West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill

I move, That the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill be now read a first time. When Cyclone Ita hit the West Coast on 17 April this year it did the worst damage to forests in that region for generations, felling an estimated 20,000 hectares of forest and causing very significant damage to a further 200,000 hectares across the Coast. That was a conservation tragedy, but it leaves a dilemma as to what to do with the millions of cubic metres of wood that now rest in those forests. No good purpose would be served by leaving that timber in the forest to rot, whether it be the rimu, the beech, the tōtara, or the mataī. As the Leader of the House noted, it is somewhat ironic in this beautiful Chamber surrounded by native timbers for people to be taking a view that is philosophically opposed to any use of our native woods.

Can I firstly address the very practical need for Parliament to take urgency in this matter. A good portion of the volume of the wood is beech, particularly silver beech and red beech. Such timbers are very susceptible to both beech stain and to borer, and if this Parliament delays or slows, by spring that timber will not be recoverable. That is why I say to members from New Zealand First and the member of Parliament for West Coast - Tasman that to somehow pretend that you support recovery of this wood but to not be prepared to support urgency is really saying that you are not going to give the opportunity for that timber to be recovered before it spoils.

After the storm caused the damage—

💬 Jacinda Ardern: Why are you doing it for 5 years?

The question from members opposite is why we are allowing the recovery for 5 years. Let me explain it to the member Jacinda Ardern, who interjects. It is because although the beech will spoil quickly, I am further advised that the rimu, which is like the wood of our desks, can be recovered from the forest for a period of up to 5 years. In fact, the clear message I have had from both the sawmill industry and the indigenous timber industry is that it would be preferable to spread this wood over a number of years than to flood the market—a point that has been made by Damien O’Connor. I would suggest to Jacinda Ardern that she listens to that advice.

I sought careful advice from my department, the Department of Conservation, which first raised the prospect of the recovery of this wood, as to whether it could be done under existing legislation. The answer is that it could with a great deal of complexity. Yes, it is true that, for instance, when the Department of Conservation grants a mining licence in an area where there is wood, it is possible to remove that native timber and to use it for practical purposes, but it is a complex, slow process. I had been challenged by Eugenie Sage, effectively, in the media to say that to do it under the existing conservation law would create uncertainty, and I came to the view that if you were to do this, it was better to be up front with Parliament about the extraordinary event that occurred and to provide a robust and straightforward process to enable the timber to be recovered.

The West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill confines the recovery of the usable wood to areas that have been affected by Cyclone Ita and specifically excludes the very high conservation areas of the World Heritage areas, the four national parks across the West Coast, the ecological areas, and the white heron sanctuary reserve at Whataroa. It does include 100 forests across the Coast where there has been extensive damage and it enables the Director-General of Conservation to grant authorisations for the recovery of that wood. The bill requires that the director-general needs to satisfy himself that anybody proposing to recover the timber provides a safety plan to ensure that this can be done without risk to the workers or to the public. We need only to reflect on the debate that has occurred in this House over the last year about the dangerous nature of forestry work and the further fact that wind-blown timber makes it even more important for that work that we have restrictions and we have requirements for that to be taken into account. The bill also requires that the Director-General of Conservation, in granting authorisations, takes care to ensure that there is minimal environmental impact in the recovery of that timber. It is my expectation that the bulk of the timber is, in fact, recovered by helicopter, given the remote areas that are involved.

I want to rebut some of the concerns that have been expressed about this very practical bill. The first claim is that removing a portion of this wood will hold back the recovery of those forests. I would point out that only a small portion of the overall woody biomass would be recovered by this method. There will be oodles of wood for the bugs and the slugs to consume and to provide fertility for those forests to be able to recover. I have also heard criticism from members opposite that somehow they believe that the recovery of this wood should be restricted and available to only West Coast companies. I have heard some silly ideas in my day; that one would have to take the cake.

💬 Moana Mackey: That’s what you said was going to happen.

The member from Gisborne is interjecting. Does the member really believe that in little New Zealand—4.5 million people—we are going to start setting up individual custom areas for the West Coast where wood cannot be moved? I assure the member, whose party is split on this issue—

💬 Hon Maryan Street: No.

The member says “No.” Well, I have just read it on the wires. Maryan Street says Labour members are not split. Well, can the member assure me that Damien O’Connor is not going to cross the floor of the House?

Well, one minute they say that they are not split and the next minute it seems that they are. Can I be reassured by Maryan Street that Labour is voting as one on this bill? I have heard from very reliable sources that the Labour Opposition members are completely divided on this issue, as they are on the issue of oil and gas exploration, and as they were for the reasons that Shane Jones left Parliament. That is a party that does not know what it stands for and I think that will become plain as this bill is debated through its stages.

In publicly making the announcement for this bill—and I want to acknowledge the support of United Future and the Māori Party last Friday—subsequent to that, there has been concern expressed from some extractors of high-value oil from native wood that the provisions of the bill I tabled last week will restrict that sort of high-value use. As part of being open and transparent with the House about the content of this bill, I do want to draw to the attention of members of the House that there is a small change to the bill in regard to the purposes for which the timber can be recovered.

It is right that this Parliament is passionate about protecting the forests that define this country, but when we have a tragedy of this scale, and we have millions of hectares of high-value timber on the ground, it is my view that this Parliament should be pragmatic and should allow for that wood to be recovered, where it can be done environmentally responsibly and where it can be done safely. To put it very quickly, this country is not so wealthy that it can allow beautiful, valuable, native timber to be left to rot.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I found that a really muddled speech from the Minister of Conservation and it does lead me to the conclusion that actually this is not a serious consideration about the needs of West Coast people. By crikey, do I ever hear that representation regularly from Damien O’Connor, as he tells me and other colleagues about the battering that the West Coast has had to endure under this Government, which is totally out of touch with the needs and the realities of people. The Minister of Conservation, I think, is playing a cheap political stunt game with this legislation, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. He had the audacity to ask the House why it would let fallen trees rot on the ground. Actually, it is because that has been in the Conservation Act for 27 years, it has had enduring support from this Parliament, and he is the Minister of Conservation, who is responsible for implementing the Conservation Act, so that question just made a nonsense of him and his position.

But that is not the first time, actually. That Minister has stood alongside his colleagues and said that we have to balance the economy with the environment. We always have to have this balance. That is why, when the Minister of Conservation is making decisions about mining on conservation land, he no longer has that authority himself—he has to share it with the Minister of Energy and Resources. What nonsense! That dual decision-making puts the Minister of Conservation right out of the loop in the traditional role as being an advocate for conservation, and his speech confirmed that today.

If this was urgent legislation to give a commitment to West Coast people that they would have better employment—good jobs, well-paid jobs—in their local community, we would certainly back it, but that is not what the Government is proposing. The Minister of Conservation actually confirmed that when he answered a question from Damien O’Connor in the House yesterday. The Minister started talking about a sawmill in Nelson that could benefit from this legislation. That was a little different—a total flip-flop—from the commitment he gave to the West Coasters that this was about them and their jobs. No such commitment is in the legislation.

