to look it up, just google it, and they will see that this is not an extremist position. It’s a worry that there is so much oil and gas out there at the moment that has already been discovered that if we exploit those fields, and if we don’t stop and we don’t actually limit it, we will produce so much carbon that we will double-impact the amount that we can possibly put out as a planet—just now, without exploring any more; just what we’ve got. If you look at it, there’s a really good article by The Guardian on it, and there are lots of other people talking about it. We have enough.

Yes, we have a transition issue, and I appreciate that that’s a really tough thing for us all, but it’s also tough if we actually end up in a situation where we heat the planet up and we end up with lots of things that we don’t even think about. Yes, we think about floods. We think about the deaths that result in flash floods, but do we think about things like the instability that this causes, the wars that it will cause, or the people who will have to move? Do we think about the starvation? Do we think about the real inhumanity of these choices?

It is not possible any more to just bury our heads in the sand. We are going to have to face this problem. Now, the good news is—and I’d like to talk about the good news because I was talking to a lot of very depressed submitters, actually—New Zealand can make an extremely good contribution, but it has to look forwards, not backwards. We have an incredible country, and we have incredible capacity. We have electricity. We are able to create the absolutely best source of electricity. We have wind, we have solar, and, not only that, we have geothermal—we have geothermal. We have untapped sources in geothermal. These are all good, sound sources.

Yes, if the fast track was directed in the right way—and it was: we had actually done that in the Government prior to this Government coming in; we had tried to target a fast track to those things—I would, yes, accept that there is an argument for fast track. But there isn’t an argument for allowing those very interests that have built up over time, because they’ve got these carbon bonds, they’ve got these ways of being, and letting them actually exploit situations and basically leaving it to the free market and letting these people do these things when we will all end up paying the price.

That’s the difference between this side of the House and your own, sir, because what is going on here?

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Please don’t refer to the Speaker.

HELEN WHITE: Sorry, sorry, sir. That is the difference between this side of the House and the current Government coalition. This side of the House understands that we need to build a future and that part of our role as government is to nurture that and to lead it. It’s called leadership. Actually, what is happening at the present time with the Government is not leadership. It is not leadership to suggest that multinationals who have got a vested interest in doing what they’ve always done, because they’re going to be dead by the time they do the damage. By the time that the chickens come home to roost, their generation will have amassed the wealth and will probably be able to protect their own families. That’s what is actually being allowed to happen. That is not leadership. That is not government in this country.

The Government has a duty to do a lot better than that, and the first thing it requires is taking away from the slogans, taking heads out of sand, away from slogans, doing a bit of research, and actually committing to a very different strategy for this country. That’s what we need. We need a much brighter and, I mean, a smarter future. We need a future where we are manufacturing onshore and using some renewable sources of electricity. We need a future that involves exploring our geothermal. What will happen as a result if we do that is we will be at the edge. We will be at the cutting edge because we have a whole lot of companies, a whole lot of new developing industries, that are looking for a place that has exactly that profile.

We heard the other day, when we had a cross-party session on AI—some of our biggest companies say they were attracted to coming to New Zealand because we are a country that is seen as having pure sources of electricity and energy, and there is no problem with industry if it is based on greener fuels. That’s what we need.

So what is going on? What happened in the select committee was I repeatedly asked about brand. I repeatedly asked for advice on whether there had been any analysis of the cost of this piece of legislation to the New Zealand brand, because there will be. There will be a cost. It is all very well doing a cost-benefit analysis and talking about that stuff, but do it well—do it well. Go out there and find out what the value of the pure brand of New Zealand is, because, next election, we’re coming at you with a much, much better version.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Please don’t include the Speaker in your observation.

HELEN WHITE: Sorry, sir. Next election we’re coming at the coalition Government with a strategy and an approach and a vision for New Zealand. And, actually, it is a vision that’s based on a sustainable future, sustainable electricity. In fact, it’s very interesting that the National Party want to go on continually about looking forwards when in fact they’re taking the country backwards. Often people will say—

Carl Bates: Back on track.

