Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

Firstly, I have to acknowledge my very dear friend and colleague the Hon Eugenie Sage, who was in this House as an MP for 12 years, as a Minister—Minister of Conservation, Associate Minister for the Environment—someone who has always championed our conservation estate and done amazing work to ensure that those places are protected, not to mention creating huge numbers of jobs and community resilience through Jobs for Nature. She was here tonight, in Parliament, and I was at an event, which I’ll get to in a minute. But I just want to acknowledge that this bill was originally drafted by the Hon Eugenie Sage. I hope that all members in this House, particularly those who were at the event tonight put on by Forest & Bird and hosted by my friend and colleague Steve Abel and Lan Pham—I hope you will consider voting for this bill, because it’s a bill that is absolutely essential if we want to have a livable future for our planet.

We’ve known this for some years: the simple maths on climate change means that we cannot have new or expanded exploration or mining of fossil fuels, particularly coal. What this bill does is it draws that line in the sand: no new coalmines, no expansion of existing coalmines. The brutal maths of human-caused climate change is that we cannot meet the targets that we must meet to get to the Paris Agreement, which all the countries in the world signed up to at the time, based on the scientific evidence. You crunch the numbers, you do the maths; we cannot have a livable climate if we continue to explore and produce fossil fuels, particularly coal. We’ve known that for 10, 20, 30 years, and it saddens me that members in this House—who no doubt have children or grandchildren or other family members, and surely they care about the future world that those children and their children will inherit—are continuing to live in denial of the basic reality of what we need to do to have a livable future.

This evening in Parliament, some of the members here would have seen an excellent documentary that I recommend everybody watch, and that’s about the Denniston Plateau. I don’t know how many members here have visited the Denniston Plateau. I have not had the privilege of visiting it myself, but I was extremely moved by the documentary that was put on tonight, that has been produced by Forest & Bird. My colleague Steve Abel spoke very movingly about taking his son, who’s 14, to visit this place. It’s undeniable, the richness of the ecology there. It’s actually a unique place with an irreplaceable part of our natural heritage here in Aotearoa. I know all New Zealanders have some connection to the beautiful nature of this place. So many New Zealanders are out there spending their time manning trap lines, doing pest eradication, replanting natives because they care about this land, and they want to see nature thrive.

It’s one of the things about this country. I wasn’t born in Aotearoa New Zealand, but my children were, and two of their grandparents were, and four of their great-grandparents were, and everyone in their family has some connection to this land. And that can’t even compare to the connection of tangata whenua. It’s part of what makes Aotearoa unique, and it’s an absolute taonga that we need to protect. I want to take the opportunity, in the first reading of this bill, to talk about the threat to this incredibly unique place that is the Denniston Plateau.

What is being proposed—and I believe there’s a fast-track application in—is an open-cast coalmine. It is total ecosystem destruction. It would strip mine an area the size of 1,700 rugby fields. As we’ve heard, restoration is impossible—it’s like “trying to unscramble an egg”, to quote the Forest & Bird speech earlier today. How could we even begin to contemplate the destruction of such a precious place in 2025? It fails, as people spoke about tonight, the most basic tests—first, the environment test. Denniston is an ecological island in the sky; it is a living museum. The Department of Conservation ranks this plateau as one of the most valuable ecological sites on mainland New Zealand. It’s a world of ancient dwarf forests, giant insects, and a Kiwi habitat. It is the only home on Earth for the avatar moth and New Zealand’s very own endangered giant carnivorous snail. I know that a certain Minister in this Government would laugh and brag about causing these species to become extinct—that’s how out of touch some of the Government members are. They brag and laugh about the destruction of entire species.

Steve Abel: But they’re gonna vote for this bill.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: And the Government members are probably—yeah, I wish they were going to vote for this bill.

So let’s talk about the economic test, because that’s what’s always put up. We say, “Oh, we have this precious place where life is thriving.”—a unique place that I would love to take my children to. And rather than letting it thrive, “We can’t afford—we need jobs; we need money.” As if, somehow, money were something other than a symbol. It’s just a symbol. We have resources; we have the ability to produce electricity without coal. So New Zealanders carry all of the environmental risks, but the truth is this is all a lie—I’m sorry, it is a lie—this trade-off, that somehow we’ll be wealthier if we destroy this place. It doesn’t pass the economic test. Indeed, the cost of the runoff from the acidified water, as a result of the open-cast coalmine, costs more for the Government to repair than the royalties they earn on the mining. You know, there’s a handful of jobs, but we can create jobs in other ways. In fact, we need to create a whole bunch of jobs in order to have the transition to renewable electricity; in order to have affordable, warm, dry housing; in order to have sustainable transportation; to have high-quality processed wood products that can be used in structural timber buildings. There’s so many opportunities for jobs that are created by the transition to a renewable economy, and that’s what we should be doing.

The Stockton mine, which is nearby—I don’t know if anyone’s visited the Stockton mine—has already cost taxpayers millions to clean up the mess. There’s a cruel irony in asking a community like Westport, which is one of the most vulnerable to worsening flooding exacerbated by climate change, to look for hope in a sunset industry which is driving the crisis. It’s not against the jobs that we have had or professions; it’s just recognising that we need to work together for a future that protects our unique places and creatures. It’s a future that doesn’t champion a volatile boom-and-bust climate-damaging industry that has let the coast down before.