I want to talk about the other points that Labour has raised with the Government. Oh, and by the way, we have not had a response. This legislation is so urgent that the Prime Minister cannot even be bothered responding to another political party on the points that it has raised about it. Let me go through those points. I am sure that the Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee, who is going to take the next call, will respond to some of them and explain why we have not even had the courtesy of a response from the Prime Minister. The first point is that 3 months after this event, which caused such terrible results for the West Coast, not just for the forests, but for individuals’ homes and properties—it was just the most destructive force that we have seen for many years, other than the earthquakes, obviously—Nick Smith says that we are going to have this bill not just introduced, not with a truncated select committee process, and not with any consideration of the actual time that is required to get logging permits out but that we are going to ram this bill through all stages under urgency.

I know the National Party conference is starting on Friday night, so the National Party members do not care if they are stuck in Wellington. It might actually be a very generous way of saving taxpayers’ money, by not enabling them to commute home tomorrow and come back on Friday night—

💬 Mike Sabin: It could just be to stop the timber from rotting on the ground while we stand in here postulating.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: The timber would rot.

There is no need for urgency on this, and if there was some time constraint, we put it in writing that we would support a truncated select committee process. If West Coasters are so important, Mr Sabin and Mr Auchinvole, give them a chance to have a say. Give them a chance to have a say through a select committee process. This is a cheap political stunt, not a serious commitment to the West Coast. That is the first point. Justify this outrageous use of urgency through all stages without anyone having an opportunity to have a say. There is no commitment, despite what the Minister of Conservation said, to make sure that any jobs that are a result of this legislation go to West Coasters. That was the second point that we made. There is no need for the 5-year time frame of this, and we proposed a 2-year time frame, which would be more than adequate. This bill does not say that there will be a truncated process of consideration under the Resource Management Act. It says that the Resource Management Act does not apply—it does not apply. There could be wholesale environmental degradation with no comeback—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!

—because the law says those specific sections of the Resource Management Act do not apply. It is in the legislation, and if you are arguing about it, Dr Smith, read the bill. It is in your name. It is a total embarrassment to have the Minister of Conservation, charged under statute with protecting our most precious land and surrounds, saying: “Oh, but don’t worry about the Resource Management Act. Destroy the environment, destroy the rivers, and do what you like, because it’s so urgent and so important.” We said that it was not appropriate to absolutely remove any provisions of protection under the Resource Management Act.

We wanted some consideration given to the people whose livelihoods currently depend on the legal milling of indigenous trees. They are not doing all that well. We know that there are stockpiles. We know that they have not got booming businesses. What does flooding the market with trees under this legislation do to people who have a legitimate business already? What does it do to them? I know that the National Party is all keen on market forces, but this changes the rules totally for those people who already have a legitimate business, and they are very unhappy about that. What about the people who worked so hard to get their rights under SILNA finally determined? What does it do to them? Ah, there is a bit of silence from the National members; it is a pleasant change. They do not give a toss, actually, about the livelihoods of the existing West Coast business people who fought to get their businesses going, who have been acting inside the law—

💬 Chris Auchinvole: No, come on. You shut them down. You forced them to go exotic.

—and who are struggling for both beech and rimu. There are existing businesses—Chris Auchinvole does not even know who they are. That is extraordinary. There are existing businesses that have permits that will have their market flooded as a result of this legislation. Existing businesses will be threatened, rather than having their workforce enhanced.

The final point I want to make is that the maps that are supposed to describe the areas on the West Coast that will be available for logging under this bill should be included in the legislation. If you are going to go through all stages of a bill under urgency—and gosh, we have seen some problems from Nick Smith in terms of legislation rammed through and with inappropriate use of ministerial powers before; this would not be the first time by any means—then we want to try to make a bad bill better. It should have the scrutiny of a select committee. It should have the maps that describe the areas from which logs will be able to be taken as part of the legislation, not as an add-on.

There are some quite fundamental problems with this legislation. I saw the pretty picture in the paper. The Department of Conservation paid $6,500 for the picture of Peter Dunne, Te Ururoa Flavell, and Dr Nick Smith sitting surrounded by felled trees. I think they should ask for a refund. It was pretty awful, actually. You could have done a better one on your smartphone, Dr Smith. You could have done a selfie. It cost $6,500 for a photo opportunity just 3 months out from an election. What does that say about the cynicism of the National Party? What does it say about the desperation of the Hon Peter Dunne and Te Ururoa Flavell from the Māori Party that they will travel all that way in order to get a photo op with the Minister?

Mr Brownlee, when you take the call, please give us the courtesy of responding to the letter. We have had no response at all from the Prime Minister and it is not good enough.

I cannot work out from the speech given by their lead speaker this afternoon, Ruth Dyson, exactly what it is that the Labour members find so troublesome in the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It is hard to work out why it is that they would deny that there is a significant resource lying on the ground and likely to rot with no value to anyone and why they are saying “Just leave it there. Do not touch it.” Then they are dressing it up by saying that they do not want to touch it and they do not want it used because the local people on the West Coast have not had a chance to have their say about whether we should or not.

I would say to Labour members that they should go back to Blackball, where they did their grandstanding efforts just a few months ago, and go to other small communities on the West Coast and ask them want they think. If the answer is not 90 percent in favour of recovering this timber, then I will eat my hat. If I were Damien O’Connor, who is relying on the defence of the Labour position in that speech by Ruth Dyson, then I would say: “Now you all know why I look even more grey than usual.”

What an appalling argument to run. Firstly, there is a suggestion that there will be the destruction of an industry on the West Coast that exists now. Well, the destruction of that industry occurred in the early 2000s, when native logging was cut dead—cut dead. There were all sorts of extravagant promises made to millers at the time about the quantity—or the stumpage, as it is known—in the exotic forests. What was found in a very short time? That it did not exist. There were people on the West Coast who made millions of dollars’ worth of investments in what they thought would be an exotic-logging opportunity for them, and that was lost because of misinformation peddled by the then Labour Government about the state of those timber stocks.

Here we have the party that did all that coming into this House today to say that if we were to recover some of those 200,000 hectares of wind-blown timber—a small fraction of that will be recovered, mind you; that is all—it would destroy some local industries. Well, I need to tell the House that this will not make one jot of price difference to any of those superb timbers.

It will be an adjunct to the market—no doubt about that—but it will let other New Zealanders share the sort of ambience that members of Parliament sit in every day that the House sits.

The other thing that I found fascinating about that speech from Ruth Dyson was the concern for the local member, Damien O’Connor—actually, I should say the lack of concern for the local member. I suppose that is the problem. As I spoke of before, the local millers on the West Coast made those big investments thinking that there would be exotic logs for them to cut, but found that there were not and found that their businesses in trouble. They went to the local member and said: “Can we have some help? The Government is not able to honour its promises to us”—the Labour Government—“so can you help us out? We’ve made these big investments.” He did nothing—not a thing. He did not lift a finger. He was sitting in Cabinet and never even brought the issue up. It took the advocacy of the National member Chris Auchinvole to put it before Cabinet and to get a resolution. In 2010 it was a National Government that came to the aid of that distressed industry on the West Coast, not a Labour Government.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, ha, ha!

They sit over there, laughing. Well, Mr O’Connor, do not laugh at your own constituents, would be a good piece of advice that I am sure the Speaker would want to give you.

