Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

I move, That the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill be reported to the House by 31 October 2024 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

The reasons for asking the House to agree to a shortened select committee process are the same as the reasons why the bill is needed at all. This is to address our current gas supply issues and high prices. Without more investment in existing and new fields, these issues will continue to plague us. It’s the view of the Government that it’s essential this bill is enacted as soon as possible. It remains desirable for it to undergo, however, a select committee scrutiny, albeit briefly.

To enable the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee to meet the deadline that we are setting, the motion also includes the usual arranged permissions to meet at times outside of the parameters normally allowed by the Standing Orders. The motion will also give the select committee the flexibility to hear from submitters around the country. Naturally, I wish the committee well in its work. I’m advised that there is a great esprit de corps within the wairua of the committee, and I hope that these proposals enable the bill to be advanced expeditiously to the advantage of the public. Thank you, sir.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in favour of the amendment tabled by my colleague Glen Bennett, which has suggested a more appropriate report-back date, being 17 March, and not just because it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, but because it would give us six months to consider this. I want the House to consider the breadth of this bill.

Not only is this bill bringing back the ability to grant offshore petroleum permits; this bill also covers off decommissioning regimes. It also is changing the purpose of the Crown Minerals Act, and it is also addressing some regulatory issues in regard to coalmining. This is a large piece of legislation that is making multiple changes that are going to require more than the paltry weeks that the Minister for Resources is asking for the bill to be reported back in. It is insufficient time for stakeholders to prepare submissions. One only has to look at the regulatory impact statement (RIS) that has been prepared—in fact, the two regulatory impact statements that have been prepared—to sit alongside this piece of legislation to understand the detail and the complexity that sit within this proposed legislative change.

We’re told by the Minister that this has to move at pace because we need it to address the current electricity crisis we’re in. The Minister knows there is a 16-year lag between exploration and production of oil and gas permits in New Zealand—that is how long. So if the Minister thinks that 16 years is a quick fix to what we’re currently seeing in our energy sector, then I have serious doubts about the Minister’s ability to come up with solutions. Giving submitters five more months to consider the implications of this in the context of a 16-year—and remember that’s on average—lag between exploration and production I think shows that the Minister hasn’t considered actually what part this legislation is going to play in any solutions. I think that is exactly the kind of thing that submitters need to be able to have the time to look at in detail.

One of the things that we’re continually told, for example, and I’m sure that submitters will want adequate time to go through the data on, is that the 2018 ban on oil and gas exploration has had a chilling impact on investment in the existing exploration permits that we’re allowed to continue. Now, I’ve had a first look at the data that sits on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website, which shows the investment in permits. It shows the investments in wells, and what we can see is that, actually, in that period of time, there’s been $1.3 billion that has been invested in existing permits and in existing wells. I would posit to members that I think it will be in the interest of many stakeholders to go through and consider that if we’ve already had $1.3 billion invested in those existing wells and permits in the period of time since 2018, maybe it is demonstrable that there just isn’t this El Dorado of oil and gas sitting offshore that this Government considers to be the answer. These are serious problems that are posited for our country in terms of what this legislating is seeking to fix.

Within the regulatory impact statement for this legislation, it is clear that officials have been telling the Government and have been telling responsible Ministers that many of the assumptions they are making are simply not correct. Officials are making it really clear in the advice they’re providing that actually there has been a decline in the production and investment of oil and gas in New Zealand since 2014. That was way before we had the legislative change in 2018. This is because we’re not seeing commercial finds in New Zealand; in fact, there hasn’t been a commercial offshore new find in New Zealand since the early 2000s.

It’s also following international patterns, as the RIS points out—and submitters are going to want to engage with this. Around the world we’re seeing Governments and, more importantly, we’re seeing commercial entities realise that their future is not in fossil fuels of the past but in being energy companies of the future. In the time that we were in Government, the six years in Government, we saw Statoil, which was the State oil and gas company of Norway, transform into Equinor, away from being an oil and gas company to being a company that invested in energy, renewable energy. It knows that its future and the economic prosperity in the future lie there.

One of the areas that we’ll want engagement on, which we heard the Minister address in his speech when he introduced the legislation—and I know that submitters will want to be heard on this—he talked about the fact that moving away from the fossil fuels of the past will lead us to deindustrialisation. I think there will be a lot of groups, not least our unions, that will want to engage with this. These are unions that have seen things like the initiatives that the previous Government put in place, like the partnership that we put in place with New Zealand Steel to co-invest with them in the technology of the future, to move them away from fossil fuels. Those unions and the representatives of those workers and those workers know that the way to shore up their jobs and to ensure that they have well paid, meaningful, skilled work into the future is to ensure that we are keeping up with the future.

One of the things that submitters will want to engage with and want to have the chance to have a say on is that if we say that fossil fuels are our future—be that oil, be that coal, or be that gas—we are consigning New Zealanders to a future of the most expensive energy that we can think of producing. Instead, I want to hear and engage with submitters and with stakeholders about the potential for the least-cost energy and electricity that we can produce in New Zealand, and that is renewable energy.

I also want to hear from stakeholders—and I want to hear from submitters about what is the fastest way for us to make sure that we do have that security of supply. Is it through a form of energy in terms of looking for new oil and gas—which we know on average takes 16 years to move from exploration to production—or is it the faster deployment of things like solar and batteries? We already know that it is a far cheaper way for us to deliver energy to New Zealanders, but I want to hear from stakeholders in the course of this select committee process about what that means for our security of supply, what it means for the fact that we can make sure that we are providing New Zealanders with that certainty and with that security, and how we can work with more companies like New Zealand Steel to ensure that they have their certainty and security to invest not only in new technology.

This is the kind of thing stakeholders will want to engage on when they come to this. They will want to have that conversation about what are the ways we protect the jobs of the future and what are the ways we ensure that New Zealand does have an industrial future, because it sure isn’t through oil and gas exploration. We have no idea if there’s anything out there, we have no idea whether anyone will come and invest in it, and I want to hear from stakeholders and submitters what they think about the ideas the Government has been punting up about investing New Zealand’s taxpayer money in providing incentives and inducements to multinational offshore companies to come and de-risk their business in New Zealand so that they can take their profits offshore.

I want to hear from stakeholders about whether we should be investing in New Zealanders and in their jobs here at home, or whether we should be giving corporate welfare to multinational oil and gas companies, because I know what we on this side of the House will pick every day of the week, and this is a conversation that we need to have with stakeholders as we come to consider this bill. Reporting back by the end of October is certainly not enough time to have the conversations just about this one aspect of the bill that I’ve covered here. Even leaving aside decommissioning, even leaving aside the purpose statement of the bill, and even leaving aside the changes to goldmining legislation, there is complexity in this legislation, and we do need that six-month period to adequately consider it as a Parliament.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I beseech you, this is a very narrow question we’re addressing. Standing Order 112 requires your stewardship to ensure the contributions are focused on the wording of the question. What we’ve hear is a recitation of a speech that has already been imposed upon the House this afternoon—

OK, Mr Jones, let me cut you short. If you’ve been listening, you would have actually seen this quite experienced member frequently reverted back to the reason around timing of this. I was listening very carefully for it—I suggest you do the same.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I move, That the motion be amended to replace the words “31 October 2024” with “17 March 2025”.

The reason, as my colleague has already alluded to, is the complexity, and we’ve heard from the Minister that this is simple, this is just a process, and there’s not much going on here. But when you look at the legislation and you look at the different elements of the legislation, I reckon some of this is by stealth.

One of the points I want to pick up—and it is why we need to have a full select committee process—is around goldmining, because I don’t believe the Minister or any of the Government members even alluded to it in the first reading speech. That’s important because there are things around shorelines and there are comments around riverbeds and the foreshore. We don’t fully understand the implications of this, so I’m imagining that since this was tabled, the informed public is frantically reading and trying to understand the legislation, but we need a fuller process because of the tier 3 permits on goldmining in order to understand this better. But OK, that goes on. Obviously, the offshore permits have continued to be discussed and debated, but, as we’ve talked about in earlier bills and legislation today, it’s really about the trust in this institution—the trust in Parliament—and the fact that we need to take people with us.

Now, I feel like with the fact we have just a 31 October report-back date, what that’s going to mean is that few people will have a chance to submit and those submissions might not be as fulsome as they would be if there was more time given—for example, a full six-month period. Also it’s around making sure that if this is the way the Government is going—and obviously it is—the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted, because it is in many ways relitigating and re-bringing up things that we have been through this House time and time again since 2018. For my representation in Taranaki, I need time and I know the people of Taranaki need time to dig into the legislation to form their opinions and views, and then be able to put those opinions and views and evidence on paper.

