Crown Minerals Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister for Resources: I present a legislative statement on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon SIMON WATTS: I move, That the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Shane Jones for his work in bringing this to the House. I will now outline the key changes in the bill and explain why this Government is pursuing them.

Kiwis shouldn’t have to choose between heating their homes or buying food because of rising costs. New Zealand is a country blessed with its renewable energy system, with around 92 percent of our electricity production today coming from renewable sources; however, we are faced with difficult trade-offs. We have an electricity shortage, and our generation does not always provide the certainty we need. We only need to point to the dry years and the faster than expected falls in gas production to see where prices have soared. The supply has dropped because our energy system is dependent on the wind blowing and the rain falling and the sun continuing to shine. Dry-year price increases could have been reduced if we had enough fuel and electricity generation to supply the energy we needed. The ban on new gas exploration, the drive to try and rapidly achieve 100 percent renewable electricity, along with weaker drilling results from our gasfields, has left us in a difficult position.

The Opposition suggested that the exploration ban had no impact on price and gas availability. That is to ignore the facts. The ban sent a chilling message to the investment community, halting the very exploration that underpins our energy security and leading directly to the supply constraints and price volatility that we see today. At times where renewable production decreases, it is clear that we need contingency options to ensure that Kiwis are not left footing a bigger bill and to ensure that we have sufficient supply.

We are facing an important moment in how we manage our energy now. Our current gasfields are in decline. We are having to compensate by importing overseas coal rather than using domestic gas. Without more investment in existing and new fields, constraints on gas supply will continue. The consequences are already being felt. Businesses are dealing with high energy costs, our businesses are facing closure, and our communities are suffering job losses. We are currently working to increase clean energy production and we continue to work towards our climate goals. As climate Minister, I continue this work.

I will also point out that the previous Government’s push to renewable energy has left us needing to make realistic decisions. This is not a Government turning away; it is about doing what is necessary now. We, unfortunately, live in a world of trade-offs. As we work to reduce emissions, we need to be realistic and consider what needs to be done today with current options and to ensure that we continue to support people with steady, certain, and affordable energy. This is an absolute priority.

The argument that reversing this ban will not yield new gas for a decade is a distraction. The immediate signal that this bill sends to investors is critical now. It encourages immediate investment in long-term exploration and in maximising production from our existing fields, which can deliver benefits far sooner. A secure energy system remains critical for easing Kiwis’ cost of living and ensuring economic security and growth. This bill is one of the steps to ensure that.

The bill introduces reforms to the Crown Minerals Act 1991 aimed at improving energy security, encouraging investment, and streamlining regulation. The bill reverses the 2018 ban on new petroleum exploration permits outside onshore Taranaki. It restores the Act’s purpose from “manage” to “promote” the Crown’s petroleum and minerals estate; it introduces flexible permit allocation, including open-market applications; it makes changes to the decommissioning regime that balances protecting the Crown from significant fiscal risk with supporting investor confidence; and it creates a tier 3 permit category for small-scale, non-commercial gold mining.

The most significant change is the reversal of the ban on new petroleum exploration beyond onshore Taranaki. This will help re-establish New Zealand as a destination for new domestic and international investment. It will send a strong signal that the Government recognises the importance of domestic gas for New Zealand’s energy security. Since the ban was announced, our exploration acreage has shrunk from 88,000 square kilometres in March 2018 to around 6,000 square kilometres of permitted exploration acreage today, on- and offshore. Reversing the ban will allow the Crown to receive applications for petroleum prospecting, exploration, and mining permits across New Zealand, including offshore.

New Zealand is committed to a clean-energy transition and meeting our emissions targets. We have committed to deliver net zero by 2050, including by doubling renewable electricity and removing consenting barriers.

Natural gas remains critical to our energy security. Without gas, we would need to either rely on more coal, which results in around twice the carbon dioxide emissions than natural gas, or face energy insecurity and higher prices. Higher electricity prices could also delay electrification of our wider economy, hindering emissions reductions across many other sectors. Emissions increase from increased gas supply is preferable to relying on imported coal to meet the energy gap left by a lack of gas.

Most of the changes will take effect immediately after the bill is passed; others require staged implementation and secondary legislation, like regulations or amendments to the petroleum programme. I expect that all changes will be operational in September.

I want to thank the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee again for their work and the consideration of this bill. I also want to thank all those that have contributed to the preparation and the passage of this bill.

I look forward to seeing the amended Crown Minerals Act serve New Zealanders now and into the future. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

This bill that we are debating the third reading of is a very potent symbol of the shambles that this Government is when it comes to energy policy. We have a bill that was brought to the House in September last year, and a bill that came back and unprecedentedly had to be recommitted to the House for a major amendment after the committee of the whole House stage. What did industry insiders say about that? They said, “Industry observers were at a loss to understand how officials and the Cabinet had managed to misunderstand the decommissioning amendment to the Crown Minerals Bill had the opposite effect of the Government’s desire.”

We have a Government that does not understand what it is doing, we have a Government that is ill-informed when it comes to energy policy, and we have a Government that is simply wrong. It demonstrates in this piece of legislation that this is a Government that has no plan to make sure that New Zealanders have access to affordable and secure energy to heat our homes, to run our businesses, and to fuel our economy. It shows that Christopher Luxon is leading a Government that is so far out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders and is more intent at doing the bidding of multinational oil and gas companies. It shouts loud and clear that that is where their priorities lie. They will put oil and gas corporations ahead of New Zealand taxpayers every day of the week, and this bill lays that out in black and white.

This is part of a pattern of behaviour from this Government, who in this year’s Budget decided to literally gamble $200 million of New Zealand taxpayers’ money as a subsidy or inducement for big oil and gas to come and try and find something they have already spent billions of dollars looking for. Despite the claims from the Minister who presented the legislative statement, this bill does nothing to increase our energy security.