To quote the Forest & Bird speaker tonight, “They’re putting a choice to all of Aotearoa.” Do we sacrifice a priceless national treasure for short-term jobs and dubious profits that flow to offshore companies, and which come at the expense of irreplaceable damage to a living museum and exacerbate the climate crisis? Or do we draw a line in the sand and say some places are too precious to mine? I think that’s a very easy answer, and I encourage all the Government members to watch the documentary, to go and visit the Denniston Plateau, and ask themselves: is this who they want to be in 2025? Is this what you want to be remembered for—members opposite, not you, Madam Speaker, obviously. Is this what all of us want to be remembered for? Because people will look back at this point in time, in 2025, and say, “They could have made different choices. They could have prioritised renewable electricity instead of prioritising profits for a coalmining company, and then allowing them to destroy this irreplaceable indigenous biodiversity.” We don’t have to do it—we don’t have to do it. The science and the maths says we cannot do it.

So I ask Government members here tonight to consider voting for this bill so that they can look themselves in the mirror and say they truly did stand up for positive progress, for protecting their children—all of our children—and their children’s future, and all of the other life that we share this planet with.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take the first call to oppose this bill, on behalf of the Government, the Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill, and the—

Hon Member: On behalf of the National Party.

GRANT McCALLUM: Oh, sorry—on behalf of the National Party. I do apologise—I couldn’t possibly speak for you. I couldn’t possibly speak for the members over to my left here. I do apologise.

Look, so it’s interesting, you know, I recently attended the AGM of a little group in Kerikeri called Our Kerikeri, right? And we got to the point of general discussion and so forth and the questions started to flow. So what do you think the main question and concern was from the people in that room? There’s probably about 50 people there. And being in Northland, you’d have thought, “So is it all about the roads?” Because, boy, we’ve got some rubbish roads up there and, and is it going to be about the dusty roads and all that stuff? Would that be their number one concern? Would it be? No, it wasn’t. Would it be about the education systems and the challenges we’ve had in the education system? Would it be about that? No, it wasn’t. Would it be about the challenges of law and order, their personal safety? No, it wasn’t.

I’ll tell you what it was about. Their biggest concern was about power prices. It was about the size of their power bill. And so they then proceeded to have debates about it. And I sat there and listened, listened carefully to what they had to say about any concerns about the price of power. Then they all said, “Well, you’re our member of Parliament. What can you do about it? What do you think about our challenges in this space?” So I stood up and I said, “Well, I think you just need to remember a couple of things. The reason that we had such high power prices is because the previous Government cancelled oil and gas”—

Hon Julie Anne Genter: No, it’s because of coal.

Steve Abel: That’s not true.

GRANT McCALLUM: —which they cancelled. They put an oil and gas ban on the table and destroyed the confidence in that sector. Overnight, the price of wholesale power went up—doubled. The wholesale power price doubled overnight. That’s what happened. The truth is clearly hurting some on the other side of the House—clearly hurting people.

So where did we end up? So one of the reasons we didn’t end up with—and they had this big plan. They had this big plan, they said, to stop oil and gas and coal and all that stuff. They wanted to get rid of it all and come to a place where we have all renewable energy. Well, actually, that’s what we’d all love, is renewable energy. That’s great, but you need to transition.

This is the problem. They came out with a big announcement and had no plan. There was no plan. So consequently, suddenly, we became the only country in the world that instead of transitioning to renewables, we’re going away from gas to coal—to coal. And what impact does that have on climate change? [Interruption] Right, look at them. It’s obviously a trigger word. Coal is clearly a trigger word. Gee, they’re really excited on the other side of the House, aren’t they?

We’re in this situation because it was a typical sort of spur of the moment, irresponsible announcement, which led to a situation where suddenly the confidence went, and power prices went up. And why’d they go up? Because suddenly we had to start bringing in coal to cope with the fact that we had a shortage of energy—a shortage of energy at crucial times in the winter. Because guess what? It didn’t rain. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain. The wind didn’t blow, and the sunshine hours were shorter in the middle of winter. And that is what happens. The power price went up.

So what were the consequences of those power prices going up? Well, why don’t you go and ask some of the people in the central North Island of New Zealand that saw the mills closed, the timber mills and all that that closed, and the jobs disappear? Rural, small town, regional communities—destroyed. Why? Because people on that side of the House, they think they have this idealistic view of the world that you could fix the world by ignoring the fact you actually need energy at an affordable price.

Steve Abel: It’s free market ideology—it is deindustrialising.

GRANT McCALLUM: And there we go. There they go—they’re going again. Gee, they’re quite excited tonight, aren’t they? Quite excited.

Go and ask the people of Nelson who’ve recently been through similar experiences: two or three big businesses have laid off staff and reduced. Why? Price of energy, once again. Once again, this is what you get from people who go through this idealistic approach without a plan. Well, guess what? We have a plan. And unfortunately, because of what the last lot did, it does involve using some coal.

Now wouldn’t it be better—

Hon Member: And gas.

GRANT McCALLUM: And gas. Yes, thank you, Minister. And wouldn’t it be better if we were to use coal that we had in our own country rather than importing it? Because that’s what we’re doing. Indonesian coal: here it comes by the ship load into this country, and we happen to burn that while we try and transition, while we build more solar, while we put up more wind farms like we’re doing in Northland—we’re doing a lot of that in Northland, which is absolutely fantastic, right? So that’s why we do that. We’ve got to burn coal. So why don’t we just burn our own?

This bill will stop us. According to this bill, it will stop us doing that. And that would actually be worse for the climate. Here we go. They’re all worried about climate change, and yes, so are we, but we’re more sensible about it. We actually have a plan.

Hon Member: Pragmatic.