Hon Nicola Grigg: Have you ever met anyone that lives in Taranaki?

GLEN BENNETT: Someone just said, “Have I ever met anyone who lives in Taranaki?” Well, that’s funny because, yes, I have; it’s where I live. In fact, it’s where my family lives. In fact, it’s where I go to the supermarket.

I’m going to stick to the bill. I’m not getting into an argument, Mr Speaker, because I know this is very, very narrow. It is a fact that, as I get around New Plymouth, there are few people who are singing praises for this announcement that came earlier in the year. People are concerned and people need to make sure that they can have their say. If we want to ensure the trust in this institution and if we want to ensure the fact that people actually at least vaguely get to engage in this, then we need to extend the period.

Now, I have no issue with it going to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee (EDSI). I believe that is probably a good committee to go to. In fact, I note that the previous Minister, the Hon Dr Megan Woods, sent it to the exact same committee back in the 52nd, 53rd Parliament or whatever it was in 2018—

Camilla Belich: The 52nd.

GLEN BENNETT: The 52nd—thank you. They were able to litigate, they were able to listen, they were able to be informed on this, and so that’s why I have no issue with it going to EDSI, but it is around timing. I mean, there are four key things which you can’t really do. I’m guessing it’ll be a two-week process for submissions in terms of, as the Hon Megan Woods said earlier, around not only the offshore permits and how massive that is with the decommissioning—that’s huge. There is the change from “managed” to “promote” and the implications of that, and then of course there are the small-scale goldmines, which I’m still really struggling with.

Finally, because this is in the Crown minerals bill on the Table—and, of course, I’ll get to that as well—it’s around the Government policy statements on this. New section 12—and, again, we’ve got to work through this and understand it, so I guess that the public does as well, which needs time—allows the Minister to issue one or more Government policy statements at any time with the purpose of this around the Government’s objectives and priority in relation to the mining of Crown-owned minerals. This is giving, again, power to a Minister to be able to make these decisions, and we need to be able to engage in a select committee process. The public needs to be able to engage in that space.

Then, of course, I did speak about it before, but this is the one which I am struggling to understand, and forgive me if I’ve read this wrong and I’m confused, but that’s why I believe we need time. It is around conservation land and conservation land in Taranaki. Now, as I look at, I think it was clauses 31 and 32 of this bill—if I flick through, it talks about the restricted access to Taranaki conservation land, and it also amends in clause 32 access arrangements in respect of Crown land and land in common marine and coastal areas. Then it drops in around tier 3, which brings us back to the goldmining. So there is a lot. You know, we get from the other side of the House “Oh, this is just basic, it’s just flipping things around.”, and all that kind of thing, but it actually is complicated. It is complex, and it changes everything.

Of course, being a loyal resident of Taranaki, we’ve had these hard conversations before, and it has not been easy. When I was the local MP, it was not easy turning up to the boardrooms of the energy industries and speaking with them, but I know that I’ve turned up at those conversations. When we look at our young people, for example, I know our young people will be wanting to make submissions on this. I’ll just note that this Friday, I believe, is the student strike for climate—

Hon Shane Jones: Oh, more woke stuff.

GLEN BENNETT: —and it’s woke; it’s absolutely woke. If woke is being awake and being informed, then I am proud to be woke today. The question is that this Government—not only the previous Government but the Government that sits in the Treasury benches today—has made a huge commitment to Parihaka. Funding has been put in from this Government, and I’m glad to say thank you to the Government—can’t believe I said that—but thank you for the fact that they have recently put more funding into infrastructure in Parihaka, which is a village within my community. What are the implications for a community that is looking to restore itself, to regenerate itself, but also fierce advocates for legislation for ensuring that it’s done right and, around conservation and conservation land, which they sit on?

I know that the Minister’s already made his statement on this and around meeting, but I believe that the select committee should actually go to Parihaka. I believe they should actually sit on the marae there, in fact, sit on all three marae at Parihaka and have this conversation because they have been fiercely supportive of the previous Government and decarbonisation. They have been world leaders, in fact. Back in the 19th century, what they were doing around land protection, mitigation in the future.

So I litigate all these things and I know that it feels like I’ve moved around a bit, but that is because this is so complicated; this is so complicated, and I fear the fact we just flick the switch and go back to 2017. It’s going to be different; it’s going to be a challenge. I believe that we also need to do this and do good diligence because, as the Minister said in his speech, but also he said in the motion he’s just moved, it’s around New Zealand being open for business. How do we make sure we do this cautiously? How do we make sure we do this carefully, because the challenge is, evidently, the world is watching. They want to make sure that we are creating good laws; they’re making sure we are a good democracy. They’re wanting to make sure that we are consulting and engaging our people in terms of this.

The reason I brought up Parihaka and the reason I brought up iwi earlier is because it’s not a tick-box exercise, and we can’t just expect 31 October to come along, and suddenly we’ve made it. “We sent an email.”, which I often hear from hapū and iwi groups in Parihaka. “Oh, we sent them an email. We didn’t hear anything. We did this.” But it’s actually face to face—it’s connecting with people—and this legislation, I believe, is a moment in time. This is a pivotal point in terms of where we go as a nation, and this isn’t something we can just play around with and expect next month for it all to be signed, sealed, and delivered.

This is concerning. We have to consider the fact that we need to have a full select committee process on this legislation.

Members, the question before the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debatable together with the motion.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I speak on both the original referral motion and also our colleague Glen Bennett’s amendment, I would also like to move an amendment. I move, That the motion be amended to remove the words “and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside of the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196”.

Before I speak to my amendment, I would just like to address the original referral motion and subsequent amendment that Mr Glen Bennett has put forward. Looking at this bill, the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, first of all the original referral motion has a report-back date of 31 October. That is less than five weeks away, in which all of the consultation, the writing of the report, and the hearing of evidence must take place. We have actually been debating referral motions quite a few times in the House over the last few weeks, and for bills of various lengths. This is not a short bill. In fact, it’s 26 pages. That’s substantial, and we’re only giving the New Zealand public five weeks, fewer than that if you’re including the time needed to write reports, to consult on this incredibly important issue.

There are a couple of things that we need to touch on when we are looking at this, and yet, I won’t mention the points that the previous speaker mentioned, around the nuance of the energy requirement, the 16-year gap it takes to set things up, our energy crisis, etc., but one of the things I would like to address, from an energy perspective, is that this bill has enormous ramifications, both in terms of the agriculture and fishing industries in Taranaki—we have heard previously that there is a conflict of interest between some of the ministerial portfolios—but also, even if we are only purely looking at an energy perspective, Taranaki is one of the areas that is currently being reviewed for offshore wind farms. Regardless of what the members or anyone thinks about offshore wind energy, it is one of the sustainable energy sources that is currently being investigated. By looking at that and by allowing something like this to happen, what we are actually doing, despite what we’ve been hearing in the House, is that we are pitting non-renewable energy, such as oil and gas, up against possibilities of renewable energy, such as offshore wind farms. That is not something that you can tease out within five weeks.

In addition to that, there’s another angle to this, just to give you an example of the complexity and of what is needed beyond the five-week requirement that has been mentioned in the referral motion. One of our biggest investment funds, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, also invests in offshore wind energy, particularly around Taranaki. Now, this particular investment fund is looking at our future, looking at our seniors or our elders when they retire. This is the funding that we’re hoping to use to address some of the issues that we have, so that people can live in dignity when they are older. The New Zealand Superannuation Fund invests in options and investigates opportunities such as offshore wind energy in Taranaki. By putting something like this through without proper consultation, only giving five weeks or fewer for consultation, it means that we are actually jeopardising one of our biggest, if not the biggest, investment funds, the Government investment fund here in Aotearoa, which looks at our elders and our future living as well.

This is an incredibly complex issue that goes beyond the bill itself, which needs to be addressed. That’s the first thing. The second thing that I would like to address, in terms of—

Tim van de Molen: Point of order. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am just trying to seek some clarity. As I understood, the member at the start of his speech moved an amendment to the original motion. Now, I understand there’s already an amendment that has been moved by the previous speaker, Glen Bennett, and Speakers’ ruling 64/1 notes that a separate amendment may not be moved when there is one under consideration. There could be an amendment to that first amendment, but not an amendment to the main motion itself. The member, as I believe, moved an amendment to the main motion, which is out of order.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I’ll just get some advice on that. I will continue to get some more advice on that, but, if the member could speak to that amendment, that would be helpful.