Let’s have a look at the facts, because in fact what this bill does is it poses a threat to our energy security. What it will deliver for New Zealanders is a more expensive and less secure energy system in the long run. Either the Government, from Christopher Luxon down, doesn’t understand or it is wilfully misleading New Zealanders when it talks about this.

Let’s look at the claim that ending oil and gas exploration in 2018 led to the current energy tightness that we’re experiencing. The problem for the Government is the facts do not back that up. In fact, there was record investment in the existing fields after 2018. Those existing fields—in 2017, $900 million was invested in existing fields; in 2018, $1.1 billion; in 2022, $1.3 billion; in 2023, $1.2 billion. For this Government to claim that it had a chilling effect on investment is simply wrong. What we had was those offshore oil and gas operators looking for every last bit they could eke out of the existing fields, and it is not there.

Then we had Shane Jones saying that this will open up opportunities off the East Coast of the South Island. Well, news flash: billions of dollars have been spent looking for that particular El Dorado, and it simply isn’t there. But no, this Government is going to give $200 million to offshore companies to go and have a look—again—where they’ve already decided there are not commercial finds available there.

The Government needs to front up with some facts to New Zealanders and come clean that what they are doing is right-wing virtue-signalling and it is nothing more than an ideological desire to look to the past instead of investing in the future that New Zealanders need and New Zealanders deserve.

We had the Minister talking about how we have to do this because we need to alleviate the dry-year risk. Well, alarmingly, the Minister that just gave that speech is New Zealand’s Minister for Energy. Actually, I had some sympathy for him having to give this speech. It must have been particularly humiliating for him, given that the Minister that is in charge of this bill is going around the country telling everyone he is indeed the real Minister for Energy, and also that this Minister is also the Minister of Climate Change, who is going to have to front up to his international colleagues and explain why he has got New Zealand kicked out of groups of countries that have ambition. I do have some sympathy for him, but his claim and crocodile tears that this is going to address dry-year risk affordability for New Zealand is nothing short of ridiculous.

Marginal cost of electricity—I thought the Minister for Energy might understand that. When we set the price for electricity, it is set at the price of the highest megawatt that we produce, and that is by burning coal and it is by burning gas. Where we save New Zealanders money, where we deliver affordable and secure electricity, is when we invest in renewable ways of storing. At the moment, we store in coal and we store in gas and we need to stop it. This bill is taking New Zealand backwards to an unaffordable future.

Instead, this Government threw out work that was going on in terms of how we could affordably store electricity and look to our future, but that work has gone by the wayside. What the Government is doing is putting New Zealanders’ futures at risk. We know where the future jobs lie. We know where affordable electricity to heat our homes and relieve cost of living pressures on New Zealanders lies, and that is by investing in the future and not looking to the past.

We also have to look at the seriously negative climate emission implications of this change. The Government’s own officials told them that 14.2 million tonnes of emissions additionally would be put on New Zealand’s ledger by this change. We have yet to hear from the Government what they’re going to do instead, because that’s the way in which New Zealand law works. When you make a change, you have to tell us how it is you’re going to make it up, but this Government is intent on taking us backwards in terms of our emissions reductions.

We’ve heard only in the last couple of days that we’re not going to meet our targets, and this is going to hurt our international reputation. This isn’t just about us feeling a bit sorry for ourselves because other countries don’t think we’re good. This is about putting our future at risk and this is about putting our trade agreements at risk.

The Government was told this by their own officials. A bit that should have been redacted from the regulatory impact statement—but an incompetent Government couldn’t even get that right—came to the floor of the House telling us that there were serious concerns. Let me read from that: “[Legally privileged] MFAT assessed that reversing the 2018 ban would likely be inconsistent with the obligations in several of New Zealand’s free trade agreements”. Farmers need to be worried. Our access to the EU and the UK is being put at risk because of this ideological right-wing virtue-signalling from a Government that has zero plan on how to deliver affordable and secure energy to New Zealand households and businesses.

It does not need to be like this. There is an alternative. There is a way in which we can invest in our future. We can unleash New Zealand’s potential of having some of the most affordable energy in the world. That is because our potential in renewable energy is unsurpassed by many countries in this world, but this Government refuses to see that. It is looking to a 20th century expensive past that is going to consign New Zealand households and businesses to inflated prices for decades to come.

They have no plan, they have no solution, and they are not telling New Zealand’s workers and communities about what the future holds and how their transition can occur. Restarting oil and gas is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard. Their arguments do not stack up. They are putting our futures at risk, and they have shown they’re even incompetent in doing that.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I didn’t want to interrupt that member’s flow, but I believe that that member has breached Standing Orders. I want to refer to the comments she made where she accused the Prime Minister and the Government’s Ministers of wilfully misleading.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): What’s the Standing Order?

SIMON COURT: Well, in terms of Speakers’ ruling 48/1, “A member may say he or she believes a statement is incorrect, but must not accuse another member of making a statement that member knew to be incorrect.” Mr Speaker, I suggest that you ask this member to withdraw and apologise.

Speaking to the point of order, I did not accuse the Prime Minister or Ministers of wilfully misleading New Zealanders. I asked a question around whether or not they failed to understand or whether they were wilfully misleading New Zealanders. I did not accuse them of wilfully misleading New Zealanders.

Speaking to the point of order very briefly, I think that member is dancing on the head of a pin and I would suggest that whether that member believes they asked a question that made that inference or not, they are still impugning the character of the members that that member sought to impugn by making that statement in her speech.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: It’s a question—

Thank you.