GRANT McCALLUM: We have a plan, and we’re pragmatic. That’s exactly right, Minister. And that’s what we have to focus on. We had to focus on delivering in this space, because if you don’t have a plan, then you plan to fail. And the last lot, well, they certainly planned to fail. We all saw that—we all saw that. We have a huge pile of coal there that we’re importing from Indonesia. What a complete waste of our own resources. So we’re saying to the rest of the world, “Look, oh, here we go. We won’t dig up our own land to use our own coal in the meantime. No, no, no, no, no. We’ll bring it from overseas and let someone else dig it up.” We have actually got better opportunities in this country that do that properly than some of the countries we might import from. And I think it’s really, really important to remember that.

So what are the other implications of this policy? There is also the job aspect. Why don’t we make sure we give our own people in this country jobs—working at the moment while we have to transition, while we transition to renewables, which is where we all want to be? Why don’t we actually use our own people and expand the mines we’ve got in New Zealand to actually use that coal and employ our own people so that our own communities benefit from it, in the meantime—right?—while we do the big transition? Because it’s just the idealistic nonsense you get from people on the other side who don’t understand the implications of making these sorts of decisions.

In summary, this bill really is a typical idealistic, simplistic approach to a complex problem. All it does is help drive up power prices and make the climate worse. It won’t reduce our impact on emissions in this country; it’ll make it worse because the coal’s got to be imported. And so, therefore, why don’t we at least do it in New Zealand where that means it’s closer to us, therefore we have less emissions getting it here to use?

Steve Abel: You’re going to use LNG.

GRANT McCALLUM: No, in the end, do we want to use coal? Of course we don’t. So what we will do is we will eventually use gas because that will a make a big difference. If we use gas we’ve got off the coast of Taranaki, won’t it be great? Won’t it be great, David McLeod from New Plymouth, if we went for the local people employed in your region who actually want to work and find the gas so we can then get rid of the coal—wouldn’t that be a good thing? You’d think the people on the other side would be thinking, “Let’s go and find the gas” because guess what? It’s a much better option than actually burning coal.

So, boy, we’ve got to be excited. It’s like a trigger word on that side of the House. It’s like a real, real trigger word. But, look, in all seriousness, if we’re going to transition, let’s do it properly. Let’s plan, let’s build renewables because that’s what we can do in this country, and we’ll do a damn good job of it. I do not commend this bill to the House.

I think, after that stand-up comedy routine, I’d like to bring some serious analysis to this debate—some very serious analysis to this debate. Grant McCallum is a nice guy, but I’m going to overlook that rather facile analysis of the energy supply in this country. We do need an energy plan in this country. We do need an energy strategy in this country. We do need one that is based on renewables. The reason that power prices have been so high is because there are so many unbuilt but consented renewables available to us—wind farms that could have been built. There is a huge opportunity to go to solar power. In fact, interestingly, we don’t actually need coal for thermal power in this country. We could easily do it with renewables if we went and built them. We can do solar; we can do wind. There is a need still, in some cases, for coal for process power, and that’s a recognised need.

The interesting thing is that the International Energy Agency has said two things about coalmines. The first is that, if we are to meet net zero emissions by 2050, we simply must have no new coalmines or extensions of existing ones. That’s from the International Energy Agency. That’s kind of interesting because they’ve always had this focus on ensuring a secure supply of fossil fuels, but not only have they said that, the International Energy Agency has said that the decline in fossil fuel demand is so significant that no new investments in coal projects are required beyond those which were already committed as of 2021. We do not need new coal investments anywhere in the world. We simply do not need—

David MacLeod: Coking coal, steel.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: And, Mr MacLeod, that does include coking coal. This is actually a conversation we do need to have in the New Zealand context. Why would we carry on mining coal in New Zealand when there is no need for coal for process energy in New Zealand—when we do not need to mine it? There’s no need for coal for thermal energy in New Zealand—energy that can be created through renewable means. That’s the first serious conversation that we could have in the context of this bill: what we do about our energy supply.

There is a second serious conversation that needs to be had in the context of this bill, and that is what we do as we move away from extractive industries like coalmining, with respect to jobs. Now, people talk in terms of the “just transition”, but let’s cash out what that actually means: it means protections for workers; it means training for workers; it means ensuring that there are good, well-paying jobs that people who currently work in coalmines can transition to, very much preferably in the places where they already live. That’s a conversation that I think we need to have in the context of this bill. If we’re going to say, “No new coalmines, no extensions to coalmines”, what, then, of the people who work in those coalmines? We do need to have that conversation about the just transition.

In fact, this is very much a bottom line for Labour. How do we manage those workers? How do we ensure that their jobs are protected, not the jobs they are doing currently but that we find, as I said, good, well-paying jobs that speak to their skills, that speak to their homes, that speak to their sense of identity, that give them a place of standing? That’s what we need with a just transition.

The Labour Party is going to vote for this bill. We are going to vote for this bill because we want to have that conversation about energy in New Zealand, because we want to ensure that we do make a move towards renewables, because we want to have that conversation about jobs for people who are engaged in those industries. On those grounds, we are supporting this bill and will be proud to cast our votes in favour of it.

Julie Anne Genter’s bill would make energy scarcer, prices higher, and New Zealand weaker. She says it’s a climate plan; I say it’s a plan to manufacture energy scarcity, and that it’s frankly immoral. From 1 January this year, apparently, her bill would slam the door on any new coalmines and expansions on existing mines. Not one more tonne of good, clean black coal from a clean, safe, local site. Not one more efficiency upgrade.

Hon Willie Jackson: Oh, stop talking big.

SIMON COURT: Not one more dollar of regional investment, Willie Jackson. A hard ban; a full stop. That’s a policy of deliberate scarcity, dressed up as virtue.