Camilla Belich: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just speaking to that point of order, this is now the third, I think, referral motion that we’ve debated in recent days, if not the last day, consistently within the House. In that period of time, the Speakers in the Chair have allowed motions to be moved to the original motion and for those to be debated. I accept the assurance in the member’s point of order, but that has not been the practice of the House over the last few referral motions.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yes, I understand that, but, I guess, the advice that I’m trying to get is whether Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan is amending the amendment or amending the motion. They’re two kind of separate things, but I do take your point that we’ve gone through a number of these, and there is the ability to put amendments. It’s whether those amendments apply to amendments to motions. I’ll get Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan to continue until I can get some advice about the point that Mr Tim van de Molen brought up.

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and yes, clarification around that would be very much appreciated by the House. When we are also looking at the other issues around having a much shortened select committee process, we also need to consider some of the bigger complexities around our obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi as well, in terms of consultation with the local hapū and iwi. I think this is also incredibly crucial in the context of Taranaki.

I would like to now draw on the third part of the concern that I have with the original motion, before speaking to Mr Glen Bennett’s amendment, which is the fact that the changes will allow the responsible Minister—so it allows, essentially, one responsible Minister—to receive and assess the applications. Again, from a position as the legislature scrutinising and providing those checks and balances on the executive, it also doesn’t give the select committee and the New Zealand public sufficient time to determine whether that alone is the right move to make. When we are looking at this, this is not simply that we need to meet a particular deadline. This is not about efficiency. This is akin to tyranny, to be honest.

Moving on to the amendment being proposed by Glen Bennett, we do support the move to extend the select committee process to 17 March 2025. I believe that, for something as serious as this, it does require a full six-month select committee process, considering the magnitude of this bill. We will be in support of that. We may also propose different suggestions for dates, because that is on the basis that we’re looking at exactly six months—actually, a little bit less than six months, because it’s not the 17th today.

Moving on to my amendments—and, again, this is something that we have seen in previous referral motions, when they have the stock standard phrase on the exclusion of Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196. But, for those three, there’s no reason to exclude these three Standing Orders when we are looking at the select committee process. If we do undertake a proper consultation process, which is six months long, there is absolutely no reason why we should be sitting on a Friday. There is absolutely no reason why we should be in select committee when the House is sitting, particularly in the evenings. There certainly is no reason for us to be sitting outside of Wellington during sitting days. One of my previous colleagues, for another referral motion, mentioned the incredible burden that some of these Standing Orders will place on smaller parties, and particularly parties such as the Green Party, Te Pāti Māori, ACT, and also New Zealand First.

The fact is that it’s not so much about being able to have that leave from Parliament and being able to count it towards your attendance, so to speak, but it’s more about having to reshuffle speaking orders, and all of that. It does place a burden on the smaller parties, but also, it places an incredible burden on the staff and on the officials from the ministry when we are looking at a shortened process. It is simply unfair for those people. It is very easy for one Minister or for Ministers or for the executive to dictate some of these shortened processes, but it is unfair and it’s undemocratic in terms of what we are trying to achieve in this Parliament, in Aotearoa New Zealand, when we’re looking at allowing the public a say. That is what the purpose of the select committee process is, and we have seen way too many times—frankly, far too many times—over the last few weeks an incredibly shortened and unnecessary select committee process for the purpose of a box-ticking exercise.

For that reason, I would seriously ask the Minister to consider taking up both Mr Glen Bennett’s amendment as well as my amendment.

Members, the question for the House for debate is that that amendment be agreed to. The amendment is now debatable together with the motion.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for your ruling on that. That is consistent with my understanding as well. The call that I want to make today is on the procedural nature of this particular motion before us. This is not an area that I have a lot of experience in, unlike my other colleagues like Dr Megan Woods, who has a lot of experience working in energy and had a lot of policy reasons as to why this period was too short, and like my colleague Glen Bennett, who also, through living in New Plymouth, has had a lot of involvement with it.

The call that I want to make is really around the appropriateness of the extremely short period of time of until 31 October for the select committee to meet. I don’t think that’s an appropriate time. I also want to move a motion in the case that the six-month motion is not accepted by the House, a motion that it be five months. I think we’ve had five weeks, so my motion that I’ve tabled is for it to be five months—17 February—which I would also like the House to consider.

The reason for that, really, is because when I look at the motion that has been tabled by the Minister, and, of course, we’re aware that when you have a shortened report back, if it’s so short you actually have to provide reasons for that. Because we’ve had so many of these referral motions, we’re actually in a position now where we can contrast the reasons given by different Ministers as to whether they are really a good enough reason to have a shortened report back. This is a very short report back, even looking at the last motion.

The reason that the Minister said that we needed a shorter report back, and it was written and it was stated in the House, is, he said, “The reasons for asking the House to agree to a shortened select committee process are the same reasons as why the bill is needed at all.” Well, that is not a very convincing reason. It’s almost like a truism: we need this bill to go through the House because we need this bill. It’s not a sufficient reason to override the normal practices of Parliament, which is a six-month committee process. To the Minister’s credit, he does give a few other reasons, but, really, they are not sufficient, in my view. He says that it’s still desirable to go to a select committee process.

Now, I need to remind the House that we’re in a unicameral system here, which does not have an Upper House. Select committees are the main check and balance that we have on the Parliament. The way that our Parliament and executive focuses, we don’t have a separate executive that has a kind of separate veto power like some jurisdictions do. Essentially, what the executive puts into Parliament comes out as a law. The only break we have on that is a select committee process, so even for that language to be used, that it’s a consideration—“Oh, should we send it to a select committee or not? Oh well, OK, it’s desirable, but we’ll only send it there for five weeks.”

Those of us who sit on select committees, which is all of us in the House, will know that five weeks at select committee doesn’t mean five weeks of submissions—it probably means two weeks of submissions. And this is a very complex bill. I haven’t had the opportunity to read through this whole bill—like most New Zealanders, I imagine, who would be expected to submit on this—but what I have had the opportunity to do is look at the regulatory impact statements that have been provided and tabled in the House in relation to this bill, and I was interested to see what the regulatory impact statement said in relation to the report back. We know, in some situations, if the regulatory impact statement states that there’s been extensive consultation, if this has been well traversed, and if this is, say, a bill that has been before the House before and is reinstated—that type of thing—there might be something in the regulatory impact statement to support the Minister’s reasons for having a shorter report back.

What I found in the regulatory impact statements, when I read them, was actually quite shocking. I can quote from these: “These proposals have not been the subject of formal public discussion.” What this first regulatory impact statement that I will speak to says is that “The consultation that MBIE has undertaken has been with the oil and gas industry.” Well, we know that these are the same people who have been lobbying for the reversal of this change. It doesn’t seem to be particularly sufficient to have that highlighted as the main area of consultation.

Then we do see that engagement with iwi took place—two days of engagement with iwi, and then written feedback. This is not the kanohi-ki-te-kanohi feedback that iwi and hapū would expect, that my colleague Glen Bennett referred to. This regulatory impact statement directly contradicts the Minister’s reasons for having a shorter report back. There has not been sufficient public consultation, and you don’t need to just take it from me—you can read it in the regulatory impact statement and read the independent advice provided to the Minister.

What does the second regulatory impact statement on this bill say? Well, another thing that does not support a shorter report back. It talks about “the tight time frames set by Ministers for the legislative process to pass amendments to CMA that will remove the ban on offshore mining. These time constraints have affected both the quality and the analysis and what consultation was possible.” Wow. That doesn’t sound like a very good reason to have two weeks at select committee. In fact, I think that should point the House towards accepting some of the amendments that we have on the Table, which are to allow a full six-month report back.

We keep going: “There has been limited opportunity to engage with stakeholders.” This is quoting directly from this. “We also do not have up-to-date data on the resources and time that it takes to process permit applications and other functions performed by the regulator. … It will provide the basis for setting … fees”. But they do not have time to assess what those fees would be. It also goes on to say that the only consultation that they’ve been able to do with “hobby” miners—which, apparently, is a relevant part of this bill—has been indirect and anecdotal information.

We need to have a look at ourselves in this House if we are going to be getting advice like this from officials and looking at that advice and seeing the deficiency of the information available and then proposing to this House that not only do we have a shorted report back on the original six-month period, but that we only have five weeks. I mean, this is not even taking it by half.

As I go back to the Minister’s motion, which we’re debating, the Minister has not provided any reasons as to why it needs to be a short process—none that I can see. When I contrast, actually, to the previous Minister, who provided some reasons, who had concerns around cases that were currently before the court—legal uncertainty—I don’t think that there are any of those reasons, or, if there are, they are certainly not referenced by the Minister. If the Minister wanted to come and give some further reasons and details for the House, I’m sure that the House would appreciate that. The previous Minister gave a lot more reasons, and this Minister has just essentially said, “Because we desire it to be done quickly, it shall be done, and because we think it’s a good policy, we should put it through a shorter select committee process.”