The other point that staggered me was Ruth Dyson sort of labouring over this idea that the Department of Conservation, which will be the beneficiary of funds that are accumulated from this particular exercise, was spending about $6,500 on a photo opportunity. Well, let me tell the House this: 1 cubic metre of mataī timber will sell for that price—1 cubic metre. We have got at least 200,000 hectares of native timbers that will be recovered. There are probably up to 10 cubic metres in each single stump, so that is tens of thousands of cubic metres. So taking the equivalent of 1 cubic metre to tell the West Coast, very publicly and in a very demonstrable way, that United Future, the Māori Party, and the National Party are very keen on giving them an opportunity in their area seems to me to be pretty good value. Certainly, it is cheaper than the cost of having to bail out the West Coasters who were lied to by the previous Labour Government over the extent of the exotic stumpage available to them.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the comment the Minister just made, and I ask you to require him to withdraw and apologise.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No. This is a very robust debate. We live in a healthy democracy. The member is not making any dispersions against members individually. He has addressed the House. This is a robust debate.

Well, let us look at it this way, then: the Labour Government went out and ended the indigenous timber industry on the West Coast—shut it down. Firstly, it gave some money to a trust to see what it could do, and then said to all the millers over there “Here are multiple blocks of indigenous timber so that the industry can carry on.” In a very short time it was proven that the figures that the Labour Government gave to those millers were wrong, and people lost tens of thousands of dollars in individual businesses.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Closing businesses.

Those businesses, in many cases, closed down. It took nearly 10 years and the advocacy of Chris Auchinvole to point out the terrible situation that the Labour Government had dumped the West Coast in and for that matter to be sorted out. I was very pleased to be in the party with him in 2010 when we sorted that out.

So, coming back to this bill, the issue here is simply this: if the Conservation Act back in 1987 had anticipated that there could be these tens of thousands of hectares damaged by windfall, would it perhaps have made some provision for it then? The fact is that it has been almost 30 years since that Act was passed, and this is the first and only time that we have seen this type of destruction, so it is appropriate that the person who brings this bill to the House, the Minister of Conservation, is able to recognise that this is an extraordinary opportunity for the House to consider a one-off exception to that Act. It would be utterly appalling if all of that wind-blown timber was just left there to rot—just left there to waste.

The other point I would make—and there will be people out there who want to argue with me on this because they, of course, will be learned people who know a lot about this from their textbooks—is that if timber is left to lie on the ground like that, it will delay the regeneration. It will delay the regeneration.

I well remember my uncle, who was involved in West Coast timber milling, telling the story of a group of conservationists, with a very well-known conservationist leading them—a person well known to us, in fact. They came up the road in a bit of a bust, on the bush road. My uncle came across him coming out of the bush in his Land Rover with the crew. When they met on the one-way road and had a bit of a talk, these guys said they were coming to have a look at the native logging operation there on the Coast. He said to them: “Well, look around, because this is where it is, and this is where it has happened.” That was selective logging in new, clean native forest. It had regenerated to that level very, very quickly. I make the point too, and you can argue if you like, that a beech forest can return in 80 years. So why would we leave trees rotting for 30 years, prolonging that regrowth to 110 years, when you could have it sooner? These are the small little points that the Green Party will overcome because, all of a sudden, there is going to be an explosion of bugs and all sorts of other grubs that eat timber. And when that happens, we will probably be cutting down the trees so that we can feed those bugs and grubs in the long term!

I think that this is a good bill. I think that it does reach a pragmatic solution and it creates an opportunity for the West Coast. I have got to say that even if he crosses the floor on this bill, everyone on the West Coast will know that voting for Mr O’Connor—voting for a Labour-led Government with the Greens driving the bus—is never going to see progress for them.

If ever there was a person and a speech that epitomised the history of the West Coast, then it was that one—arrogant, patronising preaching from someone sitting over in Christchurch about what is best for the West Coast, when for generations his family took the sawmilling and their profits over the hill. This Government wants to do the same thing here. All I ask of the Minister of Conservation and of Gerry Brownlee is to put a clause in this West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservational Lands) Bill that guarantees benefits for the West Coast.

We have heard all the pathetic excuses from Nick Smith, who is dancing on the head of a pin. Well, I will put my credentials on the table. I was born into and grew up in the bush. My father purchased a bit of land that was bush, that was native forest, and slowly pushed it over to create a farm. I lived in it. I know what the dynamics of it are, so do not come preaching from your bloody Fendalton home, Mr Brownlee—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

—Mr Assistant Speaker—about what happens in the bush of the West Coast.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Brownlee’s mill was one of the best mills.

Mr Auchinvole is no better. The history of our region is people like Mr Brownlee and Mr Auchinvole coming in and promising wonderful things for our region, through sawmilling initially and through mining, and then packing their bags and moving out, leaving the locals to try to find some job opportunities.

You would have thought that we would have learnt over the generations. Well, indeed, it was not that long ago—in fact, only a couple of months—when the repetition of that sad event, that sad reality, came back to haunt us, when people sitting on their butts in Christchurch at Solid Energy, with a board appointed by a bunch of Tories in Government, ruined that company by upping the rates of debt, increasing the dividend to the Tory Government, and then, of course, it collapsed when, inevitably, the coal price went down. Who has suffered most? The West Coast people.

What we had was a natural event. I accept Cyclone Ita was quite significant. We have not seen anything like that in living memory on our coast, and I have certainly seen tens of thousands of hectares that have been severely damaged; that is right. So I understand the potential value in the logs that are on the ground.

I also understand the difficulties in extracting safely that timber from those forests. If you talk to any experienced forester down there, they will tell you that that is perhaps some of the most dangerous forest and forestry activity that you can undertake. Indeed, there are some valuable logs and timber there. But, as the Minister himself said, most of that will have to be extracted by way of helicopter. The only timber of value that can possibly pay for that high-value extraction is, indeed, rimu. The previous speaker, Gerry Brownlee, talked about mataī. There may be the odd mataī tree there, but in fact it will be the rimu. The reality of what happens every day that the timber is on the ground is that in our climate we do have breakdown very quickly. We do have spoilage of the logs and it is only the heart rimu that would be of any value after 2 years.

I have had some interesting and robust discussion with my colleagues. I put on the table once again my knowledge from firsthand experience in the bush. I believe we can extract some of those logs. I think we can do it economically and safely, but it will be only a very small amount of timber from those forests and it will probably just be rimu. So should we take that opportunity? Well, I have always said yes. I do not believe that it will upset the biological cycle in the forests. Indeed, if we leave them all there, there might be bugs that end up looking like Mr Brownlee—that is, too much nutrient in one space is conducive to not the very best of, I guess, ongoing health and behaviour. It is done in jest. It is not a personal affront to Mr Brownlee. I am saying that it comes from sitting in Fendalton and not on the West Coast. That is what happened. None of his relatives enjoyed that level of comfort on the West Coast when they were sawmilling.

Can I just go back to Mr Smith, who very righteously, piously, and pompously said that we should do this for West Coast benefit, and then refused to put in place minor amendments, which I will table, that will give preferential access for West Coasters. I put before you this scenario: having helicopter extraction, helicopters from Rotorua most likely, and logging gangs, again possibly from Rotorua, and trucks, possibly from Christchurch, taking those logs outside the West Coast delivers very few benefits for our region.

And do you know what? West Coasters are a bit more astute now than they were when Mr Brownlee’s ancestors came to our region. We had a story about Timberlands West Coast and the transition into exotics. Can I tell you that the reason we did not know the exact volume of the exotic logs in the region is because Timberlands West Coast, a company run by a bunch of Tories appointed by the National Government in the 1990s, was misleading the Government in terms of what was happening in the forest. You can talk to anyone on the West Coast and they will verify that. We were misled by a company that did not operate properly, that did not operate ethically, and that, in fact, in the view of many West Coasters, destroyed the opportunity that we potentially had. Moving on to the piece of legislation that we have now, it is again, as I say, one more arrogant piece of legislation proposing to offer huge and ongoing benefits to the people of the West Coast, but in fact is offering opportunities for people to come in, to get a sweet deal with the Director-General of Conservation, and to take those logs outside our region.