Hon Dr Megan Woods: “Imply” and “infer” are two different things.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Order! Thank you for that. I am going to take the member’s word for it. If, on reflection, it appears differently in the Hansard, there will be an opportunity for the member to come back to the House and to withdraw and apologise. I will take the next call.

In 2011, I was privileged to be part of the Oil Free Seas Flotilla. We arrived on a beach in the tip of the East Cape, about to be welcomed to the Kauaetangohia Marae in that spectacular part of the country where the rising sun first hits these islands through the sea air, and we were greeted by a haka of 500 people.

Simon Court: Is this a haiku?

STEVE ABEL: It could be. Not as good as my folk songs, according to you. That haka was said by Te Whānau-a-Apanui, the iwi greeting us, to be the biggest haka since James Cook had arrived in that part of the country—I’m hoping we were more worthy of it than he was.

We went into an amazing banquet in the wharekai, and there we marked the forming of an alliance between Greenpeace and Te Whānau-a-Apanui to resist the seismic surveying by the Brazilian driller Petrobras in the Raukūmara Basin. For 42 days, the boats harried that seismic surveying ship—and Kylie Matthews jumped in the water with a buoy saying “Stop deep sea oil”—and that seismic surveying ship left those waters never to return.

A couple of years later, they relinquished their permit for Raukūmara Basin, and one of the spokespeople for Petrobras said that in all the 27 nations that they had operated in, they had never encountered such resistance as they did in Aotearoa New Zealand. That was the beginning of a movement of communities, of iwi, of non-government environmental organisations across this nation that, one by one, kicked out the oil majors.

Then, finally, in 2018, the culmination of that seven-year movement was a very wise and progressive and advanced decision by the then three-party Government—New Zealand First, Labour, and the Greens—to get rid of oil and gas exploration in 2018.

As progressive a decision as that was, this decision today is a shamefully regressive position, because if we are to have a future, the oil and gas industry must have no future. That is for the simple scientific fact that fossil fuels—oil, gas, and coal—in their combustion produce carbon dioxide that heats the planet’s atmosphere in a way that causes a destabilised climate and extreme weather events and sea level rise and all sorts of catastrophes that are an existential threat to life on this planet—not just for us but for all species that live on this planet.

The Government’s misplaced assertion that somehow our pathway to energy security is to go searching for that oil and gas is so wrong-headed and archaic it is laughable. You would have to laugh if it wasn’t true that they’re actually doing it. It’s kind of extraordinary that here we are, this many years later, and they’re bringing back oil and gas exploration, after our nation was celebrated around the world for its vision.

What is more, it is so obvious now, as this Government also wants to spend $200 million investing and supporting the bringing back of that oil and gas—which is a resuscitation of a zombie that will not come back to life—that money would be much better spent on renewable energy, clean energy. Solar power and onshore wind are markedly lower cost than oil, gas, and coal, and they give us greater energy security. The fuel source is free. There are a trillion terabytes of energy that hit the Earth every instant from a giant hydrogen nuclear reactor in the sky, and, lo and behold, we have the means to capture that energy. Is this Government investing in that instead of putting $200 million into gas? No, they’re not. They like looking down into the hole in the ground for that unsustainable fuel.

Just to clarify, for the Government’s sake, the oil companies and corporations that quit New Zealand before the ban came into place—as I said, Petrobras quit on 5 December 2012. On 6 February 2010, Greenpeace began our Stop Deep Sea Oil campaign—“our”. I say “our”—my former “our”. On 1 November 2010, Exxon Mobil abandoned its Southern Ocean oil and gas hunt, and they said, “Exxon has spent three years acquiring state-of-the-art seismic data in the basin. But its interpretation of that data indicates the acreage has a high technical risk, increased by the remote location and harsh operating environment of the Great South Basin.”, and Exxon Mobil left. Petrobras left on 5 December. On 13 May 2014, Anadarko, the massive Texan oil driller who brought their ship off to the west coast of the North Island, quit their permit on 13 March 2014. On 14 October 2016, Statoil, the Norwegian company later to change their name to Equinor, quit their Northland permit. On 16 March 2018, Shell sold all its remaining assets to the only remaining oil major in this country, OMV.

On 11 April was the oil and gas ban put into place. It was the final nail in the coffin of an industry that was already declaring its own demise in this country, because they came, they prospected, and they found nothing. They found nothing but overwhelming public opposition from the people of this country, and they decided they are better to be not here.

That is why it is a futile effort on the part of this Government to try and bring this industry back, because this industry knows full well that when this side of the House is back on that side of the House in 18 months’ time, the ban on oil and gas is coming back into place. What industry would be foolish enough to spend millions of dollars on trying to dig up oil and gas that isn’t there when they know the ban’s going to be put back into place? What is more, the Green Party is committing to even revoking the permits issued by this Government.

On 18 June 2019, after the ban, Chevron and Equinor—formerly Statoil—quit their 15-year permits due to bad data. Bryn Klove from Equinor, New Zealand’s country manager, said that “people will likely speculate that the decision to exit was driven by the change in government policy towards exploration. But he said the choice was simply driven by the data to date. The firm has bigger opportunities in an international portfolio that covers 30 countries and now also includes solar and wind.”—even Statoil’s investing in solar and wind, but not this backward Government.

That is the way forward, and it’s very clear from the assertions recently in the United Nations that the opportunity in the clean energy sector is huge. It is for us as a nation to seize that opportunity. There is no future in oil, gas, and coal. There is a future in clean energy for all of us, and we will join and support any political progress towards community-owned, distributed, affordable, clean, renewable energy being developed. But oil, gas, and coal—no way, not any day. That is not getting our support, and we will make sure it doesn’t come back.