I don’t think that anyone would find this objectively convincing. Now, we know that the Government has the numbers in this House—thus is the nature of the Government, and probably they’ll get their shortened report-back time, but I would ask those members who will be casting a vote in support of this motion to reflect on the type of democracy that we want to see in New Zealand. Do we want to receive information like I’ve just quoted from, which is available for all members in the House to read—and I hope that they have done; I can’t see many of these on their desks, but I can see a big pile left on the Table.

Read this, think about whether you want to make huge reversals in a policy that will affect the climate for future generations, and that will affect huge areas of the community within certain areas of New Zealand. When you have advice to say that not enough public consultation has gone on, when the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the officials who do a good job for this House say that they don’t have enough information to progress it, and when you have a really easy option of allowing a normal six-month reporting period, why not make good law? Why not be responsible legislators? Why not think about making good policies and implementing laws when we have all the information available and not just when we’ve been told by officials that the information that we have is scant, that we don’t have enough evidence, that the consultation hasn’t happened.

I recommend that the motion that I moved on having a five-month report back be supported by the House, and I also support the additional motions which have been put forward by my colleagues to allow sufficient consultation to take place, and also that amend the wording of the Minister’s motion.

Members, the question before the House for debate is that that amendment be agreed to. That amendment is debatable together with the motion. Just to respond to the request for clarification from Mr Tim van de Molen, Speakers’ rulings mean that any member can move an amendment—this is for clarity for the House—and can amend their own or others’ amendments, but they cannot move an entirely different amendment. What that means is members can’t have two amendments to the motion—and I want to draw the House’s attention to Standing Order 130: “A member who has moved an amendment may not move a further amendment”.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ve spoken to my colleague Glen Bennett’s amendment to have a six-month report back; I now want to speak to my colleague Camilla Belich’s amendment that we have a five-month report back on this bill. At the moment, it’s a five-week report back. I think that if we can’t have the six-month report back, I certainly would support my colleague’s amendment for five months. Now, I spoke at length about some of the policy complexities that will need to be addressed by stakeholders as they grapple with this bill, that it does have many parts to it, and that it needs to be considered.

I think I’d like to draw the House’s attention to something. While we’ve been in this House, debating this piece of legislation, we’ve had announcements coming through the media, from Todd Energy, who have decided that they are scaling back their oil and gas operation in New Zealand, knowing that this bill was coming to the House today, knowing that this Government was making legislative changes that were happening. What this underscores is the complex nature of industry and the way in which they are grappling with this. Even knowing that this was a Government that was, essentially, presenting a piece of legislation which is the wish list of the oil and gas industry—not only does it allow for more exploration but it waters down protections for the New Zealand taxpayer, through the decommissioning regime. Even knowing the wish-list piece of legislation that was landed, while we’ve been in here debating it, we have seen a major New Zealand industry player make a significant announcement.

It is engagement like this that the select committee needs to understand, that the committee will need to spend time considering, knowing that industry was getting everything it was wishing for. Why is it, then, that they are making that significant decision and an announcement today on the very day that the legislation is introduced? That is something that I think, as a member of a committee that will, no doubt, be listening to submissions on this, I would like to understand—why it is that everything that’s been wished for is being granted—so that we can understand that.

My colleague Camilla Belich, when she moved the amendment for five months, spoke at length about the regulatory impact statement (RIS) and some of the questions that she had from there. I think she raised some very good questions around the reason that we need to be given to have these shortened report-back times in select committee. Listening carefully, trying to get beyond the political rhetoric in the Minister’s speech—not always easy, and I will admit that that’s not a skill that I’ve particularly honed—what I took from that speech, the reason he was giving, is the need for us to act with speed, given the current needs of our electricity system. Now, 16 years, on average—

Andy Foster: Fast track—fast track. We’re going to reduce it.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —for taking a permit from exploration to production—I’m hearing heckles from New Zealand First members saying they’re going to use fast track. Well, that’s an announce-able. We haven’t heard that before—that the fast-track regime is going to be used for oil and gas legislation. Thank you very much to Mr Andy Foster, who has made that announcement; we’ve been wondering what was going to in the Schedule to the Act, and now we’re hearing it in heckles across the House. Is that the intent? I’d be interested to hear from Government members on whether they are intending to use the fast track. If we’re getting suggestions like that, the idea that we’re not having a full select committee process is something that just belies belief, that we won’t have the ability to do that.

There’s also some other advice that sits in the RIS that I think the committee are going to need to delve into a lot more deeply, and that is the advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). I turn members’ attention to the regulatory impact statement relating to the petroleum exploration and mining—there are two regulatory impact statements for this bill, because it is such a complex piece of legislation. If we go to paragraph 85 of that regulatory impact statement: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has assessed that reversing the 2018 ban and promoting new petroleum exploration risks being seen as running counter to the Pacific regional and global consensus on transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

I, for one, as a lawmaker in this House, want to know what the foreign affairs implications are. What are we doing with our relationships in the Pacific and what really are the risks? I would like to hear expert advice. I do not believe, given we’re going to have to consider the new permits from an industry point of view, we’re going to have to consider new permits in terms of the broader stakeholders who haven’t been spoken to, because, as I said, this is pretty much the wish list of the oil and gas industry, and that probably is because that’s who the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has been consulting with. It hasn’t really gone broad and considered all—

Hon Member: Gentailers.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —of the other stakeholders when it comes to that. I haven’t seen any evidence that gentailers are in here. What we have to do is make sure we are consulting more fully.

It’s not just over the issuing of those petroleum permits; the significant piece that my colleague Glen Bennett brought up was that this was the first time ever we’re having a suggestion that there will be a Government policy statement on oil and gas exploration and the Government could do that. That is an entirely new mechanism. How would that operate and how would it work? They are things that the committee will have to consider. We know that the Government has signalled that it wants to move away from “Block Offer” as a way to issue petroleum permits; that it wants to look to, I think, using more section 18 kind of approaches to issuing petroleum permits. But how does a Government policy statement work? We would need time to consider that as a committee.

I haven’t even moved on to the decommissioning. I haven’t even moved on to what would need to happen around the changes to goldmining, but then to understand the foreign affairs implications of that as well and to have stakeholders able to come to that. The end of October is taking us incredibly close to the Conference of the Parties—or COP, as it is known; the meeting where nations do get together to consider their climate objectives, but it is prior to it. I think that getting feedback from that Conference of the Parties—that is held only two weeks after the Government is suggesting that we do close off submissions; we have COP occurring in mid-November—that actually coming back and getting that feedback from other nations, particularly our Pacific neighbours in terms of what they feel, would be something that would be entirely beneficial for the committee.

One of the things that we see in the regulatory impact statement—and in regard to these concerns that MFAT has raised, it’s not just one paragraph; it goes on—it says that they drew heavily from the evidence of the 2023 Pacific Island Forums Leaders Meeting, where leaders committed to transitioning away from coal, oil, and gas in our energy systems, in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) pathways, with a peak in fossil fuel consumption in the near-term. Now, one of the problems that this Government has is that, also, the emissions reduction plan that it can now sit beside shows that, actually, we are going off piste. Are we on track in terms of those IPCC pathways—that we have updated pathways since the initial ban was brought in in 2018? Seeing how those things go together is going to be entirely important.

Just before I move on from foreign affairs, I think paragraph 86 should send a chill down every member in this House’s spine, saying that the preferred option—i.e., the Government’s preferred option—poses relationship and reputational risks. There are risks to New Zealand’s relationships with its global and Pacific Island partners around the perception of a policy departure on the transition in our climate change goals. Not only do we have a Government domestically that lacks vision, ambition, a plan, or any kind of foresight, we have a Government that is prepared to put our international reputation at risk, to risk the relationship with our Pacific neighbours.

Now, this Government should know this, because Ministers and the Prime Minister have already had a pillorying from our Pacific neighbours when it comes to their backsliding on what it means in terms of their lack of ambition on climate. We need to hear from officials on this and we need to get expert advice, and five weeks is not enough to do that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I commend the amendments of my colleagues on this side of the House, and I have a new amendment that I’d like to table. I move, That the motion be amended to replace the words “31 October” with the words “31 March”.

It’s a bit of a step along from where you guys were at but I think it’s got a right ring to it, and I propose that that is a necessary thing.

When we are grappling with the existential threat of climate change—and it is an existential threat; it is an intergenerational threat, and we’re contending with the action that was taken in 2018, which is possibly the most substantive action in the climate change space that the nation of New Zealand has taken in the last decade, at least—it must be fully considered by a select committee. We have to hear, as my colleague on this side pointed out, what the effect is on our international reputation for this monstrous tracking backwards—not back on track, but tracking backwards—on our commitments to action on climate change and on our impact on Pacific relations. Those people on the forefront of the worst impacts of catastrophic climate change, right here in our South Pacific, have already expressed their distress and their opposition to this Government’s revoking of the ban on oil and gas exploration, but what is the long-term impact on those relationships and on our reputation?