I come back to the point about the two mills in our regions that are capable of cutting the logs. I am sure that they would welcome a few more logs. But if you talk to them about the market and about the fragile price—and it is high. Mr Brownlee is quite correct. And it should be high. But it is very, very easy to undermine the value of that timber on the market because, for whatever reason—the chicken and the egg—rimu has fallen out of fashion with many furniture manufacturers and high-value users. Can I say that the risk to the market price of rimu would indeed undermine the economics of some of this extraction. I ask in my amendment, as well, that any permit to extract this includes a requirement for the person getting the timber to manage that timber on to the market in a way that does not undervalue or destroy the value of that timber.

I support the extraction of these logs. There are opportunities, potentially, from it, but there is also a huge risk that if, in the typically Tory, arrogant way, members opposite preach to us what we are supposed to get and then offer the opportunities to their mates and walk away with the benefits in their pockets, there will not be ongoing and lasting benefits to our West Coast community. This is an opportunity, but it is one that in the hands of that Government, without amendment to that legislation, will be lost to our region. I say to the Minister, Nick Smith, who is dancing on the head of a pin with his speech, that you ensure that the—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

—Mr Smith, but I am sure you would too, Mr Assistant Speaker—benefits accrue to our region, to the people who need jobs, to the 1,000 miners who have lost jobs because of that Government’s incompetent oversight of Solid Energy. This will offer a few jobs. It is crying crocodile tears to say that Government members care about the West Coast when they let 1,000 miners walk from Solid Energy because of your incompetent oversight of a company that should still be employing more miners in our region. This is an opportunity for the West Coast. I cannot guarantee that those opportunities can be taken up.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a tragedy, not that there has been a large area of windthrow, but to hear the sentiments extolled by Mr Brownlee that we are not wealthy enough in this country to set aside some areas that we protect permanently, where nature can rule and where we can experience nature on nature’s terms. That is why we have protected our conservation land as places where nature dominates. We are a windy country. We have big snowstorms. We have big wind storms. Windthrow on the West Coast is nature in action, and if we are to be serious about setting aside parts of New Zealand, to protect them for their own sake and for the sake of all of the species that call them home, and if we are serious about protecting them so that present and future generations can experience something of the original New Zealand, then we do not open them up to mining, to oil and gas drilling, and now to logging, as this Government is doing. It is because the National Party is stuck in the past, with its destructive short-term thinking, which Mr Brownlee embodied in his speech. It has got economic policies that revolve around the aggressive exploitation of nature—dig it, drill it, frack it, irrigate it, and, now, log it.

The West Coast forests are nature’s cathedrals. You have the grand beech forests on the fertile river flats, with their big branches. You have the rimu trees festooned with orchids and climbing plants. You can hear the call of the korimako, the tui, and, if you are lucky at night, the kiwi. We in the Green Party respect these places. We would protect them, not open them up to chainsaws, to skidders, to haulers, and to all of the damage that they will do. Conservation lands are supposed to be the areas that we set aside, but nothing is sacred to this National Government—nothing at all. The Minister suggested yesterday that logging had occurred numerous times on conservation land. That was very misleading. Certainly, it has occurred where there were past licences, prior to the Conservation Act that allowed logging. It has occurred near Reefton, where there has been a big open-cast goldmine.

But the Conservation Act deliberately prohibits the extraction of timber for commercial purposes from our protected areas. That was quite deliberate because of what happened with the Forest Service, prior to the establishment of the Department of Conservation. In a very perverse way, it twisted the legislation at the time and twisted the concept of extracting dead trees to include dying trees and then to include living trees in the Kaimai Mamaku Conservation Park. Parliament deliberately, in section 30 of the Conservation Act, prohibited the use of conservation land for logging for commercial gain. That provision has enjoyed widespread public support for the last 27 years.

Mr Brownlee, with his comments that the waste of timber is a disgrace, shows a profound misunderstanding of basic ecology. Nature does not do waste. Death is part of nature’s cycle. Trees are not going to waste if they decay in the forest. They are an important part of the forest ecosystem. Where you have standing dead trees, they provide nesting holes for species like kākā and kākāriki, and then when you have rotting trees on the forest floor they store carbon and they recycle nutrients back into the forest soils. Thousands of species, from fungi to insects to birds, rely on these rotting logs for food. They provide a home to these species. They provide moist sites for insects, which birds like kiwi need to feed on, and they provide ideal sites for regeneration for new forest giants. The Minister does not care or does not understand that rotting logs are an essential part of the forest ecosystem. If you are not protecting the whole cycle of the forest, you are not protecting the forest at all. I encourage the Minister and Mr Brownlee to read the blog by ecologist Michael North, on the Forest and Bird website, where he highlights just how much windthrow and the cycle of decay are a natural part of our forest system and a really important part of it.

Past Governments have progressively wound back the logging of our magnificent rimu and beech forests on public lands, in response to the public demand for their protection. We finally stopped logging on public land on the West Coast in 1999, as one of the first acts of a new Labour Government to stop Timberlands’ destructive West Coast beech scheme. That scheme involved helicopter logging. It was not the gentle extraction of single logs from the forest. It was pockmarking the forest with an ugly series of 2 to 3 hectare clear cuts. That is what we will get with this bill. We stopped logging on public land for a very good reason. We need to protect what remains because we have been so successful in clearing, burning, converting to pasture, and destroying the native forest that make these islands of Aotearoa so very special.

Forests once covered 85 percent of New Zealand—some 23 million hectares—yet in the space of just 25 to 30 generations, humans have reduced our forest cover to around 20 percent of land area. That has had a devastating effect on our biodiversity, on our plants, and on our wildlife because of the loss of habitat. The industry has been winding down because New Zealanders have pushed past Governments to wind it down and to protect these areas. New Zealanders see more value in the forests as habitat for plants, for wildlife, and for the species that make New Zealand special. No other country has birds like our flightless parrot, the kakapo, and like the kiwi, which has got nostrils at the end of its beak. No other country has species like the giant wētā, which preforms the role of rodents in other countries. Our biodiversity is some of the most distinctive in the world. We have so many species that are found only here in Aotearoa: all of our reptiles, 90 percent of our insects, 80 percent of our vascular plants, and 25 percent of our bird species. That is why we need to protect forests on conservation land, not open them up to logging.

We have a biodiversity crisis with over 2,000 species threatened with extinction, yet what is the Government doing? It is not spending more on conservation to fund predator control, but opening up our public protected areas to logging—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, we are.

Yes, only money that you have managed to save because the Department of Conservation did not cut as many staff in its restructuring last year.

We are opposing this bill. The reason the Government wants to push it through under urgency is because it knows that the public will oppose it when they understand that it is not just single-tree extraction. We will see logging trucks, skidders, haulers, and heavy equipment on conservation land destroying our forests, opening up large areas to weeds, destroying the ground conditions, destroying the natural drainage patterns, and devastating a large area of forest in order to access the wind-thrown trees. There is nothing in this bill that restricts the logging to helicopters. Instead, we will get the ground equipment used, the big heavy machinery, which has been so devastating in logging on the West Coast in the past. When you have been through a forest that has been logged, it is soul-destroying because it such a desolate landscape, such a broken landscape. That is what this Government is allowing by bringing the chainsaws back on to conservation land when Parliament 27 years ago deliberately decided that we should not have logging for commercial gain.