It was a real privilege to be part of that movement over those seven years, and it showed the weight of deep concern that the people of this nation have for our future, have for our environment, have for our oceans, our coastlines, for the stability of our climate. We want to be part of the solution to that existential challenge. We do not want to see offshore oil drilling brought back, the pollution caused by gas and oil drilling, and the risk of catastrophic oil spills, as we’ve seen all around the world and in the Gulf of Mexico where the Deepwater Horizon blew up. That is not the future we want for our country. We do not need this backward, retrograde, archaic attitude that the only way to make a living is to extract and destroy and exploit our nature and our planet.

That is why this Government will be a one-term Government and this issue that we are voting against today will be one of the issues on which New Zealanders go to the polling booth in 18 months’ time and choose to kick them out, because they want a future based on clean energy and sustainable treatment of this beautiful planet on which we live. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today marks the end of an era—a really bad one. It marks the end of a six-year reign of economic vandalism and energy illiteracy by the previous New Zealand Labour Government. In 2018, Labour didn’t consult the public, they didn’t consult any experts, they didn’t even take it to Cabinet until after the decision was taken. They simply stood at a podium, banned offshore oil and gas exploration, and then declared victory over climate change. That wasn’t leadership; that was Instagram environmentalism, and Kiwis saw right through it. Even the Hon Shane Jones said at the time—bless his soul—that ending oil and gas exploration “is the only scenario.” When he stood at that podium, I was shocked. I’m pleased that Minister has come to his senses but profoundly disappointed that the Labour Party still has not.

They thought banning exploration would make emissions vanish. Instead, we burned more coal, we imported more fossil fuels, New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions went up. Their policy was so self-defeating it would be humorous if it hadn’t cost Kiwis an estimated $7 billion—a hit to their households and businesses—

Hon Dr Megan Woods: Oh, rubbish.

SIMON COURT: Under Labour, energy security wasn’t just ignored, it was sabotaged, Megan Woods. They turned their backs on natural gas, and they pretended we could have a modern democracy and a modern economy running on vibes and wind turbines. Turns out it’s not true, is it? When prices spiked, when industries like the smelter cried out for energy security of supply and blackouts hit the central North Island, they shrugged. They called it the “energy transition”. They said, “embrace your future”. Well, we in the ACT party, in Opposition, called it a crisis, because it was, and this bill now reverses that damage.

It repeals Labour’s exploration ban, and it also updates the Crown Minerals Act to promote the use of our natural resources for the benefits of all New Zealanders—

Steve Abel: Dreaming.

SIMON COURT: Mr Steve Abel, I tell you how important that is for you and even people in the Green Party: it’s those critical minerals that this bill will enable to be extracted and developed that power your solar panels, your satellites, your mobile phone; that keeps humans, like all of us, even people in the Green Party, connected and on social media, on TikTok. It’s not just good economic policy, Steve; it makes common sense.

Now, I want to compare us to Australia. The Australian Labor Government kept natural gas exploration and development going. Why? Because they understood what the New Zealand Labour Party failed to: that Australian natural gas powers businesses, homes, schools, hospitals, and, actually, it is the transition fuel towards a renewable, more sustainable way of generating energy. And they did it without collapsing their economy. Meanwhile, the New Zealand Labour Party chose press releases over new pipelines. They thought leading the world meant leaving reality behind, Megan Woods.

Let’s also talk about sovereign risk, something Labour either didn’t understand or didn’t care about, which is worse. Their snap decisions shattered investor confidence. They created a regime with their changes to the Crown Minerals Act, a regime of infinite trailing liability that meant anyone, any person, any director who’d ever been responsible for holding a permit was indefinitely responsible. That’s not regulation; it’s a form of punishment. It told the world, “Don’t invest here in New Zealand.”

ACT has pushed for this reform because we believe sovereign risk is real. If businesses can’t trust Government policy to stay grounded, they simply won’t invest. They’ll take their capital and the jobs that that delivers elsewhere—

Steve Abel: Which is what’s going to happen with this.

SIMON COURT: This bill puts an end to all of that—

Steve Abel: No, there’s still political uncertainty.

SIMON COURT: It restores certainty, credibility, and confidence, Mr Abel, to our resources, our minerals, and our oil and gas exploration sector. It, again, opens the door not just to hydrocarbon investments but to investments in critical minerals and natural resources development that is absolutely vital for not just for our economy but our community, connection, our way of life.

Let’s be clear: this is not opening up a free-for-all. New Zealand demands very high environmental standards. But protecting the environment doesn’t mean banning progress, like the previous Labour Government did. It means managing resources and the environment responsibly. This bill replaces ideology with evidence—imagine that—it ends six years of economic damage from Labour’s damaging economic policies, and it tells the world that New Zealand is once again open for investment and energy investment in all parts of our economy, including resource development. It also tells the world that in New Zealand, again, we believe in common sense. I commend this bill.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. There was a point of order raised, so I’d just like to clarify for the House that I’ve had the Hansard checked on what I said. I did not say “the Government was wilfully misleading New Zealanders”. I said, “Either the Government, from Luxon down, doesn’t understand, or it is wilfully misleading New Zealand when it talks about this”. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thanks for that clarification. I’ll take the next call.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in this third reading of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. We’ve got here at last, and this Government is returning some sensible pragmatism back to our economy. This is not something that we do just on its own. This is one of a number of things that we do to improve our energy sector. We’re also investing in super-critical geothermal energy as a form of energy production.

We’re doing things in a way that will stabilise the sector. This is also about creating a new tier of gold and other mining speculation, a new tier 3 to allow smaller scale non-commercial gold operations. I know that that’ll be great for many people on the West Coast. I am glad to see that we are getting some pragmatic decision-making back into this economy. I commend the bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Māku ngā kōrero mā Te Pāti Māori mō tēnei pire.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Māori Party’s statements regarding this bill are for me to deliver.]