Also, the International Energy Agency has explicitly stated that the whole world should stop searching for new oil and gas by 2021, and we, as a nation, with the ban we put into place in 2018, were on track for achieving that. This is a global problem, this is a planetary problem, and it should not be treated lightly by a Government that wants to ram through legislation that takes back the commitments that we have made to be part of that global solution.

Climate change is not something—because you’re dealing with atmospheric gases—that anyone is immune from, not any human on this planet and not any species on this planet. Every single living thing on this Earth is impacted by climate change. There are not many things that you can think of that every single species is impacted by, but climate change is the one, and they are all impacted negatively over the course of time, because it is an existential threat for the viability of biodiversity on planet Earth. We should not be rushing it through a select committee, which is why I propose this extension to 31 March.

I also want to note the myths and sort of stories and histrionic accusations made against the impact of the ban on things like energy supply in this country. There are a lot of myths being perpetrated and perpetuated by this Government, with one of them being that the reason for the closure of the mills is because of the ban on offshore oil and gas, which anyone who actually cares to participate in a select committee and get some expert evidence on will find that it’s not that. It’s to do with the market, and this Government is not prepared to change that market, but that is the cause of it.

The oil industry closed the refinery at Marsden B; not the Government. It was a decision made by industry to close that refinery, so that’s one of the myths. In terms of political uncertainty, you probably couldn’t find a greater definition of political uncertainty, and I appreciate the colleague on this side of the House who pointed out that it was Mr Jones who extolled the virtues of the three-party coalition that brought the ban on oil and gas into place, and it’s the same Mr Jones who’s now revoking that ban. If you want to talk about political uncertainty, you could say that Mr Jones is the definition of it.

I also want to say that most importantly—most importantly—we have the question of the impact of this decision on iwi Māori and the wider public, because this was a ban that was achieved by a large-scale public movement that took place over the course of seven years. It is important that we have the time for the multitude of iwi that were impacted, and the 80 iwi who signed that they did not support seismic surveying in their waters and did not support drilling for oil and gas. They should have their fair time at the select committee to express what they think about this bringing back of oil and gas exploration, and for us to have that time, we need to have a full select committee process.

There is another thing that needs to be understood here, and that is that over all these years of attempts to get this industry going since the early 2000s, there have been multitudes of seismic surveys done. Vast areas of our exclusive economic zone has been done. There have been wildcat drilling attempts off drilling rigs off the Otago coast, off the North Island coast on the west side of the Raglan coast, and obviously in Taranaki. Obviously, on the East Coast of the North Island there have been seismic surveys, and, time and again, these oil companies depart our waters. They have relinquished their permits. They have quit their prospects because perhaps New Zealand is actually a terrible oil and gas prospect. Perhaps New Zealand is a terrible oil and gas prospect—perhaps there is no substantive oil and gas here.

So where do we have the opportunity to actually hear the evidence for why this is such a thing that has to be done other than at a substantive select committee? It’s another example of this Government rushing through bad legislation that they’re probably a bit embarrassed about, to be honest. I think a few heads are going down on the other side of the House, because—

Hon Member: No, we’re not.

STEVE ABEL: They’re not embarrassed; they’re proud of their climate denial, and what is the impact, which we need to hear at the select committee, on our actual efforts to decarbonise? What is the cost burden on New Zealand if we don’t decarbonise? If we lock in our nation to that dependence on oil and gas, on gas, particularly, and on—

Dan Bidois: Bring it back.

STEVE ABEL: Well, this is the debate. I mean, the debate is—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): If the member could bring it back to the confines of the motion, that would helpful.

STEVE ABEL: Sure. I will bring it back to my amendment, which is that for us to thoroughly scrutinise this piece of reckless legislation, the New Zealand public deserve the right to have a thorough select committee process. I move that the motion be amended to replace the words “31 October 2024” with the words “31 March 2025”. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Members, the question before the House for debate is that the amendment be agreed to. That amendment is now debatable together with the motion. Before we take the next call, I do want to acknowledge that the contributions by members in the House are very informative and, in some cases, quite creative. However, the relevance of this debate should be focused on the terms of the Minister’s motion to refer the bill to the select committee and the amendments to it. My invitation to the House is to look for contributions that raise the collective enlightenment of the House.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s kind of almost an irony about the date being chosen to report back. “Halloween 2024” is probably befitting of this bill in the context of the bill. However, might I suggest that “Halloween 2025” might be more appropriate, given the arguments put up by colleagues on this side of the House. In particular, I want to support the amendment by Glen Bennett for a six-month review, and I do that for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t believe the Minister has given compelling reasons to shorten the time that the Economic Development, Science and Innovation has to report back its findings.

Five weeks is not enough time to find and give the opportunity to everyone that will want to submit on this bill, and I can speak in particular of the iwi of Taranaki, which I have very close connections to. They will want as much time as they can have to prepare submissions for this bill. They have, on many different occasions, taken action, often through the courts, to address the issues that are in their backyard, and I think that this motion is inappropriate. It will not give them enough time to do that, and I ask the House to reconsider the date on which has been proposed for a report back from the select committee.

I also think it’s appropriate here to talk about one of the main functions of this Parliament, and that is to scrutinise what the executive is doing. That is a fundamental part of our democracy. The Government, in this instance, has decided upon making some significant changes to a piece of legislation and they’ve also decided that “Well, we don’t want too much kōrero to go on, eh? So let’s truncate that process”—[Interruption] Yeah, you can interject all you like; that’s not going to stop me from actually saying this.

The function of this House—it is so important that it has the ability to scrutinise this piece of legislation. I can tell the House that this motion is not going to allow that to happen, and every member in here should be concerned about that because it makes changes that, probably, are not going to impact on the people in this room too much; it’s going to impact on grandchildren and great-grandchildren into the future. Be on the right side of history. Those that vote for this, I can tell you, will end up on the wrong side of history.

I’m not going to relitigate what’s already been said, except to say that I support those members that have moved amendments to this motion. I think the House should seriously consider them, and, Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to them.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I want to speak to my colleague Camilla Belich’s amendment to change the date to 17 February, and I want to come back to the Minister for Resources’ initial statement and the reason we are here this afternoon. In his notice of instruction to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the report-back time to be 31 October, he said—and I quote—“I wish the committee well in its work and hope that these proposals enable the bill to be advanced exponentially, to the advantage of the public.”—to the advantage of the public.

Now, the question that the select committee is going to have to work through is whether this piece of legislation is to the advantage of the public. As I look through and as I hear the arguments on this side of the House, and as I hear the interjections and what the Minister spoke about, it’s really clear that it’s unclear around the advantages to the public. There are definitely advantages to some parts of the public and there are definitely advantages to some of the companies involved, but when I talk about the public, it is, again, around the engagement within the process of Parliament, and it is not simple legislation.

I want to refer to the legislative statement. Forgive me, Mr Speaker, as I attempt to read it, but I think it helps bring home the point of why we need to consider one of the amendments—hopefully, mine, but, actually, I’ll support Camilla Belich’s as well. It says, “The Bill makes other changes to improve regulatory efficiency to:”—I quote—“Allow permit duration to be extended for activities related to mine closure;”—next point—“Allow prospecting and mining licences to apply for a non-interference zone; Allow geophysical surveys to be undertaken where a prospecting permit exists;”.

Then it goes on to say, “Serving or revoking of a permit; Include a high-level assessment of a new Tier 1 permit operator’s environmental capability and systems; Include a technical capability requirement for a change of control of a Tier 2 permit operator; Include service of notification and documentation requirements within the CMA, based on similar settings in other regimes; Introduce a requirement for the permit holder to remove an access arrangement with the Register General of land on the property title once it has ended; Removing the 90-day grace period for permit revocations; Allow Section 29B”—where are we; sorry, I’ve got lost now. “Allow Section 29B ‘conditional exploration permits’ to be granted as intended; Make the definition of Minister consistent in resources portfolio related legislation;”—that’s a tough one.

It continues, and I’m making the point here, because there is so much going on in this: “Ensure that permit details can be removed from land titles when a permit expires; Amend technical drafting errors from the Crown Minerals (Decommissioning and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021; Amend permit”—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yeah, this is very interesting, Mr Bennett, but could you relate it to the motion.

GLEN BENNETT: Well, absolutely, and I’ll bring it home. I will land the plane—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Land the plane, Mr Bennett.

GLEN BENNETT: —on green hydrogen, and I will say that it says, “Amend permit commencement date”, and then it goes on and on and on. The reason I have laboured that this afternoon—

Hon Member: On and on and on.