It gives me much pleasure to rise and take a call in this debate, as we debate the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. I want to begin by spending just a moment on the purpose, which I know we will debate a little later, but just to remind members why we are here. The purpose of this bill is to allow the Director-General of Conservation to “authorise the removal from certain conservation areas and reserves in the West Coast region of timber irreversibly damaged by Cyclone Ita.” Wind-blown timber is what it is known as.

I rise to take this call as the Associate Minister for Primary Industries with responsibility for forestry and having a very real interest in this area. I would like to pay tribute right now to my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith. I do so because—and I think my colleagues would join with me and agree in saying—there is no greener member of our blue party than the Hon Nick Smith. Therefore, this is a member who gets biodiversity, who gets the importance of the environment, and who understands that there cannot be any economy without the environment and that they go together hand in glove. That is in fact why he has championed these causes within the National Party for so long. However, I want to say that it is this party that sees beyond blind ideology. It sees that we must have a thoughtful response to an unusual event, which was Cyclone Ita.

I visited the West Coast, and I was there on 3 May. I visited to look at the windthrown timber, which largely was in the Crown forestry estate. I also got to see a lot of the native timbers that were down on the ground. I was struck by the patches of devastation. I was struck by how long it was going to take for the recovery to occur. What the Hon Nick Smith saw in this was an opportunity for there not to be as much devastation—for, in fact, a principled, thoughtful, measured response to this particular event.

I have to say, we take our hats off also to the candidate for West Coast - Tasman Maureen Pugh, because right there on the coast she has been besieged by people who have a view that something should be done about this. The people of the West Coast absolutely get that fallen timbers are required for biodiversity—that you actually need to let things rot—but this was on such a large scale compared with anything that had been seen before.

So what this bill does is it takes a pragmatic approach. Let us face it: there does need to be some urgent action when we talk about beech timbers. The other timbers over the course of the period that this legislation will exist for will not have such a pressure to be logged or extracted. This was an extreme event. This is the sort of event that requires a pragmatic approach, keeping in mind the principles that any revenue from this event from actually logging this timber should rightly go back to the Department of Conservation, and that in fact safety—as a previous member has already said—will be paramount. This is the most dangerous logging experience anyone working in forestry will undertake. They have to be specially certificated to carry out this sort of recovery, and the Coasters know that, as well. It will be jobs for Coasters. It will be jobs that the Hon Damien O’Connor should be thinking very carefully about. This is an opportunity that should be very carefully managed. I commend the Minister and this bill for what I believe is a pragmatic way forward to achieve that.

I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take the first of as many calls as are needed in order for Parliament to deal with this urgent piece of legislation that we have before us, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. New Zealand First does not ordinarily support the passing of legislation under urgency. Governments riding roughshod over the established conventions of democracy is anathema to our beliefs, and it is not something we view favourably or undertake lightly or often. However, there are times when we realise, as others realise, and as we believe that the majority of the public realises, that sometimes Parliament has to act swiftly.

There are times when pragmatism trumps principle—not often, not frequently, not lightly. But there are times when people realise that although a given situation may not be particularly serious in itself, the consequences of failing to act swiftly with regard to it may be more serious than the temporary sidelining of what would otherwise be due process. It was our initial reaction when the issue to which this bill relates came to the fore that this was probably going to be such an occasion.

However, on closer inspection of the bill we have before us we found ourselves coming to the conclusion that such an approach is not appropriate in this particular case. Digging deeper and deeper into the bill, we found serious departures from what we had initially believed to be a reasoned and reasonable response to the consequences of a major meteorological event of the type that afflicts our country from time to time. It was for this reason that we chose to oppose urgency in this case.

For reasons I will outline, we are supporting this bill, on condition, only as far as the Committee stage. From then on our continued support will be dependent on whether the Government can agree to address the number of very serious concerns we hold about this bill as it is presented. It is apparent that the Government has a completely disingenuous agenda with regard to this bill. The intent of this bill—the stated intent, the intent as advertised—is something that New Zealand First would like to support. Our principles and policies are completely in line with that intention. Allowing such a tragically serendipitous occurrence as this to go to waste is anathema to our philosophy.

This is a windfall indeed. The storm that has brought us this wind-blown timber has been a tragedy for our forests, but using this occurrence as an excuse to throw out our principles and protocols, to put aside our hard-won environmental protections, would be to turn a singular tragedy into an ongoing series of catastrophes. New Zealand First wants to see some changes to this bill and we want some honest explanations from the Government as to why it contains certain of the provisions that it does.

Firstly, I want to know why the Government went back on its word and made this bill the first item of business today rather the second, as it had previously indicated. The final version of the bill hit the Table and straight away the debate began, despite members on this side not having seen anything beyond the first draft. That is disingenuous.

Secondly, we want the process by which applications for extraction permits are issued to be fair, honest, and transparent. At the moment it is not. The Director-General of Conservation can invite people to apply by any means he or she chooses—by an advertisement in the public notices, by the issuing of a tender, or by simply getting on the phone to someone they believe is up to the job. Then they can engage in any sort of negotiation that takes their fancy, behind closed doors. We want these jobs to go to New Zealand companies and preferably to West Coast companies.

Thirdly, we want the existing environmental protections under the Resource Management Act to be maintained. At present sections 9, 13, 14, and 15 are exempted for 5 years. Restrictions on the use of land, restrictions on the uses of riverbeds and lakebeds, restrictions on water use, and restrictions on discharge to water are gone—all of them—for 5 years. For 5 years people—anyone the Director-General cares to give the job to—can go into the bush, bulldoze a road, dam a river, dump whatever rubbish they like back into it, and haul away wind-blown trees. If it is not the intention that this happens, why is it allowed for?

Fourthly, we want the West Coast to be the principal beneficiary from this exercise in terms of jobs and processing. That is not in the bill now. Fifthly, we want the prohibition on the export of native timber extended to this recovery operation. At the moment the bill says that sawn timber from beech and rimu can be exported—madness. Pardon my cynicism, but it is madness for sawn native timber to be sent overseas to be made into furniture and then brought back here to be sold.

Sixthly, we want the royalty regime for native timber to be enshrined in the bill and for 25 percent of the royalties collected to go back to the West Coast. As it stands, there is no provision for the Coast to be granted a cent from this wealth and the Director-General has the absolute discretion to waive or refund any royalties that are charged.

To recap, this is what can happen under the bill as it is presented. The Director-General of Conservation can get on the phone to a logging company from Australia or Canada or anywhere else and invite it to apply for extraction rights. The offshore company can negotiate its price behind closed doors, then it can come in and bulldoze a track through a national park, put culverts into the river beds, dam the rivers for water for the operations, dump their waste back into the rivers, kill as many kiwi as they like and not be in breach of the Wildlife Act—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s not true.

It is in the bill, Minister. It can take out a truckload of prime rimu, mill the trunks into logs, send the sawn timber to China, have it made into tables and Scotch dressers, and send them back here to be sold as New Zealand native timber furniture—and then get a refund on the royalties it should have given to the Crown. The West Coast gets nothing and New Zealand gets nothing, except shafted. If none of that is going to happen, then why does the bill specifically allow and provide for it?