I spoke at the first reading. I called it the old truck and trailer, this one and the fast track—quick access, no regard for anything te iwi Māori had to say about it. There were 80-odd hapū and iwi who opposed it back then. There are still 80-odd iwi who oppose it today; no regard to that given—none at all.

You know, Te Pāti Māori, we’re a whakapapa-based movement, and so in all of our thinking we think about, “Gee, what’s the right decision I’ve got to make for my mokopuna, my grandchild, my grandchild’s grandchild, way into the future?” Unfortunately, we just see this short-sighted economic return, imperative-only action from this Government, and that’s got us pretty much nowhere. If you look around the world, team, there are some alarming—alarming—things going on. Whilst we come in here and we all jabber on about making money because that’s what’s going to fix everything, I’ll conclude this kōrero by talking about some of the things that are really happening—and those things aren’t going away, by the way.

For our mokopuna, we’ve got to invest in the future of energy, not the past—energy’s future, not its history. I’ve mentioned Te Tiriti o Waitangi a lot in this bill. Like all the other ones, it gives it no consultation or consideration at all. In fact, it just steamrolls straight over the top of it in putting corporate libertarian interests in front of a founding interest of this Parliament—interesting. We just, obviously, can’t and don’t support that. So short-term profit for long-term risks, which are known across the world now—ignoring them; well, that’ll just be on your record, not ours.

Ignoring hapū and iwi input, allowing the granting of permits where hapū and iwi don’t even need to be consulted, not even if it’s on Māori land or in a Department of Conservation reserve that they’ve got the tangata whenua mana whenua rights to—all of this carry on, it’s got to stop. It’s got to stop.

We’ve heard that, oh well, you know, they’ve buggered it up. They buggered it up in the beginning, and it turns out the drillers were going to have to pay more, so they pulled the handbrake on it, gave it another eight months. A pity they didn’t give any other bills eight months, like the Regulatory Standards Bill—nope, only gave that one four months. They couldn’t give the Māori wards eight months—no, only gave that one four weeks. They couldn’t give pay equity eight months—no, they only got a day. So here we are—so here we are.

They turned around to fix their mistake—fix their mistake. Now, they’re going to invest all of the power into the resource Minister and the finance Minister to decide who pays to clean up the mess when it arrives—because, unfortunately, as many iwi and hapū have had to live through around our country, we’re the ones who are lumped with the bill, except we don’t get any money. We’ve just got to go and do the work to clean it up. Go and ask what Whakatōhea did through Rena.

All of these things are just consistent—roll on, keep going. It just rolls on, rolls on. I think Mr Jones already experienced a dip in investor confidence around all of these things. They know, just like all of them pulled out—all of the ones who are considering drill, drill, drill. They’re thinking, “Oh, well, how’s that going to go?” Well, I can tell you how it’s going to go. All of the iwi and hapū in the marae around this country will be in their face so much that they won’t make a dollar ever. So good on them.

What I wanted to talk about is the impacts of all of this stuff. The impacts of not investing the future of energy are plain to see for New Zealand. I spoke about the oceanic heatwave we experienced last season, last summer—the hottest ocean ever recorded, team: 24.5 degrees Celsius in the Southern Ocean. Right now, there is an ongoing algae bloom disaster in South Australia; it’s been going on for about eight months. Everyone thought it would cool off by the winter because that’s how algae blooms tend to go, but no, this one’s charging on straight through the middle of winter.

Here’s the other side of that: the Northern Hemisphere are currently in their most extreme oceanic heatwave ever experienced also. By the time the Earth tilts back to the Southern Pole and our ocean heats up, I predict that we’ll have the hottest ocean on record. You know why? There was a blue marlin caught in Waihau Bay in the middle of winter in New Zealand in 2025. If you needed any more evidence, I don’t know how much more you could be given.

What that means for us, e te iwi: kina, pāua, crayfish, kuku, tuangi, pipi—the lot are on the chopping block. Kia ora tātou. We don’t support the bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. The Government’s Crown Minerals Amendment Bill proposes reopening New Zealand’s territorial waters to oil and gas exploration. As my colleague Steve Abel has said, we strongly oppose, in no uncertain terms, this legislation. But we’re also saddened by the tragic climate denialism that has taken root at the heart of this Government. Climate denialism is simply tragic. The British environmentalist Sir Jonathan Porritt, who chaired Air New Zealand’s sustainability panel when Christopher Luxon was CEO and also worked with the Prime Minister when he was soap salesman at Unilever, has called out the hypocrisy. We have a Prime Minister who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. The world is watching our own mini-Trump—who wears a “Make America Great Again” hat at select committee meetings—embarrass us on the national stage.

There is no future in fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted demand for oil will peak well before 2030. A 2023 report by Shell projects fossil fuel use dropping rapidly in coming decades, while BP says oil demand for combustion has already peaked. But the progression from prospecting new oil and gas wells to exploration and mining takes decades. This bill just doesn’t add up, even if you’re a climate change denier. It’s the fevered hope from fevered minds to establish some sort of neo-medievalist future where the power of the State to govern legitimately is limited and non-State actors such as the fossil fuel criminals see their power increased so they can run roughshod over our communities in their greed.

The IEA stated that we don’t need any more fossil fuel exploration or development because there are plenty of projects already in place—unfortunately—and new research agrees, saying Governments around the world should stop issuing new oil and gas and coal licences now because we want a livable planet, not a planet on fire.