GLEN BENNETT: —is because people—I have gone on and on and on for a reason: to say to the House that this isn’t just a tick-box exercise going to committee. It’s been said—and it’s been heckled across the floor—that it’s simple legislation and that it’s easy to fix and change, but it’s not. Then—and, again, with fear of being interrupted again—I look at the regulatory impact statement: “Amendments to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 relating to small-scale non-commercial gold mining”.

Now, this is something we haven’t really traversed, and I mentioned it earlier briefly in a different part of this, but it’s the fact that in this—and these are officials. These are people who are actually the experts who are giving advice to the Minister, giving advice to the Cabinet, giving advice to the select committee, and giving advice to the public. It talks about hobby and recreational operations when it comes to goldmining, and then, Mr Speaker—like I can’t bring this home any more that we’ve—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The plane is still circling. I’m waiting for it to hit the tarmac.

GLEN BENNETT: —got to give it time. We need time because the officials say that these time constraints, with the shortened time they had to prepare the legislation—they say it here: “These time constraints have affected both the quality”—the quality—“of the analysis and what consultation was possible.” The fact that officials are saying that this is of really low quality and that the analysis hardly exists in here—it’s actually outrageous, and that’s why we need to commit to the select committee having a process where we actually get it right.

I look through in the goldmining space—and I understand that people are, I guess, getting a little bored with this because they think it’s just a tick-box exercise. It is not, because when we’re looking at all these pieces—which I would love to keep quoting, but I won’t—it is around ensuring—

Hon Member: Oh, keep going—keep quoting.

GLEN BENNETT: Keep quoting it? OK, sure—I will do what the Government MPs have asked me to do. It says, “In addition, it has been difficult to predict future stakeholder behaviour or responses to the proposals,”. These are the people who are the stakeholders. These are the goldminers that they’re talking about, so if they’re unsure what’s going to happen, how can we just rush it through in a select committee in 10 days or two weeks, or whatever it is?

Finally, on this amendment of Camilla Belich, it’s around the capacity of the select committee and of the select committee staff. When we look at what the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee has, they currently have three bills before them that they’re working on. They’ve got the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill, they’ve got the Customer and Product Data Bill, they’ve got the Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill before them—

Dan Bidois: We’re a hard-working committee.

GLEN BENNETT: —and then they’ve got—they’re a hard-working committee, as we all are, but the question is not actually about the people in this room. It’s about our staff—it’s about the diligence of the staff, who need time to prepare. It’s an onslaught at the moment, and that’s why we have to give it more time. I sit on the Environment Committee, which is a hard-working committee, as well. We’ve got the Fast-track Approvals Bill, which is, again, just another attack and an onslaught.

The reason I’m mentioning all these things—and the reason I’m sitting on this space—is because we have to get it right. We have to get it right—I don’t want to get it right, but we have to get it right. If you look at things like the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2014, if you look at the Holidays (Full Recognition of Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day) Amendment Act 2013, if you look at the Psychoactive Substances Act 2013, and if you look back at the Taxation (Urgent Measures and Annual Rates) Act 2008 under John Key’s Government, it was all legislation that was rushed through Parliament and that had truncated periods, and it all had to come back to the House—it had to come back in here. We had to put more taxpayers’ dollars into fixing it, because it was rushed through and the consultation didn’t go through correctly, and, again, we’re in the same position right here.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Yeah, can you bring it back to the amendment.

GLEN BENNETT: Yeah, and the amendment is around the time frame. I’ve asked for six months, we’re now looking at five months, and they’ve suggested five weeks. We’re saying: why not make it five months, so that at least the public can have their say? At least all of these things that I’m continuing to talk about would actually be able to be addressed by the committee and would be able to be addressed by the community, and it would ensure that people have faith in the political system, which is the New Zealand Parliament, and which is something that we should hold very, very strongly.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The Hon Dr Megan Woods.

Hon Member: Oh, we’ve heard from her already—why?

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Hon Member: This is her third speech.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to my colleague Glen Bennett’s amendment, to my colleague Camilla Belich’s amendment, and I’d now like to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Just for clarity for the House: you can speak on other amendments when they come up, as well. A speaker cannot speak on the same amendment twice.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d now like to take the opportunity to speak on the amendment that has been tabled by Steve Abel. He suggested that we move not to 17 March but to 31 March, and I’d like to say that that is an amendment I could support. It certainly is giving us that extra time.

Now that I’ve had the chance to read through the written notice of instruction that the Minister for Resources has tabled and that has appeared on the Table, and go through in some detail the six bullet points that the Minister has put out in that written notice of instruction on this piece of legislation, this is an important document where we are considering these referral notices. I’d just like to make the point that, actually, I think it would have been to the benefit of the House if we could have all had access to this document earlier in the debate. It might have actually meant we could have moved things along a little faster if we’d been able to refer to this document.

The first point I’d like to start on—and it’s actually in the sixth of the bullet points in the Minister’s written notice of instruction—is that he wishes the select committee well in its work and hopes that the proposals enable the bill to be advanced expeditiously to the advantage of the public. I question whether that period of time through to the end of October that the Minister has suggested—

Glen Bennett: Halloween.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: —the Halloween date that he has suggested, in his referral motion is enough, because we do need that extra time. In particular, I spoke about some of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) advice in my last contribution, but when we consider the very short window through to the end of October, well, I think that we in this House have a responsibility to take it seriously when there is advice saying that MFAT has assessed that the reversing of the 2018 ban would likely be inconsistent with the obligations in several of New Zealand’s free-trade agreements (FTAs) not to reduce environmental protections for the purposes of incurring trade or investment.

The fact is that we may be breaching our FTAs and that we may be putting them at risk, not only because of backsliding on environmental protections, but there is the fact that we would be backsliding on them with the purposes of increasing investment there. This is something for the select committee to consider, whether or not this is to the advantage of the public of New Zealand, as the Minister has specified in his last bullet point in his written notice of instruction to the House. For it to be adequately considered, that period of time up to Halloween is simply not enough time.

These are serious considerations that no one should just be reading from their party research written talking points on. We are considering putting New Zealand’s prosperity at risk by passing legislation that undermines our free-trade agreements. The fact that it is our responsibility as a House of Representatives to adequately examine questions such as that in a committee is something that we on this side of the House take seriously, and we don’t consider that we were put in this Parliament to rubber-stamp what Ministers lay on the table. It is our job to make sure that what we are passing is, indeed, to the advantage of the public of New Zealand. Now, it also then goes on. MFAT, in other legal advice to the Government, says—

Tim van de Molen: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Look, I just wanted to seek clarity about your comments at the start of this member’s speech, and I’ve been searching for that myself, as the member has been making her contribution, in regards to a member being able to make an additional contribution after an amendment has been moved. I just wanted to talk specifically to Standing Order 129, which notes that “After an amendment has been moved, a member who has spoken prior to the member who moved the amendment—(a) may speak a further time,” which is fine, but in this instance the member is seeking an additional call on a different amendment, but that amendment was actually made prior to her first call. In this instance she would not be entitled to an additional call, because she is seeking both calls after that amendment was moved. Now, if that amendment had been moved after her first call, then absolutely she would be within her rights to take the second call, but in this instance that was not the case, and so therefore she should not be.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): I’ve just checked the chronology. Mr Steve Abel stood up and moved an amendment, and then she spoke after that amendment. She hasn’t spoken twice after Mr Steve Abel moved his amendment, based on the chronology that I have in front of me. You may continue.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was hoping to finish this contribution before the dinner break, but given that point of order, I’ll probably be back after the dinner break to finish this contribution. I thank that member for his contribution there!

The reason why I’m supporting my colleague Steve Abel’s amendment to take it through to 31 March is because, as you delve even deeper into this regulatory impact assessment and departmental disclosure statement, you do see just how serious the questions are for the select committee to grapple with. Not only are we putting our free-trade agreements at risk but MFAT has also assessed that we could be increasing New Zealand’s carbon emissions, which could be perceived as New Zealand not intending to meet its nationally determined contribution.

Now, it is a very serious decision for a country to make, that it’s making a decision not to meet its nationally determined contribution—or it’s NDC—under the Paris Agreement, an accord, of course, that the National Government signed up to in 2015. I’ve spoken about this in an earlier contribution and so I won’t go over it again, but we have seen that only 2½ weeks after the close-off date that the Minister has suggested in his written notice of instruction to the House is the Conference of the Parties. If New Zealand is intending to break its nationally determined contribution, we need to have the report-back date on this legislation after that Conference of the Parties in Azerbaijan so that there can be a true consideration of what the implications are for New Zealand if it is making a conscious and determined decision to breach its nationally determined contribution. So they are questions that I have in regard to that sixth point in the Minister’s notice of instruction in regard to the report-back date and it not being sufficient.