Now let’s talk about what she refuses to: real people. The shift worker on the night line at the steel mill at Glenbrook, the dairy processor in Southland who’s responsible for cleaning out the vats, and the family in Flatbush—

Hon Willie Jackson: You don’t even know where Flatbush is!

SIMON COURT: —who just wants the lights on and a heater running on a frosty winter’s night, Willie Jackson. Tell them to tighten their belts, Jackson—

Hon Willie Jackson: You tell me where Flatbush is! Where’s Flatbush?

SIMON COURT: —while we strangle our energy supplies. That is not leadership, Willie Jackson.

Hon Willie Jackson: Where’s Flatbush? Tell me where Flatbush is.

SIMON COURT: Willie Jackson: it’s an elite fantasy where other people pay your power bill. Energy poverty isn’t an academic talking point. It’s a child doing homework in a cold house because Parliament decided to grandstand, and that’s what we had from Labour and the Greens for six years. Not all coal is the same. Our West Coast coking coal is amongst the best in the world. It’s simply too valuable to burn. That’s why we export millions of tonnes of it to India, South Korea, and Japan.

Steve Abel: And destroy irreplaceable ecology.

SIMON COURT: It’s a critical ingredient in steel making and chemical manufacturing. It’s what life runs on: hospitals, tubing, transmission towers, wind turbine masts, EV bodies, bridges, even the things in our homes are all made from coking coal, Steve Abel. Until there’s a truly scalable, affordable alternative for primary steelmaking, coking coal is all we’ve got that keeps us living in a modern society. And when it comes to keeping the lights on, physics beats politics every day, because hydro needs rain, wind needs wind, solar needs sun, and when they don’t show up, New Zealand still needs reliable and affordable energy, and that is in the form of thermal coal.

That’s why ACT, in Government, is fixing what matters. We’ve given coal- and gas-fired power stations the same one-year priority as renewables under the amended Resource Management Act. A consenting pathway is important for firming energy, so when all those other renewables aren’t available, we can keep the lights on and the factories running. We back building a million tonnes of coal stockpile at Huntly to keep Auckland and the Waikato safe from blackouts and brownouts, and we back locally mined coal in Southland and the Waikato.

Importing more coal from overseas while banning efficient domestic supply is economic and environmental nonsense. Ship miles and lower standards don’t cut emissions; they raise them. And here’s the kicker: the member says her ban protects the environment. I say it does the opposite. Prohibiting modern, monitored higher-standard mining, here, shifts demand to jurisdictions with lower environmental standards, longer shipping routes, and higher emissions. Bans don’t lift standards; they outsource responsibility. And now they’ve all gone quiet on the Opposition benches, haven’t they?

The responsible path is to demand excellence in our mining operations here at home, to rely on engineers, scientists, and ecologists to design smarter mine plans, to avoid sensitive areas where practical—maybe the Denniston Plateau is one of those—minimise footprints, and restore land when the job is done, and hold operators to account with tough compliance, transparent monitoring, and real enforcement. But that is not an outright ban—that is not an outright ban.

This bill also kneecaps regional economies that have powered New Zealand for generations. The message to the Coast, to Southland, to the Waikato: “Thanks for your service, now shut up shop. Here’s a pink slip, with a pat on the head.” That’s what they call a transition.

ACT stands for energy security, for responsible mining, for world-class environmental practice, and for a transition to a future that is affordable, that is reliable, and on New Zealand terms. ACT will not support this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in opposition to the Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill. Apologies, we actually had a speaker in the Hon Shane Jones that was really looking forward to this bill. Unfortunately, he is away on parliamentary business and cannot speak to this tonight. Why would you want to put this in the ballot? It is unfortunate for Julie Anne Genter that this has been pulled out, in this form, to be debated. This bill is talking about a blanket ban. It’s talking about no more new coalmines; it’s talking about no expansion of existing coalmines. We should be talking about energy security in this country. We should be talking about how this would stifle economic growth. We’ve already seen, from the Opposition’s gas and oil ban, how economic growth in this country was stifled under that announcement.

On this side, in the Government parties, we’re talking about an agenda of growth, and we need energy sources. We are not just talking about the use of coal, obviously, for energy production, but we’re talking about things like steel production, and we’re talking about things like cement production. They’re all things that go into buildings and into construction of buildings—that’s another issue that we have in this country—and other industrial processes that coal is used for.

After I travelled to the West Coast about five or six weeks ago, I gave a speech in the general debate on my trip to the West Coast. When I’m on the West Coast, the West Coasters are telling me, “We want these types of industries, we want jobs, and we want regional development.” From the mayors on the West Coast—what I’m hearing from the Opposition isn’t what I’m hearing on my trips away when I’m speaking with those people in those communities.

New Zealand First believes we should be open for business. By promoting the mining industry, we are actually saying, “We are open for business here in New Zealand. We are wanting investment. We’re wanting to attract investment.” What I can’t understand is that we’re still bringing Indonesian coal into this country from—I just googled—over 750,000 kilometres away, nearly 800,000 kilometres away. In places in the Waikato, near Huntley, 10 kilometres away, we’ve got coal sources. Why are we doing that? Why are we not using our own natural resources that are here and that we can use, instead of importing inferior coal from other sources in the world that is a dirtier, more unreliable resource, when we’ve actually got that here in our own country.

We also don’t talk enough about the fact that 0.17 percent is our emissions—0.17 percent is the emissions that we are producing here in New Zealand. Why aren’t we talking about countries like China? Why aren’t we talking about the US? Why aren’t we talking about India, where all these other emissions are happening?