We want to see this timber used. We do not want to see it go to waste. But we want to see the benefits go to the people of the Coast and to “New Zealand Inc.” and we want to see our environment preserved. We will support this bill only if those things can be agreed to and guaranteed. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou katoa i tēnei ahiahi. Ka nui te mihi ki a tātou. I am pleased to take a call on behalf of the Māori Party in respect of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill, and I have got to say from the very beginning that there is different perspective for Māori that is a little bit divergent to the conservation ethic among those in the modern conservation movement who may appear to have a more empathetic attitude towards indigenous ecological knowledge. They may assume that their environmental ethics and those of indigenous peoples like Māori are motivated by similar philosophies and share similar aims. However, not only is this assumption often wrong; it also contributes to the inability of the Western conservation movement to properly serve the needs of and fully empower indigenous conservation aspirations, as guaranteed to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi.

Two months ago, as the Minister of Conservation has outlined, those forces of nature had a particularly dire impact as Cyclone Ita left large proportions of the forests, hundreds of years old, completely flattened. We know that the communities of Whataroa and Harihari were the worst hit, where floods created devastating damage to tōtara forests. That is Tawhirimatea at work; that is nature at work. There is a saying from ngā pepeha a ngā tupuna. It goes something like this “He rākau ka hinga ki te mana o wai”—a tree will fall to the flood. In essence, it tells us that there will always be forces to contend with, and that life should be valued while it remains. I think it is important to note that the forces of nature have through time wreaked havoc on our communities, leaving families cast aside as they have tried to repair their lives. Just this afternoon before I came to the House, Ruaumoko was at work. I felt a bit of a jolt as we came across, and we know, of course, that earlier in the day, I think it was, there was a series of other earthquakes at Eketāhuna, all enforcing the idea that Ruaumoko was at work—nature was at work.

When the Minister presented the bill, wishing to move on this particular proposal to us as the Māori Party, we went, as we usually do, to the people of the land. We got feedback from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. They gave us a blessing, but they also put some questions to us, and we in turn put those questions directly to the Minister. Just last week he invited me to go with him to look over the site, an exercise I very much appreciated because then you get a real understanding about the scale of what went on—nature at work. I appreciated seeing for myself large areas of land with trees just toppled over like matchsticks, and also standing in amongst it. Some might say it was a photo opportunity; I would like to say I was actually seeing for myself what it was all about and knowing that there were trees that had been there for a very long period of time that would just go to waste unless something was done about it.

Sure, there were concerns, and I want to outline those for the record on behalf of the Māori Party. We have expressed the view that the timber recovery should not occur in areas of the national park, ecological areas, the white heron colony, or World Heritage listing areas. The proposal confirms this and notes that it is restricted to conservation lands outside those areas I just mentioned. We have also been reassured that the local rūnanga will have access for recovery of felled timber for customary purposes. Of course, Ngāi Tahu would agree to that and get back into that.

The bill has many checks in it regarding minimising the environmental effects of recovery and ensuring the health and safety of timber recovery workers. Operators will provide health and safety plans to show that their removal methods will be safe for workers and for the public. I thought that was quite an important condition in light of the fact that at the beginning of last week I was in Rotorua at the hearing of the independent panel on health and safety in the forests. Its members are the ones who have demanded that this sort of legislation be put in place, not for the trees but around health and safety being important considerations.

The reason for urgency is that the beech timber will rapidly deteriorate, and borer and sap stains and all that sort of stuff will start to take its part with the timber, and that if the wood is to be recovered, it needs to be done sooner rather than later. I can actually say that I saw that taking place in front of my own eyes—not that those bugs were moving around while I looked at it, but I certainly saw the damage they could create, therefore rendering that timber pretty much worthless.

The impacts of the timber removal would be minimised through strict controls. No significant soil disturbance would be allowed, and operators would be required to minimise damage to the forest and to the conservation values at the site. That seems to suit and fit exactly what we want to happen.

The scale of the damage from Cyclone Ita means that there are large amounts of dead and dying tree material available to contribute to natural nutrient cycling and habitat creation within the forest ecosystem. I have got to say that this was at the heart of many of the submissions I have received during this week about the recovery of the soil, allowing nature to take its course in due time and ensuring that there is minimal damage, if any, to the soil. Only timber that can be processed for high-value logs and sawn slabs would be recovered, leaving the rest of the tree in the forest available for plants and animals within the forest ecosystem. The removal of a small portion of that material is, therefore, from our perspective, unlikely to have too much of a significant effect, and the Minister has, effectively, given us the indication that that is the case.

It is proposed that the legislation would apply for a period of 5 years, after which it would be repealed and any timber removal would cease. I asked the Minister on the way to the venue whether this was the case with the time limit, to make sure that there is not too substantial damage that will be done within that ecosystem. That guarantee is there. Limiting the time period within which timber can be recovered would also limit the disturbance, as work would be undertaken prior to areas regenerating—a good provision. Revenue from timber royalties would go back into conservation and could be used for forest regeneration—for example, through controlling pests that eat the seeds for forest regeneration and weed control in affected areas. For it to go back into the conservation estate is right and proper. The West Coast Conservation Board and the local Ngāi Tahu rūnanga will be consulted on how the royalty revenues are spent. At least in this part, Māori do have a say in respect of how those royalties will go.

Research will also be commissioned on the effects of timber removal on forest regeneration to inform future decisions—a good provision that allows us to ensure this whole operation can be monitored from start to finish. We think that particular clause has got some seriously good parts to it.

Finally, this legislation will open up long-term employment and commercial opportunities for the community. Although we are sad to see that so much native timber has been blown over by Cyclone Ita, at the end of the day we were delighted that Ngāi Tahu and the rest of the West Coast community will benefit from the passing of this legislation. In a time when the West Coast, in particular, is screaming for work opportunities to come its way, we believe that this is an opportunity not to be wasted. When you look at the scale of the devastation and the small percentage of the area that will, in fact, be accessed by those who are successful in their tenders, it makes sense. It will allow for some employment to take place, and allow for business to have a go at regenerating businesses that have long been asleep. Over a set period of time we will have it all monitored and have certain restrictions in place. From the Māori Party perspective, this bill makes sense. We commend and support the Minister in his efforts to have this bill passed under urgency.

There is some common sense in retrieving windfall logs from the West Coast for milling, for construction, or for furniture. There is something sensible about that. When some macrocarpa trees came down in a storm in Nelson a couple of years ago they were very quickly chopped up for firewood. That was an understandable response. They were on council land, and those bits that were still left when the council got to them were chopped up for firewood, dried, and sold.

There is a common-sense approach, in that respect, to retrieving windfall logs. The trouble is that everything that Nick Smith does is done for political advantage. It is not done because it is the right reason, because it is the right thing to do; it is done simply because it is expedient. He is the king of expediency for the National Party. This is the Minister of Conservation, who is very keen to save dead trees but not so good at saving live dolphins.

Another feature of Nick Smith’s bills is that they are invariably inadequate in one respect or another. They are either constitutionally out of order—and I do not have time today to enumerate the bills in this Minister’s name that have fallen foul of constitutional propriety—they are wrong in concept, or they are wrong in process. This one, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Timber Bill, is wrong in process. It is this process that causes the Labour Party such trouble.