The other piece that I looked with great interest at when I got to read the Minister’s written instruction in more detail was that what he wanted, and his reason for asking the House to agree to this truncated report-back date—and remember—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Apologies to the member, but we’ve come to time. Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair, and we will return at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Good evening, members. The House is resumed. Could I please acknowledge the cross-party group who put on the Blue September event for men this evening. It was a fantastic event—well done.

When the House rose for the dinner break, we were debating for the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill the instruction to the select committee, and the Hon Dr Megan Woods has three minutes and 45 seconds remaining.

Point of order, Madam Speaker. Thank you, Madam Speaker. We are just seeking your guidance as we go through this debate on the referral motion. In the debate before the dinner break, we had two instances of a Government member interrupting speeches with procedural questions around how a referral debate occurs. I’d just seek some guidance from you about when these questions would most appropriately be put and whether they are a reason to interrupt a speech. I understand that for many members, this is a new learning process about how a referral debate works, but we’re seeking some guidance from you so we can ensure that we can have a free-flowing debate in this House on these referral motions.

OK. Guidance from me at this point in time—and I did watch a little bit of the end of the debate before the break; I was tied up before that—is that it is around the timing and the length of time, and as long as members refer to the time and the shortened report-back time, and not broadly go back into what was spoken about in the first reading, that is relevant. So not too broad, but to the point.

Speaking to the point of order, Madam Speaker, and thank you for that clarification. My question was more—and I appreciate you weren’t in the House—about when Government members are interrupting Opposition speakers in the course of their speeches to ask questions about how a referral debate operates, and I just wondered if we could have some guidance for the House about when would be appropriate.

Yeah, actually, to the member and to all of the members, I would like to think that the Speaker in the House will be the person who sees how the debate is flowing, and that’s how I would prefer it to happen. If someone has a particular point of order with a Speaker not picking something up, then that’s fine, but I would rather people leave the points of order to the end of the members’ speeches if they have a relevant point of order. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. To pick up from where we were before the dinner break, one of the things I was questioning was around the advantage of the public, given the very clear Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade advice that sits within the regulatory impact statement, and whether or not there will be time with the October report-back date—or the Halloween report-back date, as we’re calling it—to actually probe this advice and whether or not we are better to go with my colleague Steve Abel’s suggestion of 31 March 2025 to give more time to consider that.

The other point that I want to move on to—I’m looking at the Minister’s written instruction to the committee—is in his third bullet point, where he puts his reasons for asking the House to agree to the shortened select committee process. He said that “This is to address our current gas supply issues and high prices.” Now, I have gone through the regulatory impact material—and I’ve gone through it I won’t say in the detail that I will be as we progress through this bill—but nowhere in there can I find anything that talks about the current high gas prices and what the impact of reopening exploration would be on that. There is no analysis by officials within that.

This is a reason that the Minister has given of why we need to refer this for a shortened period of time, but given there is no analysis within the regulatory impact materials that we have on this, I would argue it is absolutely the opposite, given that we don’t seem to have modelling around what will happen not only over the short period of time but over the long run in terms of not only gas prices but the flow-on effect of using gas in our electricity system for a heightened length of time. We’ve got the climate impact analysis that is in the regulatory impact statement that shows that we’re going to be using more gas and that our emissions will increase over the long period of time by the changes that are in here, and what we do know is that the effect of using gas within our electricity sector for a longer period of time is going to keep prices high because, after all, the lowest units of electricity that we can produce are renewable energy.

I would think that, given the complexity of this and the fact that it isn’t covered off in this regulatory impact statement that we have in front of us and that has been tabled in the House, there is going to need to be some modelling. There is going to need to be some advice for the committee in order for them to adequately assess whether that is the case, and given a report-back date at the end of October when we’re already—what is it, 25 September? No, 24 September. We are—

Glen Bennett: Not in this House.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: Well, in this House, it’s 24 September—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s the 24th in here.

Hon Dr MEGAN WOODS: It’s 24 September in this House, and in other places it may even be a day on—in a land not so far away. That is a very short period of time for officials to be able to do that analysis and to bring it for the committee, for there to be adequate questioning around that, and to get feedback from a range of stakeholders. That is why I am speaking in support of this amendment from my colleague Steve Abel, who has said that he’d like to see us have that report-back date on 31 March 2025 because there is a large body of work.

I just would like to draw the House’s attention to paragraphs 83 and 84 of the regulatory impact analysis, which I think underscores why we need the longer period of time. Clearly, officials have been engaging with the oil and gas sector, but not with iwi or environmental NGOs. There is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to speak to Steve Abel’s amendment, and I believe I can still speak to Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s amendment.

There are two reasons why I want to provide my support for their amendments. One is the consideration which we’ve made for other bills, but I think it’s important to reiterate it for this one. The proposed motion, which would have allowed us to have select committee sessions while the House is sitting and, in particular, enable committee sessions outside of the Wellington area in a week when the House is sitting, which would have, basically, pulled aside some of the Standing Orders—I think that it particularly hampers the ability of smaller parties to participate in those select committee sessions.

Unlike with larger parties, when you take away one of our members in the select committee and outside of the Wellington area, even though we may have that leave provision in place, what it creates is an inability greater to the proportion of larger parties for our members to participate in scrutinising legislation that will be happening at the same time as, for example, a select committee that may be travelling outside the Wellington area. There may be an instance, for example, where the select committee really needs to meet with the local community and it’s determined that the only date available that logistically it can be made possible is on a day that the House is sitting, but that actually doesn’t stop that being considered by the Business Committee, as determined by the Standing Orders. I think that scrapping the words that allow the select committee to sit while the House is sitting—particularly the provisions to allow for the committee to sit outside of Wellington while the House is sitting—is really important, because I just think the Business Committee could make those determinations either way.

I do acknowledge that this bill will likely attract a huge amount of attention from local communities about how it will impact their very specific natural environments, and so I do accept that the select committee should have the ability to meet outside of Wellington; just not on sitting dates. I just think, to me, this isn’t about doing good democracy; this is more about the Government wanting to rush a process through.

If the Government was, once again, serious about bringing communities along with the bills that they’re trying to pass through, they would actually extend the period in which those bills are being considered by select committee, which takes me to Steve Abel’s amendment, which is about extending the report-back date from what some others have called a Halloween date to March. To me, that summer period is really critical because, actually, it’s a bit of a downtime for Parliament and it is a downtime for other communities, as well. I think it would allow greater engagement with the local communities who will be affected by this bill, and, as we’ve seen during question time, because of that potentially long-term impact it will have but also because it permits this kind of delay in coming in place, I think it’s really important that communities on the ground are able to be given the time to think about those long-term impacts that this bill will have.

I want to also echo and support the considerations that were given in relation to being able to produce good advice. I think we want to enable officials to advise us as thoroughly as they can on, for example, how this bill may affect specific areas. I think members of the committee deserve to be able to ask in-depth questions of officials and to have a bit of a back and forth, as is often the case when we have submitters come in. We often have that ability to then bring back officials, and as we hear information from different local communities, I think it’s really important that the Government allows that slowing down of the process to consider very specific impacts in the community and to seek that really thorough advice, because what I don’t want us to do is get to the second reading of the debate or, particularly, the committee of the whole House debate and be asking things that we could have actually unpacked at the select committee stage, should we have been given adequate time to address those.

I think we’ve realised that when we have a shortened select committee period and then we have to resort to asking questions of the Ministering in the committee of the whole House, we’re having to see that really awkward exchange of having the Minister turning back to the officials and advice almost being produced on the spot. I think, especially on a bill of this nature, which is around future generations, I would want to avoid that and to get to a point in the committee of the whole House stage where a lot of the tensions would have already been unpacked and we would have received the advice. I think that that will produce a much more robust debate.

Once again, I think that Steve Abel’s amendment is about strengthening democracy, and I want to bring it back to something in the coalition agreement, actually, which is around being guided by the best available data and evidence. A shortened select committee period, I would argue, actually goes against the coalition agreement’s supposed goal of being driven by the best available data and evidence, because we’re, effectively, undermining the ability to produce the best available data and evidence throughout the select committee stage. I want to plead to the members of the Government to look at their own coalition documents and actually honour the words in there to be guided by best available data and evidence.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that because this will affect future generations, I would want the select committee to be in a place where they can arrange things like visits to schools, for example, where they can work around the holiday period and the school holiday period throughout a substantial period of time to actually engage with young people throughout this process and to actually go to where young people are, because, ultimately, it is young people who are going to be affected the most by this bill. By having a much more longer period, I think that the voices of young people will be better able to be centred in the select committee stage. If we have a report date of October 2024, effectively, what we’re also saying to young people, who should have a right to participate in this process because issues around climate change will affect their generation—they will be locked out of the select committee process, effectively, or at least will be locked out in a way that prevents them from meaningfully participating in the discussions and those submissions.