Hon Willie Jackson: Because you live here—that’s why. You’re New Zealand First, aren’t you?

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: The Opposition is shouting out, but you want to shut us down, you want to close our businesses down, and you want to skyrocket residential power prices just on an ideology that, for some reason, we are going to save the planet by not having some coalmines here in New Zealand. It’s absolutely farcical. People are laughing at that type of ideology that is coming from the Opposition parties.

We also heard about the International Energy Agency and how they’re going to be frowning on New Zealand. Are they going to be coming to save our residents? Are they going to be coming to save New Zealand businesses when the lights go off? Where is the Paris Agreement when the lights go off here in New Zealand? We need to be resilient and looking after our resources and using them while we can. I don’t commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, it’s an honour to be here on behalf of Te Pāti Māori to support this bill and to support the vision and the courage and the bravery that this member has to finally look at what it is that we need to do as a nation—instead of hearing this lazy, “Let’s just carry on doing what we’re doing because it’s the only thing we know what to do and we’ll keep doing it until there’s nothing left.”

The sad part about this, as I just heard the previous Government member talk about people laughing—and they are laughing: they are laughing at the lack of vision that this Government has and the absolute embarrassment that it has for the future generations who want to hear what is the solution. Where is the transition this Government keeps talking about, because it’s not evident in any of the discussions? We’ve seen a lot of discussion about “Oh, well, let’s just allow the less dirty coal in than the dirtier-dirtier. Let’s just carry on doing what we’re doing because even though it’s poisonous, it’s less poisonous than the last one that we were doing.” It’s like: are we really listening to the degree and the poor level of debate going on? The argument is that the status quo is the only way to go: “We must continue to look after the shareholders. We must continue to keep being dirty and filthy as New Zealanders and not care a hoot about the future generations that are impacted.”

What we have here, and it’s not disputable, is that coalmining directly fuels the climate crisis and the issues that we have as a nation. It degrades whenua, it degrades waterways, and it degrades and it impacts negatively on our ecosystem. But instead of saying, “Let’s just ban all coal activity.”, what this member is doing is saying, “Let’s ban new activity.” The alarmists are saying, “It’s going to affect jobs. It’s going to make the world fall in. Oh, my goodness me, capitalism is going to fall on its knees!” It’s just alarmist, and I think the real sad part is about the denial of what the Crown Minerals Act does on its own—I don’t even want to go down that path—but it continues to breach Te Tiriti o Waitangi, where we ignore the fact that mana whenua, iwi, and hapū have never wanted these types of activities and never wanted the lack of connection and the lack of ownership and accountability that they deserve.

I keep hearing about Taranaki—and, actually, as somebody from Taranaki, we see, full-on, what this industry doesn’t do and doesn’t give to the local economy. So I think, you know, again, the only people that really benefit from this are the shareholders. And quite often, they’re not shareholders that come and bring their energy and their multiplied economic effects into the regions. So, again, the hardest part about this is: how are we going to achieve 100 percent renewable energy? Are we never going to have that discussion as a nation? Are we going to continue to hear from the likes of people like “Miney”, the likes of the people from New Zealand First, who keep saying, “This is the only way we’re going to keep the lights on.” Rubbish! What is the alternative? Where is your innovation? Where is your connection? Where were you when the whole of Taranaki had an energy conference? Where were you all, because I never saw one of you turn up? You know why? Because you’re comfortable sitting in the mud and the filth of what the sector does and brings to our whole nation.

Banning coal and making sure that we protect our mokopuna has to be something, surely, every party here agrees to, don’t we—don’t we? Don’t we all agree that our mokopuna are the most important people in the world? [Interruption] I mean, I’m hearing one over there that doesn’t agree that the mokopuna are the most important. For us, for Te Pāti Māori, there’s nothing more important than our mokopuna, and the sad thing about this is that we’re not here debating what the solution is, what transition is going to look like—no, no. What we’re doing is we’re standing here debating how we please the lobbyists and how we make sure the sector stays exactly as it is, and we take the less dirty option than the other dirty options. You have no idea at all of what it is that you’re proposing.

When are we going to stop calling extraction growth—when? When are we going to get out of that denial and stop calling colonisation regulation? When are we going to stop sacrificing our mokopuna for short-term profits? And when are we going to stop sitting there and being in denial that coal is the dirtiest fuel on the earth—the dirtiest? It doesn’t matter what degree of dirty you have: dirty is dirty is dirty.

I think the whole sad thing is that we, as Te Pāti Māori, will always stand on the side of those who give a hoot about our mokopuna, because this place really lacks vision and future care for our mokopuna. I think the sad thing about it is not only should we be supporting this bill, I mean, we would love to see the Crown Minerals Act repealed—we would really love to have that debate in this House, but we’ll leave that for another day.

So, again, I give, and Te Pāti Māori gives, homage and congratulates this member and ex-Minister on her vision to do what is right by every New Zealander, and that is to look after us and come up with a just transition. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. [Interruption] I am pleased that the Government members are full of hope when I get up and speak on this particular topic this evening.

I’m pleased to be able to speak on the Crown Minerals (Prohibition on Coal Mining) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the whakapapa of this member’s bill, Eugenie Sage and Julie Anne Genter, who have done the work that’s needed to bring this bill before the House. This bill prohibits new coalmines and any expansion of existing coalmines after 1 January in 2025. This will protect the climate from the greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning coal and better protect Aotearoa New Zealand’s landscapes.

This is an important conversation and what we’ve heard from Government members across the House is largely political. It’s a scare tactic, really, where they constantly use the line that we need more mines in order to keep the lights on when it comes to energy, and anyone who knows anything about the subject matter knows that that would only get us part of the way. We need to be innovative, clever, and resourceful in the way that we use energy in this country.