There is sense in recovering some windfall timber. There is sense in that. But there needs to be a proper process so that the country can be assured that there are sufficient safeguards. So why does the Minister not put this to proper process? Why not put it to a select committee? Why not even have the Prime Minister agree to the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition, who said in his letter to the Prime Minister: “We are willing to assist in speedy but rigorous consideration of the proposal. We therefore ask, first, that a truncated select committee process be undertaken, allowing for the views of New Zealanders, particularly those from the West Coast, to be urgently considered.”? What was the harm in that? Why not take 3 weeks, instead of moving into urgency?

Where is the harm in delaying this by a matter of a few weeks and going through a truncated select committee process in order to get the protections right? This is absolutely the hallmark of Nick Smith’s inadequate legislation. It is expedient. It is a political point. It is going to look good for the candidate for the West Coast, coming up to the National Party conference this weekend.

💬 Hon Chris Tremain: Support it then.

Those are the only reasons. We might support it, Mr Tremain, if the process was a respectful and an appropriate one. We might well have supported it.

I started my speech by saying there is some common sense in retrieving windfall timber. There is some common sense in that, but let us make sure that there is sufficient safeguard around the conservation estate that does not mean that this is a precedent, that this is in defiance of 27 years of multipartisan agreement across the House on the Conservation Act, and that it is not rammed through simply for the Minister’s own petty political advantage.

This is the problem. That Government might have received some support from this party had it just taken a moment to think about the process. We wrote to the Prime Minister stating that, in particular—stating that very thing. Not only have we not had an agreement; we have not even had, to my knowledge, an acknowledgment from the leader of that party to the leader of this party that there were some issues that needed consideration.

I come back to the Minister’s hallmarks. The process of urgency denotes game playing and expediency. In this bill and in this process now, Parliament’s Order Paper is being disrupted. There is no select committee process, and there are no public submissions. Nobody from the West Coast is able to be heard, with the exception of my good colleague the member for West Coast - Tasman, the Hon Damien O’Connor. There will be no improvements made to this bill, except by Supplementary Order Paper. So I invite the Minister or the next National Party speaker to say which of the Supplementary Order Papers they are prepared to support—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Where are they? I haven’t seen any.

They are on the Table. They are available. As soon as they come back from the Clerk’s Office—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek some clarification from the clerks. The member has said that the Opposition’s Supplementary Order Papers—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no—that is not a point of order.

Thank you. There are Supplementary Order Papers. As soon as the Clerk’s Office releases them, I would like the Minister—but let me give the Minister an example of what the Supplementary Order Papers will involve, just so that he can decide whether or not they are worth supporting.

But just to finish my point on the process, unless there is some change to this legislation by Supplementary Order Paper, then the Labour Party will be compelled, with the exception of a couple of members, to oppose this bill. We will be compelled to oppose it, with the exception of a couple of members. Ah, look, here come the Supplementary Order Papers now. I hope the Minister will look at them and consider them, because otherwise this legislation has the same hallmark of Nick Smith, which says: “I’m right and everybody else is wrong.”

First of all, I want to contrast one of the points, and it is one that is contained in Supplementary Order Paper 475, and that is urgency being required now for something with a 5-year time frame—urgency now, for a 5-year time frame. If the Minister cannot see a contradiction in that, then he is limited. I was tempted to say something unparliamentary, but I restrained myself.

We have offered a shortened time frame in one of our Supplementary Order Papers. Take it down to 2 years. My preference would be for 1 year, but let us take it down to 2 years, so that we minimise the damage. If I understand correctly, the rationale for 5 years is something to do with heart rimu—that heart rimu actually takes a long time to degrade and that the beech timber will degrade quite quickly, and therefore it would be a good idea to get in promptly, but not at the exclusion of proper consultation process, Dr Smith.

The risks have not been addressed adequately in this legislation. The Māori Party said: “Oh, well, at least there’s a protection that there should be minimal harm done to the environment.” That is all the bill says—keep harm to the environment to a minimum. So if a four-lane highway is required to go into the conservation estate to retrieve this timber quickly, then one assumes that that is minimal harm to the environment. So where is the definition and where is the protection? Is this going to be a precedent? Every time there is a storm, are we going to have another piece of legislation with another geographic title to it, and just amend the purpose to refer to a particular area?

But, more than that, this Conservation Act has been agreed to for the last 27 years. When Ruth Dyson referred to that in her speech, the Minister of Conservation turned to a colleague behind him and said something to the effect of: “Oh well, I suppose that means we can’t change it.”—the fact that it has been agreed to for 27 years. Dr Smith, that simply goes to all the anxiety that we have on this side of the House that this is the thin end of the wedge, and that this is the Minister of Conservation who will preside over the demise of conservation. We would be keen to support this bill, if the Minister did anything about proper process. We will oppose this bill on those grounds alone.

On 22 March 2006 I called for the then Minister of Conservation, the Hon Chris Carter, to take economic and social factors into account when making decisions on the permits for activities in the conservation estate. This was a major demand of people living on the West Coast then; it still is now. I am very pleased to have seen steady, albeit gradual, carefully designed development towards this objective, particularly over the years of the National-led Government since 2008.

A further encouragement to enter politics to represent the interests of people living in the coast came from the arbitrarily decided cessation of native logging by Helen Clark’s Labour Government. This was a classic illustration of Labour absolutist thinking: stop all logging, not some—all. There was no room for sustainable logging; there was no room for windthrow harvesting. Now that the far more balanced response to the windthrow timber recovery is proposed, what does Labour do? It decides to oppose the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It decides to oppose the bill. I presume that the Labour member from the Coast, Damien O’Connor, will do his usual standard hand-washing, asking permission to vote in favour of it while at the same time proposing Supplementary Order Papers to limit the activity to restrict it to give it a stricture. That is crazy.

West Coasters will not find team National divided on this issue, either with our partner parties, Cabinet Ministers, members, or candidates for the next election. Labour, it seems, is riven with division on this issue. The reason is twofold: it wants to cuddle up to the Greens, and it has a tradition of treating the Coast with contempt.

💬 Grant Robertson: Oh, coming from that party over there!

Oh, yes, it does. Actually, the Key-led Government likes the Coast, admires the people who live on the Coast, and is happy on this occasion to allow the harvest of natural resources in the conservation estate—in this particular case, windthrown timber. I support this bill. Thank you.

I understand the next call is a split call. Andrew Williams—5 minutes. Andrew Little.

I am Andrew Little. That is all right, Mr Assistant Speaker—I have only been here nearly 3 years. It is easy to forget!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): My apologies to Mr Little.

It is all right, Mr Assistant Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It is a bit rich of that member Chris Auchinvole to claim that the National Party is the great loved one of the West Coast. The people of the West Coast loved their last National MP so much they threw him out at the last election. The truth is this: the West Coast thrived under the last Labour Government. It opened up mining. It had great investment in mining and in other activities. Tourism blossomed. I do not think they have a blossom festival on the West Coast; they may well do. Tourism, at least, flourished under the last Labour Government. In the dairy industry, the milk flush was flushing. It was a great time on the West Coast under the last Labour Government.

One thing is absolutely clear about this bill, however, and that is that this is not a West Coast economic development measure. This is a cynical manipulation by a desperate National Government of a difficult situation for the West Coast, a region of the country that has been hard hit by economic downturn and now by weather events. And what does the National Government do? It manipulates, it calculates, it connives, and it cajoles. It is not about good-quality, sustainable economic development; it is about manipulating people in a difficult and sensitive time of their lives.