But this Government is also weakening the law that requires oil and gas permit holders to pay for the decommissioning and clean-up of wells. In 2021, taxpayers had to pick up a $400 million bill for decommissioning the Tui oil field after the collapse of the company. It is simply astonishing that this Government thinks it can get away with weakening the law that requires oil and gas permits to pay for the decommissioning and clean-up of wells. Weakening these laws opens the risk to all of us to pay for the clean-up. The Government may be weakening the laws to try to attract drilling interests, but big oil and gas is rightly hesitant about investment because they know what the downward long-term trend is, and they know that in 2026, there’ll be a Green Government that’ll kick them out.

Our fossil gas fields have been yielding less than forecast. We can use the dwindling gas supply with the new renewables we’re going to build to smooth the energy transition, to build increased capacity, to ensure that we have hydro and chemical storage for our dry winters. But the problem we see is that this Government doesn’t know where the hell it’s heading because it wants to kill off even offshore wind by allowing Trans-Tasman Resources to dig in the seabed in the same place.

We can move away—and we should move away—from the fossil fuel disaster that this Government wants. We need to invest in the energy transition, decarbonisation of industrial heat, subsidising low-emitting vehicles, charging high emitters, better public transport, bike lanes, increased electric vehicle charging, and urban mining—that’s the recycling of batteries and other technology that is currently filling our rubbish dumps. I could loan members opposite a couple of books.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in this third debate of the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill, in this third reading. This debate has been full of insults—very little of a pragmatic, common-sense approach.

In 2018, New Zealand banned the exploration of oil and gas. Now, if we look at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s data on the amount of coal that that led to us importing—in 2017, we imported 466,000 tonnes of coal; 2019, a year after the ban was in place, that was over 1 million tonnes of coal that we then imported; 2021, 1.8 million tonnes of coal—

Steve Abel: Nothing to do with the ban.

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL: Of course, the Opposition are saying it has nothing to do with the ban. Well, I’ll tell you, if we substitute one energy source, we need to use another.

This debate isn’t about gases versus renewables; we can do both. Gas is a very useful transitional fuel. It is about gas versus coal. Every tonne of coal we burn produces between two to 2.5 times more carbon dioxide—that the Opposition is busy screaming about. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think the best word—the least offensive word—to describe the Government’s position on this bill is, well, disingenuous. It’s disingenuous at best. Let me talk that through a little. I regard it as disingenuous not just because of the way they’ve gone about changing the rules around exploration but because of some of the lobbying and the kowtowing to the oil and gas industry that has gone on.

I want to refer in particular to the Amendment Paper that was introduced into this House at 5 p.m. on Monday. The bill had gone through the committee of the whole House stage and then it had sat and sat and sat, waiting for its third reading. Then all of a sudden, on Monday evening this week, an Amendment Paper was introduced, by Tuesday we were debating it, and now it is going through its third reading this afternoon. Given that the Government looks likely to vote for it, it is going to pass into law.

But here’s what is so worrying about this. There’s been a discussion around trailing liability. Now, in the bill, the idea around trailing liability is that when an oilfield is decommissioned, if the current owner, in whatever form, doesn’t clean up properly, then the liability can shift back to the previous owner. If the previous owner doesn’t clean it up properly, then it can shift back to the previous owner and so on, back down the line. What it means is that when an oil and gas company exits from an exploration field or exits from a field that it’s been using, it has to ensure that the entity it sells the field to is responsible. There’s good reason for us to be worried about this. The New Zealand Government had to shell out I think it was an extraordinary sum—about $367 million; maybe it was $347 million, $249 million—to clean up the Tamarind mess that was left behind after the previous owners of the field weren’t responsible enough when they sold it on to Tamarind, after Tamarind exited and left a mess to be cleaned up by the New Zealand taxpayer.

Unsurprisingly, the oil and gas industry didn’t like this. Now, sitting in a supplementary analysis report that was introduced to this House at 5 p.m. on Monday when the Amendment Paper came in, there are these words from the officials: “The sector”—meaning the oil and gas sector—“has been clear that their preference is for no trailing liability in the Crown Minerals Act. They consider it adds significant cost and reduces the likelihood new entrants will come into the New Zealand market.” Well, no kidding. That’s exactly the point.

Then, despite this position—and this is the really stinky bit—in terms of imposing liabilities or in terms of absolving companies from liabilities, these industry participants said that they really didn’t like the current Act and approach in the bill and they preferred ministerial discretion. They preferred to be able to go and lobby a Minister so that they could get away with not paying the clean-up costs from the oilfields that they were using. We asked the Minister repeatedly who he had consulted in terms of actually putting this into law. It says that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had consulted with key stakeholders in New Zealand’s oil and gas sector, and that meetings with key stakeholders had taken place from January 2025, and that a consultation draft of the Amendment Paper was shared in confidence in May and June, and that feedback received was incorporated to improve the workability of the drafting. We asked the Minister repeatedly: who did he consult with? Who did his officials consult with? And he wouldn’t tell us—wouldn’t be upfront and open about who was asking for this sort of set-up in the bill.

So we went back through the submissions. Here’s one: “We recommend removing clauses related to trailing liabilities.” Who’s that from? The BusinessNZ Energy Council. Here’s another: “We do not support trailing and perpetual liability on former permit and licence holders. We reiterate that ‘trailing’ liability and perpetual liability of former permit holders is an extreme derogation from the general New Zealand statutory approach to principles of corporate liability”, and so on. Who’s that from? Well, that one’s from OMV. Here’s another one—this one here. It says, “As I am sure … due to pressure from shareholders, banks and other financial institutions are reluctant to fund developments for new petroleum projects,”—well, that’s a good thing—“let alone take the risk of providing financial securities in … operations such as decommissioning.”—people who didn’t like the bill that was written. Who was that one from? Well, it’s from Greymouth Petroleum. Here’s another one, and it says that “trailing liability is redundant with appropriate financial security arrangements”. In fact, it says, in terms of updating the decommissioning provisions, that the original “amendments to the Act to ensure permit and license holders undertake and fund decommissioning were a dramatic overreaction.” That’s what it was—it was a dramatic overreaction, the rules that we put in place, to the New Zealand taxpayers having to fork out to pay for those polluters to clean up. So they feel as though there should not be trailing liability. It says there is an “unequal burden on permit holders” and it “continue[s] to dampen the desire to invest in new exploration”. What is that little gem coming from? Well, that gem is coming from Energy Resource Aotearoa. And on and on it goes.