The other point comes back to the need for a plan, and it is our view that, fundamentally, decisions like this need to be made within the context of a comprehensive energy strategy for New Zealand. But under our colleagues, of course, this has gathered dust. There hasn’t been much action, like many things under this Government in the past two years. I really like the MP for North Shore, he’s a great man, but this is hard yakka, when it comes to important stuff before us.

We will support this bill through its first reading, and I always look fondly to the work that Julie Anne Genter puts before this House. It’s always well-thought-through and progressive.

We want it to go through to select committee and have the scrutiny of Parliament with experts to put their lens across it and advise the committee with good quality evidence to reduce the politics and the heat that comes with the subject matter.

We need to be integrating this with the transition away from coal—that is important—and, of course, we need to understand what this piece of legislation would mean for workers in this particular place, for relevant communities across Aotearoa New Zealand, and for those in the Taranaki who may or may not have gone to the energy conference as outlined by our colleague before.

But the point I do want to acknowledge here is that while it does create a strict ban on expansion and means no new permits for existing mines, it means that the continuation is allowed, and existing coalmines can continue to operate after 1 January 2025 with their current permitted activities. The bill does not immediately shut down active mines, despite what Government members will say. Instead, it allows them to operate within the boundaries of their present approvals.

So I think that’s an important point, where we say what we’ve got now, potentially, is where we’re at. Any new mines are being ruled out under this piece of legislation, but it needs to fit as a broader strategy for energy in Aotearoa New Zealand. Tonight, in this first reading, we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It gives me—well, I have to do this really, speak on this bill. I am on the Environment Committee and passionate about all things environment. I do acknowledge the member, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, for, I guess, the luck of the draw in bringing this member’s bill to fruition. Unfortunately, it’s going to have a short life. At least she turned up for her bill, which is very important, so we can vote on it.

I would like to agree with Deborah Russell, who actually said that Grant McCallum is a nice guy. I do can concur, and actually the Green Party could learn a lot from Grant McCallum. He’s one of our co-leaders in the Bluegreens, which is actually doing some incredible work in the environmental space. Actually, it’s probably one thing National could actually do better—promote our Bluegreens better—because, actually, in terms of environmental policy, it’s really, really, really good. To give you an example, just this week—

Steve Abel: The most environmentally destructive Government in a generation.

RYAN HAMILTON: Steve’s a bit excited there! Just this week, through our own environmental policy, for example—if I was to talk about a pragmatic policy—let’s look at our methane targets, which were released just last week, I think, where it’s a pragmatic solution. You’ve got ideology up here and it says, “Yep, we acknowledge that the methane levels need to come down”, but let’s do it in a pragmatic, transitional way. Let’s look at things like split gas and things like that. That’s the sort of thing, that’s the sort of policy, that the Green Party could do really well on. In fact, I remember our Prime Minister acknowledging the departing of James Shaw and saying that, with James Shaw, there was the last true environmentalist. We really do miss him in the House.

When I think about coal, there’s a few things that come to mind. When I think of coal, I think of Matua Shane, and I acknowledge his efforts in the minerals space.

Steve Abel: Yeah, he’s the future, isn’t he?

RYAN HAMILTON: He’s certainly got a more pragmatic future than you, Mr Abel, I think, because his feet are grounded, let’s put it that way. The other thing I think of, when I think of coal, is my grandparents in Papatoetoe, where they used to put coal on the fire because it was slow burning and would keep the house warm during those winter months. Picture this, Madam Speaker, if you will: now we’ve got the great Waikato Expressway, but before that, there was the old State Highway 1 and you’d have all the stops from Pōkeno and Mercer and Hampton Downs, and you’d see the twin towers of Huntly Power Station on the skyline. I still go past them and look at them with awe and think about the incredible contribution that Huntly Power Station has made to this economy. When all the ideology—

David MacLeod: And the local coalfields.

RYAN HAMILTON: The Huntly coalfields—I’m going to get to that. When all the ideology of the last administration talked about shutting coal down and shutting fossil fuels down, and then all of a sudden we were left with these rising power prices, who do we turn to in the time of need? We go back to Huntly and we say, “Thank you. Huntly, we apologise. We apologise, Huntly, for that”—the great Rāhui Pōkeka, the great power station that exists there.

I do have some sympathy with the mover of the bill. We do acknowledge that there is a definite place for the reduction of fossil fuel, but, of course, it’s got to be pragmatic. In fact, if I turn to the bill, it said the commencement of this Act will be 1 January 2025, which only gives us two months—

Hon Member: ‘26.

RYAN HAMILTON: 2026? No, it says “2025”. I think we would need to make an amendment in the committee of the whole House. I think what we could do is we could, potentially, support this if we changed “2025” to “2045”, or to “2055”, just to give us more of a runway to get there. I think that’s really important.

Just by note, there’s something like 12 coalmining companies in New Zealand operating right now, and they’re employing people—they’re producing economic growth. This bill would just think to clip their wings and prevent them from expanding. We’re a Government that’s keen on restoring the economy, growing the economy, and building the economy. Why would we support something that shrinks something based on ideology and not on fact? We too care about our mokopuna, but we want to do it in a pragmatic way, not one that’s cooked up in ideology, where we burn papers in a bin on the steps of Parliament.

What a load of nonsense from Ryan Hamilton. Have you got any mokopunas? It was just a very sad speech, but it sums up the other side very well. The member there from the North—Grant. I always forget. What’s your last name, Grant?