So here is the reality. There are two things that are very important to members on this side of the House and, I think, to all New Zealanders. One is conservation and, certainly, preservation of the conservation estate. That has been a cast-iron principle for this party and this side of the House from time immemorial. That is an important principle. The other important principle is promoting economic development, particularly in the regions, and especially now on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, to be absolutely specific—coming from a west coast electorate myself, but it happens to be in the North Island. What we have now in this country in most regions, including in Taranaki, but actually especially on the West Coast, are people crying out for a Government that understands regional economic development and crying out for a Government that is prepared to do a serious regional economic development plan, not this sort of spontaneous, opportunistic, manipulative strategy that we have got from the Government at the moment. No siree, that is not what we want. We want a proper, serious economic development plan, and this is not it. I personally have no objection to the extraction of windfall timber, but what I do not like, and what the Labour Party and my colleagues do not like, is the manipulative, silly, dumb way that this Government goes about dealing with this issue. You do not need to have a 5-year time frame. You do not need to eradicate coverage of the Resource Management Act on this sort of stuff for that sort of length of period of time.

The other thing you need to be is totally and utterly honest with the people whom you claim to be benefiting. Chris Auchinvole sits there with a Cheshire cat grin on his face because he knows he is in trouble, even though he is on his way out. He knows that when he goes back to the Coast and has to rub shoulders with the rich and wealthy of the Coast, he is going to have to explain why it is, Mr Auchinvole, that when this bill is passed, the West Coast actually will not see much as a result of it. It is going to be all the people outside the region of the West Coast. It will be mills all up and down the South Island because there are not many in the West Coast area that actually accommodate the timber that is going to be processed. Why is it that there will be very few suppliers of allied services that will benefit from this?

This is just a joke. This is the National Party of old—the old Muldoon. It is sort of the equivalent in 2014 of the Clyde Dam empowering legislation, and it will do nothing for the people who it claims benefit the most. It is a nasty sort of politics, and a nasty National Government, and it will not help the people, but, above all, it is a manipulation of important protections that we have in this country for the conservation estate, and an open-ended abuse of protection rights, and it is nothing to do with jobs on the West Coast. There is only one party that understands that, and it is the Labour Party, because we have experts in Damien O’Connor and experts from the last Government, which did so well in job generation when we were last in Government.

This is not a speaking slot; it is a point of order. I seek leave at the conclusion of this first reading that this bill, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill, is sent to the Local Government and Environment Committee for a 2-week period, with a report-back date of 10 July, so that the public can have a say on this important matter.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. I am calling Gareth Hughes. [Interruption] Sorry, Catherine Delahunty. Are you taking the call?

💬 Catherine Delahunty: Yes, I am.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Catherine Delahunty—5 minutes.

That was a point of order; I am taking my call. It is truly a bizarre moment in the history of this country when the Minister of Conservation gets up to do everything he can to justify logging fallen native trees for commercial gain, not all over the place but on conservation land, so that money can be made. It seems as if milling fallen native timber is suddenly the new cool conservation strategy. Black is white, and George Orwell would be rewriting Nineteen Eighty-Four. The bigger picture here has nothing to do with common sense or collecting firewood. It is an attack on the Conservation Act for the long term, and on that basis we must oppose it and take it very, very seriously.

The process point must be addressed. My colleague Gareth Hughes was quite right to rise and talk about the fact that we need a select committee referral. Three months after the storm we are suddenly in urgency because somebody has had a big idea, and that big idea, which has no ecological worth, or economic worth, necessarily, has suddenly been imposed. We have all seen the photograph but what we have not seen is the trees. We have not talked about the conservation values or what conservation land is set aside for.

Why the Government would want to undermine the consensus of the last 27 years is a very interesting question, but it is a kind of consistent position for it. It has never supported an end to logging on the West Coast in native forests. It has never supported that. So the idea of taking windfall timber and exporting it overseas is not a problem for it. It never was—the Government is consistent on that.

It is also consistent in terms of its attitude towards what the new normal is in the conservation estate. It is an opportunity for commercial development. If the Department of Conservation is so cheeky as to want more money to do its extremely large number of functions, that has got to be paid for by exploiting the conservation estate. It is the ultimate in user-pays. It is a complete circle. It is also a boom-and-bust cycle. It is a boom-and-bust cycle economically, and also because after 5 years any work it has created will be gone. Also, it is a boom-and-bust cycle because it will affect the timber industry in this country. We have never had a commitment to a sustainable timber industry, apart from pine. This is not it. It is not designed to be; it is a very obvious election manoeuvre. But what is missing is what the point is of having a Department of Conservation. What is the point? Why is the Government even pretending to call it that when it just wants to open the place up?

The ecological wisdom that was revealed by Gerry Brownlee was extraordinary. Suddenly and incoherently, the Government members are experts on ecology, and therefore they know that there is absolutely no point in allowing dead trees to rot, because somehow that is a waste. If we had a select committee, we could have a debate about the meaning of the word “waste” and the meaning of the word “worthless”. That is the debate we should be having about this forest rather than launching into a hastily written, badly designed, completely disingenuous bill that will open up the conservation estate.

What happens now in the Coromandel if we have kauri dieback? Shall we pull those trees out and mill them as well? I do not like to make suggestions because anything is now possible on the conservation estate—anything. Whether it is mining, oil, or logging windfall, anything is now possible. That is something the New Zealand public needs to think about. The Minister of Conservation has more of a scientific background than many people but seems more than happy to ignore basic ecological facts if there is money to be made from ripping out storm-damaged timber from the conservation estate. Actually, it is a consistent position, but we need to name it as such because at the heart of this is the purpose of the conservation lands: they were set aside for the protection and healing of our unique forests. The bill is designed to kick open the door, and it could be a precedent. What is more, it is sad and ignorant, and shows that no conservation value can be assumed to be protected.

Once they have brought in the haulers, skinners, and compactors, are they going to helicopter it all out? No, it does not say so in the bill. What kind of a mess are they going to make? Those of us who have seen forestry, right across the country, that is as open-ended as this bill have seen the mess. It has a huge impact on soils, it has a huge impact on waterways, and it has a huge impact on forest regeneration. The conservation estate is supposed to be about forests, but I have not heard a word about forests. All I have heard about is the myth of jobs, and there is more to say on that in the next reading. Kia ora tātou.

I have learnt a couple of things this Labour of today. It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of an innovative, expedient, and pragmatic piece of legislation afternoon. One thing I have learnt for sure is that I am proud to belong to the National of old; I would hate to belong to the, led by the Minister of Conservation, to overcome a position of extreme adversity in our country. I do not see this as particularly a West Coast problem; I see it as a New Zealand problem, and I see it as a New Zealand opportunity that will certainly create some significant opportunities and advantages for the West Coast. It will also create some opportunity to allow those forests on the West Coast that have been so badly damaged by this storm to regenerate themselves in a much better fashion than they otherwise would. I think that is an exciting thing.

I think it is very positive legislation. To be able to attempt to salvage some 20,000 hectares of rimu, mataī, tōtara, and beech, particularly, which have fallen in an unfortunate storm, is, in my view, common sense. I support the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. I think it is an extremely sensible piece of legislation. In fact, I am proud to support something that is as sensible as this, and creates an opportunity for New Zealand in a time of adversity as this does. We are very good at that. I support this bill in the House.