Of course the oil and gas industry do not want to pay to clean up their mess. Of course they don’t want to do that. Instead, they want New Zealand taxpayers to pay to clean up their mess. In those submissions, those submitters talk about property rights, but they do not talk about the rights of New Zealand taxpayers to live in a pollution-free environment. They do not talk about the rights of New Zealand taxpayers to not have to pay for messes created by other people—somehow those rights don’t matter. Instead, what those people want, what these industries want, is the ability to lobby the Minister. They want ministerial discretion so that they can continue on their polluting ways.

What they refuse to admit is that the industry that they are engaging in is a dying industry. The world is faced with an extraordinary climate challenge and a world where we actually need to stop using fossil fuels. It’s not just use a bit of them here and there and get away with it. We actually need to stop using them. There are ample alternatives available. That is the world we need to move to. The Government talks about the jobs and the economic opportunity afforded by the oil and gas industry, but what about the green jobs? What about the opportunities afforded by a response to climate change that involves itself in promoting renewable energy? What about the jobs that could be created by promoting solar energy throughout this country? What about the jobs that could come into play through using wind farms? What about the jobs that could come into play by ensuring that we have a clean, green economy? Those are good jobs too. Those are jobs that promote growth too and, what’s more, it is jobs that promote sustainable growth, not the kind of growth that results in a climate that our children and our children’s children cannot live in.

The words from that Government, their words of commitment around climate change, their words saying that they care for New Zealand, as I said—disingenuous at best.

We didn’t hear the previous speaker Deborah Russell once mention her home province of Taranaki, and I suspect that she’s lost the keys to Whangamōmona.

Back in 2018, New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom described Labour’s oil and gas exploration ban as a “kick in the guts” for Taranaki. Last year, he called for Labour to support oil and gas exploration, both onshore and offshore, describing Labour’s ban as a complete hospital pass and hugely costly.

There is still time for the Opposition to support New Zealand’s leading energy province and Taranaki’s leading civic leader, and I call on those members to vote in support of this third reading. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Much has been said from the other side of the House throughout the debate this afternoon—

Hon Jan Tinetti: Much?

RACHEL BOYACK: —about the word “pragmatism”. Yeah, I think, apart from the Minister at the very beginning, “much” might be a little bit generous about what has been said from the other side. But many of the speeches have referenced the word “pragmatism”, so I want to talk about the importance of pragmatism.

Where I want to start is about the role that this industry actually plays in New Zealand today, and the fact that it is a dying, sunset industry. That is what the facts actually lay out. For the Government to be repealing the ban on oil and gas exploration, and to also be co-investing in exploration, is the opposite of pragmatism. When you consider that between 2020 and 2024, nearly $1.3 billion was spent on new wells in New Zealand and did not lead to any significant commercial find, this is an industry that is not actually worth continued investment in from our Government.

It speaks to the rhetoric and the messages that come from the National Party, that come from the New Zealand First Party, and that come from the ACT Party, that actually choose to not take the existential threat that is climate change seriously. Is actually a disgrace on this Parliament that after many years of what was cross-party commitments to climate change, initiatives to actually ensure that the people of this country and the people of the world have a future without the type of climate events that we see, without the impact on communities that we are seeing through weather events, they are so willing to undo one of the key pieces of law that the previous Government—with the support of New Zealand First—put in place.

That was a pragmatic decision, because it didn’t go as far as our friends the Greens would have liked, because it only banned new permits—it did allow those ones to be phased out, so I acknowledge that. But it was a phasing-out. It was a phasing-out to ensure that the message was sent to the market very, very clearly that we want to see investment into renewable energy sources, because that is the future in this nation.

I also want to make some comments in support of Dr Deborah Russell’s comments around the process that has been followed. The fact that there has been a hidden process that hasn’t gone through the select committee should put everyone watching this debate on notice that if people want to get the ear of the Minister to get a change through the committee of the whole House without the scrutiny of select committee, they can do that. That is unacceptable, especially on an issue of such importance—such importance—to the future of not only our nation but of others.

We think about our friends in the Pacific who are facing real threats from things like rising sea levels, climate change events. In my own community of Nelson, that is seeing repeated weather events hammer, absolutely hammer, our region, costing us money—significant amounts of money. We need to take the impact of climate change seriously, and that does mean Governments making tough decisions—tough but pragmatic decisions.

This was a shocking process. We still haven’t actually heard from the Minister for Resources exactly who asked for the changes that he made, one of which is around putting the burden of cleaning up messes left by this industry back on to taxpayers. Ultimately, the National Government needs to accept that if they fail to meet our Paris climate change agreements, it will ultimately cost New Zealand more. And where will that burden lie? It will lie on the burden of ordinary taxpayers. That is where the burden will lie. To see them put their head in the sand and become a climate change denier, it is a disgrace to the work of Todd Muller. He would be appalled at what is happening here in this House today. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Natural gas is critical to New Zealand’s energy security because gas keeps electricity supply and prices stable for all New Zealanders. This is what the bill will allow once it’s passed. So, therefore, I support and commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to begin my contribution with a quote: “The long-term picture is this: the world is changing, climate change is happening, and with that change our planet and our economies are changing. The world is racing to adapt and to stop its most damaging effects. This means that the same old ways of doing things don’t work anymore. We cannot expect to rely on fossil fuels for our jobs and prosperity for ever. The world is moving away from them, and we, as a country, have to be ready. If we don’t change, if we keep relying on these fuels, we’re going to be left behind.” Those are the words with which the Hon Dr Megan Woods began her contribution to the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill that banned new oil and gas explorations.