Grant McCallum: McCallum.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: That’s right. You’ve made such an impact on me that I forgot your last name! It was a very, very weak speech because, as he well knows, his dear friend Matua Shane Jones was a huge supporter of the Labour Government and the ban on new oil and gas.

Ryan Hamilton: He saw the light.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: He didn’t see the light. [Interruption] They can laugh all they like, but he’s there, in front of the cameras, smiling away, saying, “Yes, Jacinda, I support you. I love you. I love Labour.” He’s there—it’s a fact. He can deny it all he likes, and all his nonsense in the House, but we all know, and old New Zealand First—oh, there he is, the mayor over there, another Wellington—we’ve got a good Wellington mayor now, haven’t we? Fabulous! This lot over here—up and down.

Here’s the other thing: Winston Peters, the man who should still be Deputy Prime Minister, he supported the ban on oil and gas exploration in 2018. Yes, he did! He was 100 percent behind it, so I ask the question: how can we take this other side seriously tonight when their coalition partners backed us, the Greens, Labour, the Māori Party—were the Māori Party there? I don’t know if they were quite there. Not in 2018. Were they there? No? Well, they should have been there. The reality is that Winston Peters and Shane Jones backed us 100 percent, and the other side knows this.

The reality is that National back us, too, because the ACT Party, as we all know, are climate change deniers. That is well recorded. David Seymour was caught out on Q + A. He tried to deny it, but Jack Tame came up—

Cameron Luxton: He tried to deny denying?

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: No, no—you are deniers. You’ve been deniers for years and years and years. The reality is you opposed the Paris Agreement, repealed the zero carbon Act, and abolished our Climate Change Commission. The ACT Party doesn’t care about this kaupapa.

I want to say—where’s our member gone? Is she still there? I want to congratulate her. She was a wonderful Minister in this area for her courage. It takes courage. I want to mihi to you, Julie Anne Genter, for your courage and your bravery in putting up an alternative. She’s trying to be nice to this useless lot on the other side. She’s trying to be nice and reasonable. She hasn’t always been nice and reasonable to them, and I can understand that.

Grant McCallum: Ask Matt Doocey.

Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yeah, well, he deserves a clip across the ears. All I’m saying to you tonight is that this former Minister cares about the environment. She’s got a history, she’s got background, and she’s got some courage that no one on the other side—I’m not really meant to say that, am I, Madam Speaker? But they are lacking—they are lacking. You have to have some courage to do this sort of thing. You have to imagine a new world, and there is no imagination on this other side. They’re full of dingbats on the other side—I knew you’d find that funny, Madam Speaker. You have dingbats in the Government—you do—and you’ve got climate deniers over there who’ve got a history of rejecting what’s happening; climate change deniers over there. They reject what the majority of New Zealanders want—they reject what the majority of New Zealanders want.

Tonight, I want to mihi to Julie Anne Genter and to my good friend Jacinda Ardern, because she was brave and she was courageous, unlike this useless lot on the other side, who keep embarrassing themselves and going down in the polls. We know there’s a move going on in terms of the leadership. Louise Upston is a candidate, and I congratulate Louise Upston. We also know that Erica Stanford is a candidate. I think James Meager should go up, because we want a Māori, and he’s one of those Māoris, you know? I’d put him up, a Māori Minister, and we’re training him too—but they have to get one thing, and that is courage, and they have no courage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

For the last two years, members on that side of the House have been trying to deny the six years that preceded them, wanting to distance themselves from almost everything that the last Government did. They certainly didn’t want to talk about the oil and gas ban when we had energy spot prices over $800, did they? But now, suddenly, Willie Jackson’s really proud of them: “Oh, that was great.” Here’s the same Labour Party that was the party—once upon a time, a hundred years ago—of miners. Isn’t that where it started, at Blackball? A party for miners. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Hon Willie Jackson: Times have moved on.

Hon Member: Times have moved on, says Willie Jackson.

TIM COSTLEY: Oh, we’ve moved on. How they love to selectively pick their history.

I do want to acknowledge Julie Anne Genter. I don’t think much of her bill, but congratulations on having it drawn, none the less. Willie Jackson’s a big fan of you. That’s good to hear. In Horowhenua we were less a fan of your transport policy, in all fairness; we quite like our new expressways and we’re looking forward to having one built. But that’s OK.

Let me just break this down and slow it down. The problem with this is it sort of packages itself up as banning coal, but it doesn’t actually ban coal. It bans coalmining, which means we can’t get any coal from the West Coast, where Maureen Pugh is a local MP—

Hon Member: Wonderful MP.

TIM COSTLEY: A great MP.

Hon Member: The only one in the area.

TIM COSTLEY: The only one. Everyone’s deserting that side of the House. It’s miraculous.

What it means is we’re going to keep importing that Indonesian coal, the same coal that members on that side of the House say that they hate and it’s a terrible thing and we shouldn’t have this. It doesn’t stop us using coal. It doesn’t lower our emissions. In fact, our net emissions are worse as a result. It doesn’t fix the problem. It talks about it; it gives them the banner. I want to commend Julie Anne Genter in that she’s actually got a bill that is vaguely about the environment, because we don’t hear that from the Green Party these days. They’ve stuck with the green name because it sort of tries to work for their branding, but we never really hear from them. We don’t hear from them in question time asking about the environment. We don’t hear from most of their members’ bills, but here we go. This is at least one that touches on the environment. The problem is it doesn’t fix the problem.

What is the problem? If they really want to see us move away from needing coal as a back-up energy generation, then they would be backing fast track so that we could go and build a new solar farm, a new wind farm—

Hon Member: Hydro?