I want the select committee to be equipped to go to far-flung regions in the country, remote regions in the country, and to hear from members of the community themselves. While we may have technology such as Zoom that allows for submitters to come in and present their views remotely, on bills such as this one that are (a) quite controversial and (b) have long-term impacts on our communities, I think we also deserve to centre the voices of rural communities in the select committee stage. I just simply cannot see how having a date of 31 October 2024 honours the voices of rural communities, who are often also locked out of properly participating in these legislative processes.

To summarise, the key reasons why I’m supporting the motion of my colleague is a plea to the Government to be driven by data and evidence, to centre the voices of young people and rural communities, and to actually be able to engage back and forth with officials to produce a bill that actually does what it intends to do. So, with that, I will end my contribution, and I acknowledge that there are members to my right who stood up as I was trying to speak, too.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. As we continue to traverse this, I want to speak to Steve Abel’s motion that is on the Table. I haven’t spoken on his yet, so I just want to say that the timing, as we’ve talked about, the Halloween report back—

Hon Dr Duncan Webb: The horror report back.

GLEN BENNETT: The horror—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I’ve just had advice from the Clerk that once you have spoken since the amendment has been made, you don’t have the opportunity to have a second speech after the amendment. You’ve had one opportunity; I’m going to call Helen White.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is my first call. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and I am very interested in this particular piece of legislation coming through, and I want to speak to the amendment of Steve Abel, which extends the time period.

One of the concerns I have is we’re in a really moving space in terms of energy as a whole. We’re at a time when we’re looking at a whole development in terms of artificial intelligence (AI) and a reliance on energy, and one of the things we’ve been able to do is attract people to come to this country to build AI capacity because we have a clean and green environment in terms of energy. We have a very, very good reputation in terms of energy, and one of the things I’m concerned about, about this reigniting of the capacity to drill in the long term, is that it will actually sully our reputation and stop people coming.

I will be seeking the opportunity to hear from people about the economic impact that it might have on the New Zealand brand. I’d like to hear from those people who’ve come into New Zealand and divested, and from people like scientists to talk about that. That’s a developing area and it just isn’t realistic that we would be able to get that kind of information. We might be able to get an independent adviser in, and it would be a much more realistic thing to be able to do that if the time frame was pushed out until April. We’re talking about something where there may be costs that the Government just doesn’t anticipate because it has not yet sought that kind of advice. What this does is straitjacket what we’ll hear, and it’s at a time when things are happening rapidly.

My understanding is that we have an exponential curve in the rapid development of AI. It is one of the fastest developments we’ve ever had. We can hardly comprehend it, it’s that fast. Apparently, people are finding it extremely hard to understand what sort of capacity there’ll be. This is happening—every few months, these things are changing—and it’s incredibly important that we, with some humbleness in this House, go and talk to experts about that impact. This is a moveable feast, so I genuinely would like an opportunity to be able to get the best possible information about what impact the opening up of mining in this way—again, opening up that speculation—might have on our reputation. I think this is a really good opportunity to just give us six more months in a space that’s altering so that we can get that kind of information in the door.

I’m also concerned, as a member of that committee, about the issues around the passing of risk to the New Zealand taxpayer that will happen under this proposed change. In the last Government, I was really proud of the fact that we said that, no, the taxpayer should not be paying for a speculative drilling company that goes in and then cynically folds and passes responsibility to an insolvent company. We put up, basically, a bond whereby you have to be able to close down a well, and that is financially at the risk of the person who is getting the benefit. Now, we have a reversal of that, where the taxpayer is going to end up footing the bill if a company walks away from its responsibilities. I would like time to be able to ask those questions, and I think that those questions need to be asked again to people who will need time to prepare proper advice.

I don’t want to catastrophise, but I want proper advice, as a member of that committee, on what the financial implications are for the taxpayer of the risk we’re taking, because what I am concerned about is we are going to have bottom-of-the-barrel people come to this country—bottom of the barrel of speculators—who come in because they see that we’re saying, “Come in, and we’re not going to charge you if you fold.” That’s what I’m concerned about. I’m seriously concerned that we are setting up a kind of red flag here. We’re saying to come in and we will be the reciprocal of a company that has no backing and is, cynically, not going to do anything that costs them a bean.

I would like to get some really good advice, and that’s going to have to be international advice because there will be countries that have closed the doors and there will be countries that haven’t, and we are putting our taxpayers at risk in this situation. We’ve had an experience of this. We have had an experience where the company did walk away and the taxpayer had to foot the bill, and, given that we’re talking about a drilling that doesn’t even have a potential possibility of any kind of benefit—even if a gas is found—for 16 years, we need to do what’s called a cost-benefit analysis, don’t we? We need to do that, and, actually, to do that well, it’s going to take, not for ever—and this amendment doesn’t ask for ever. It asks for enough time to do that analysis.

The cost-benefit is something I’ve heard the other parties in this House talk about; looking after the taxpayer is something I’ve heard the other parties in this House talk about, and this is a chance to put money where mouth is—absolutely, money where the mouth is. But do you know whose money it is? It’s the taxpayers’ money. That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to put the taxpayer first here, and that means we need to set aside what we do, which is a little bit of machismo, where there’s this attempt to rush everything through by Halloween—we need to put that aside, actually take a breath, settle down, and take enough time to make sure that we are not leaping where angels fear to tread, yeah? That’s what I think we need to do.

Hon Shane Jones: Relevance—relevance.

HELEN WHITE: It’s absolutely relevant, Minister—it’s absolutely relevant. The Minister asks why that’s relevant. That’s relevant—that’s absolutely relevant—because, as he knows, the taxpayer ended up paying last time. The taxpayer ended up paying—that’s hard-working New Zealanders. That’s our builders, that’s our tradies, that’s our nurses, that’s our police officers, all working their little—that’s our supermarket workers. They all ended up paying $430-something each for the pure benefit of having an oil and gas company which came in, put in the pipes, and then did not shut them off properly. The New Zealand taxpayer had to do that, and that’s not good enough.

That’s the relevance of it, I’d say to the Minister. I’d say the relevance is that we need to make sure that rather than react in some machismo way, we are reacting in a calm and collected manner and we are giving this legislation enough time. Now, my first point was my best point—well, that’s an important point, my first point.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the relevance to the Minister, as well, is that you’re pleading to the Minister for more time, and I think we need to keep it to that.

HELEN WHITE: Fair enough—fair enough, Madam Speaker. My first point was my best point, and I think that I have some on the other side of the House actually looking a little worried there, because we have a brand in New Zealand that’s really important and we need investors in this country.

We’re always talking about overseas investment. This is the best kind of overseas investment. It’s a new industry that we have in New Zealand, and it could make the difference in our economy and our productivity if we get it right. But it relies upon the attractiveness of New Zealand as a place with clean fuel, with one of the cleanest environments. We are so lucky—we have geo as well. We have this beautiful geothermal capacity in New Zealand, which we have only just started to tap. I was hearing about how much more there was to tap the other day, where if you drill further down, we may be able to actually get greater capacity, and—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Time.

HELEN WHITE: I think we have so much potential to have a pure-fuel solution that is not environmentally unsound, and we really, really need to listen to some of the players in those markets. Here, if they are going to say that they don’t actually want a bar of this and they’ll be walking away from New Zealand, it’ll cost us a lot more than we’ve got to gain. I want to know that and I want to understand that, and I think that’s my job as a member of this select committee that I will actually listen to those people and hear them, and we will grow as our environment changes exponentially. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I move that debate—

Francisco Hernandez: Point of order.

DAVID MacLEOD: —on this question now close.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There’s a motion being moved. We’ll let the member move the motion, and then I’ll take the point of order.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Is the point of order relevant to the closure motion?

Yes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Because?

FRANCISCO HERNANDEZ: The point of order is that I haven’t taken a call, and there’s still fresh material that I want to talk about in terms of this.

No, the debate has been going now for about two hours, and I am actually finding—[Interruption] Everybody, please—

Francisco Hernandez: I promise this is fresh material.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know, but I’ve actually called a closure motion, and I’m going to accept the closure motion because I am finding from—

Ricardo Menéndez March: Speaking to the point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, but I’ve ruled on the point of order. Is it a fresh point of order?

Well, it’s to the point. Just because other people may have not brought fresh points—the Green team actually has made a substantive effort to make sure we speak to that.

No, I’ve ruled on the point of order.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Glen Bennett be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Camilla Belich be agreed to.

The question is that the amendment in the name of Steve Abel be agreed to.