I do want to acknowledge Megan Woods for the work that she did to lead long-term—well, it was meant to be long-term, till this Government came along—managed transition towards homegrown, clean energy that will create jobs. Sadly, what we’re doing in the House today, thanks to this Government, is taking New Zealand backwards, because they’re reversing that, they’re repealing that, and it’s pretty sad, really.

I also want to make mention of the significant eleventh-hour change made by this Government. It seems to be typical of the way that they shepherd through, very quickly, with hardly any input—or not allowing input—from New Zealanders. At one point, New Zealand’s Parliament was lauded to be one of the most transparent and inclusive and democratic, because people were allowed to have a say. But not under this Government, anymore, because significant pieces of legislation are being shepherded through quickly, being tabled at the last minute in this Parliament, so that hardly anyone gets to even see what they are trying to do, and then it’s quickly passed through with just pandering to the multinationals. Again, we’ve seen that with this bill. This is just a Government that is pandering to big oil and gas companies, certainly not putting New Zealanders first, because they’re really just selling New Zealand’s interests to the highest bidders. That’s what they’re doing.

I want to also point to the change that was shepherded through so quickly. As my colleague the Hon Dr Deborah Russell has pointed out, the risks of Government involvement in fossil fuel ventures were underscored by the decommissioning of the Tui oil field, which left taxpayers with a $349 million bill after the company behind it collapsed. Now, Labour in Government fixed that; we changed the law to stop that from happening. But now, of course, this Government and their late amendment to the Crown Minerals Bill has moved to change the liability rules so that the Government cannot be held responsible for future clean-up costs when oil and gas operators exit the market.

I also want to point to the $200 million amount that they’ve put aside in the Budget for big oil and gas companies, which even the advice that they’ve received, I understand, shows that there’s a higher—yeah, I’m actually quoting it from an article that goes on to talk about the risks of failure inherent in exploring mature fields. That’s what this Government’s bringing back. That’s why we, on this side of the House, say that this is incredibly short-sighted. It is legislation that’s brought through just based on the pure ideology of the parties that are in Government at the moment.

I also want to make the point that there’s a bit of a pattern here when it comes to eleventh-hour, significant changes made after a select committee has considered a bill. I want to point to the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill, because this is pretty much the same pattern that we’re seeing from this Government, again. That was a bill that was recommended by the Environment Committee, from memory, last year. It was introduced by Labour in Government. It was the culmination of 10 years of stakeholders coming together in the environment space to increase protections to the Hauraki Gulf, an issue that is of great significance to New Zealand but particularly to Aucklanders as well—huge amount of work that went on. The Environment Committee recommended, unanimously, that the bill be passed without any substantial change. In the eleventh hour, because of the lobbying from the industry, Minister Jones has decided to bring in amendments that will water down the protections to the Gulf.

We’re seeing the same thing happen here with this legislation, as well, so I do want to point out that this is just not just a one-off. It’s not just one example of the “Coalition of Chaos”. There are multiple examples; this is just one in a pattern of that.

I also want to emphasise something that other speakers on this side of the House have pointed out in their contribution: that this does absolutely nothing for energy security, but it poses a threat to New Zealand—a significant threat.

I want to also counter points made by members opposite. They have got up and read their scripts and said that ending oil and gas in 2018—that there was a “chilling effect”, I think they said, “on investments”. I think Megan Woods has pointed out very clearly that that’s actually blatantly untrue; that there was record investment in existing fields even since the ban was announced, because of oil and gas companies milking what they can from mature fields. So the arguments that members across the House have put forward aren’t even accurate—literally just reading scripts that they’ve been given, which is highly disappointing, frankly, because it is meant to be a debate. [Interruption] Instead of just heckling, maybe stand up and say something of substance for a change.

Two more points I’d like to make before I end my contribution. One, this is yet another step that this Government is taking to destroy our environment—again, one in a pattern of steps. They’ve done absolutely nothing when it comes to protecting te taiao, the environment. All they’ve done is to destroy it, and this is yet another step, and I’ll tell you why. Thirty percent of the Māui dolphins’ marine habitat is currently open—was open—for oil exploration, and the offshore ban that we put in place would have stopped that. I want to quote from an article here that basically says, “The offshore ban will have positive outcomes for endangered marine life. Thirty percent of Māui dolphins’ marine habitat was open for oil exploration and the offshore ban will change this. Seismic blasting for oil can have both physical and behavioural impacts on marine environments. The ban will help to mitigate this also.” Brilliant! It’s yet another step that this Government’s taking to destroy our environment—not to mention, of course, our obligations under the Paris Agreement, and that was also one of the reasons why the Labour Government decided to ban new oil and gas at the time.

The final point that I will underscore is the fact that we have obligations in our trade agreements, particularly with the European Union and the United Kingdom. Advice that has been given to this Government—that they, I think, meant to redact, but couldn’t even do that—shows that the step that they’re taking here is inconsistent with those trade agreements, as well. So not only are they ruining New Zealand’s future selling it to the highest bidder; they’re ruining our reputation internationally. Everything they’re doing is pretty pathetic, and I don’t commend this bill to the House.

This bill ensures we have the right settings to address energy security and keep prices affordable. Without natural gas, either we face an energy shortage or we actually risk relying more on coal, which results in higher carbon emission and causes more damage to our environment. This legislation provides a stable transition to renewables. I commend this bill to the House.