TIM COSTLEY: Maybe some hydro—renewable energy. If we’re going to have to burn coal, let’s at least burn New Zealand coal. Let’s at least create jobs. Because on that side of the House, they keep talking about jobs. They say, “Oh, you can earn more money in Australia. That’s bad. We should have better paying jobs here.” Well, we could have, because my friends that have gone to Australia work in the mines. They dig the wealth out of the ground, and they provide a better product than what they could import from overseas.

But those members don’t want that. They want to have this argument of “Oh, we want jobs and we want an economy; we just don’t want any of the things that create that.” So let’s just import some more Indonesian coal. Let’s just go [Sings falsetto] “La-la, la-la-la, we’re just going to look at this as if it’s someone else’s problem. If we don’t see it, it didn’t happen.”, and yet the coal gets burnt.

Grant McCallum: How does Hansard represent that?

TIM COSTLEY: OK, fair play, Grant McCallum. That was one of the wittier things you’ve said.

Here’s the problem, for seniors like Mr McCallum: when they want to turn the heater on in the winter and energy prices are going through the roof, they want to know that we’ve got cheaper ones. They want to know that we’ve got affordable electricity. Their kids want to know that they can get good paying jobs. No one wants to burn down the planet, but people on that side of the House seem to want to burn down our economy in the pursuit of it.

I’m not into that. The reason that poor countries have higher emissions is because they can’t afford it. They can’t afford the things that move them away. Banning coal would be like just banning petrol in New Zealand. Why don’t we do that? Why don’t we just ban petrol?

Hon Member: Don’t give them any ideas.

TIM COSTLEY: They’re going to need a new one tomorrow, because this one’s not going to make it through. But why wouldn’t we do that? Why don’t we just put the blinkers on—I’m not going to give you another impression—because it’s like most things that come from that side of the House. It kind of sounds nice, it doesn’t do what it says, and it creates more problems, and that’s why we’re not supporting the bill.

Before I ask the member, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, to give a right of reply, I just want to say that I wish you could all disagree in that vein more often, because that was fun, and if the Minister of Energy captured half the energy that was in this House tonight, the lights should stay on for quite some time. The Hon Julie Anne Genter, you have a right of reply.

The International Energy Agency concluded in 2021—so that was four years ago—that no new coalmines, mine extensions, or unabated coal plants should be developed in order for us to achieve net zero by 2050. So I’m sure many of the members opposite have never heard of the International Energy Agency, but it’s a very mainstream body. It’s, like, extremely mainstream. They said very clearly—because they sat down and looked at the math, and everyone in the world, every country in the world, signed up to the Paris targets, based on science. Imagine getting every country in the world to agree on something that means that there’s actually significant science behind it, unlike the National Party talking points—the Government Party talking points they’ve been quoting tonight—which are all nonsensical.

It’s very easy to stand up and say your little slogans that banning new coal exploration and mining is causing high energy prices. But, actually, if you know anything at all about how the energy market works in New Zealand, it’s the coal price that is the most expensive. The coal is the most expensive kilowatt hours to generate electricity, and the overall price is all priced at the marginal price. So everybody’s paying more for cheap hydroelectricity, for cheap wind power because of the coal peaking plants.

So it’s totally nonsensical to say that stopping the expansion of coalmines here in New Zealand—and everywhere in the world where we need to stop producing new coalmines—has anything to do with high power prices. The Greens also have a member’s bill—and any members opposite could sign up to it right now in the name of my colleague and friend Scott Willis—that would help fix the electricity market, and that would help address some of the issues. But it’s all just a big sham to say that we have to support fast track to get renewable electricity; it’s just not true.

Fast track is going to be used to destroy a living museum, a national treasure, the Denniston Plateau, because of this Government, in order for Bathurst to expand coalmining operations that will not be used, will not have anything to do with electricity generation, which will cost the country more than they will pay in royalties, more than we will earn in having those jobs. It’s destroying something that would cause people all over the world to come visit New Zealand. The value in ecological services in tourism of the Denniston Plateau is far greater than the value of it dug up and shipped off overseas. I mean, that’s the truth.

So the Government members, when they say things are ideological, they’re talking about themselves. All of those Government parties are blind ideology, refusing to accept the evidence around public good, that electricity is public good. I’m looking at the ACT Party members. It’s blind ideology that’s causing high power prices; the blind ideology of neoliberalism. It is the blind ideology of ripping up the most precious ecosystems in order to have some short-term profits for some overseas companies that is driving the fast-track legislation. It’s all about ramming through unpopular decisions.

People like renewable electricity and the Green Party has been talking about practical solutions to increase renewable electricity, to have more energy efficiency, since we’ve been in Parliament, which is, now, 26 years. The members in the National Party and the New Zealand First Party and the ACT Party have always said that the Greens were away with the fairies, because they’re ignorant bullies. That’s who those people are and they’re making irresponsible decisions that are literally causing the country to be in an enormous amount of suffering right now. We’ve got a whole lot of public servants in publicly funded roles—doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters—going on strike because they’re not being paid sufficiently. And the Government’s like, “I know, I’ve got a plan: let’s announce $50 billion for 17 roads. That’s going to save our economy.”

You’re a bunch of dreamers. I’m sorry, the Government is a bunch of dreamers, but they’re looking to the past. They’re stuck in the past, and as of next year, this country has well and truly seen what a bunch of dinosaurs you are. I’m sorry, you’re going to get voted out. Shame on you! Sorry, Madam Speaker, you’re not a dinosaur.

The House is suspended until 9 a.m.

Sitting suspended from 10.05 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)