HELEN WHITE: Well, yes, it’s an interesting irony, isn’t it? I would ask, if I was a New Zealander, tonight: who is actually going to get New Zealand back on track? Who is going to bring them into the future? Do you know who it’s going to be? It’s not going to be a Government that passes this law.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. It was interesting listening to the previous speaker, Helen White, talking about security, because if there’s one thing we actually learnt when the world supply chain was, effectively, shut down during the global COVID disruption, it was that, as a country, we were incredibly exposed and vulnerable in regard to our supply chain. What we need most is security of supply of the things that we actually need. The grand announcement made by the previous administration ceasing the oil and gas exploration—all in a hurry to get a medal around their neck on the world stage—has led us to where we are now.

The previous speaker talked about the chickens coming home to roost. Well, the pigeons have come home to roost. Thanks to the previous administration, we now have an energy supply crisis. It wasn’t that long ago that we were actually struggling to keep the lights on, exposing our businesses and their ability to operate and to remain viable. We’ve seen the impacts recently around the country and I’ve heard from some businesses in my electorate, the Wairarapa electorate, of the impacts that it had on their viability. We’ve also exposed our most vulnerable and our elderly to high prices and supply shortages.

Why on earth didn’t the previous administration sit down with the energy sector, come up with a plan to transition to renewable energy at the same time as making sure that New Zealanders had a reliable, on-tap supply of energy at all times? It beggars belief. We now find ourselves in a position of vulnerability, a position where those that we need to invest in exploration have lost the confidence to invest. I would point out the demand’s not going down. Without gas, we’ll need to rely on higher-emitting sources of energy such as coal.

This bill will provide confidence. It will provide the ability to plan our transition to renewable energy. Natural gas is critical to our energy security, and it’s a viable and cost-effective source of energy until we become more renewable energy supply available while still remaining committed to net-zero 2050. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m going to take a very short call on this, because my colleagues on this side of the House, I think, have laid out very well how this is a regressive bill. It takes us backwards as a nation. I mean, there was legal advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the Minister for Resources to say that this move to repeal the ban that was put in place in 2018 on new offshore oil and gas explorations is likely to breach New Zealand’s obligations when it comes to free-trade agreements, particularly those with the EU and the UK, because those deals prohibit New Zealand from reducing environmental protections to encourage trade or investment, and that’s pretty much what this bill does.

In addition to that, as my colleague Helen White pointed out, this legislation will weaken the decommissioning regulations and rules that were put in place, again, as she mentioned, to prevent the Crown or the taxpayer from having to foot the bill for things like, for example, the Tūī oilfield clean-up, which was, from memory, about $440 million—that is being weakened. While they talk big on the other side about reducing costs for taxpayers, apparently this is quite all right in their books, even though new figures in the advice that was received by relevant Ministers indicate that the total decommissioning cost is approximately $2.5 billion. That’s about $2 billion of that going just to clean up four offshore oilfields and nearly $500 million for 21 onshore fields.

This is incredibly regressive. It’s a backwards step. It risks our international reputation for being clean and green, and, in addition to that, it basically locks us in to prolonged fossil fuel dependence and has severe implications when it comes to New Zealand’s emissions. Instead of this regressive step, what the Government really should be doing, which was pointed out by the majority of submitters on this bill, is being future-focused, looking at investment in development of renewables, looking at the storage of renewables, and we agree with those submitters.

The final point that I want to make is to members opposite who have pointed out that this is about energy security. We know, though, that the average time from exploration permits being given out right through to first production—the average time is 16 years; the shortest is 10 years. The argument that this repeal is a short- or even a medium-term solution for increasing New Zealand’s energy security is absolute humbug, and we don’t support it.

Members, the House is suspended, and I will resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for the extended sitting.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 9.57 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)