West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill

I have just been perusing the Supplementary Order Papers that are attached to the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill and note that all of them had been made by individual members and tabled directly in the House. There are none that have been made by a select committee, none that have been made as a result of a submission, and none that have been made as a result of members of a select committee—probably the Local Government and Environment Committee—sitting around and constructively discussing the merits or otherwise of the bill. That is because this bill has not been through a select committee process. The bill debate started only a few hours ago. Not one single member of the public has had the opportunity to make their views known to a select committee, let alone have the select committee consider them and amend the bill.

I cannot recall a bill that I have been party to at a select committee, as a Minister, or as a contributing speaker in the debate where there has not been some change made by a select committee. It is a really smart part of our process. Actually, it is the time that I wish more members of the public would go and listen to, because it is the time when members do engage very well with each other regardless of their political party differences. That is what could have happened with this bill. That is what should have happened with this bill. If the Government is so determined to have this bill done and dusted before the House rises at the end of July, we still could have had, as Labour proposed and as I heard the Green Party propose, a truncated select committee process where members of the public could be invited to come and have their say, and members of Parliament would have been better off for it. But we have not done that.

We have ended up with quite a few Supplementary Order Papers, and I know there are some more on the way. I just want to draw the attention of the Committee to two. The first one is Supplementary Order Paper 475, which is in the name of Moana Mackey. She has got quite a few amendments within this one Supplementary Order Paper, but the two that I just want to comment on are those related to Part 1, which is what we are up to in the debate at the moment. The first is in clause 4—page 2, line 16—and that is to replace in the “Repeal of this Act” provision the words “2019” with “2016”. So instead of having the 5-year period for the life of this bill, it would compress it into 2 years. You know, that is quite a generous consideration, actually. That time frame is lot tighter than would be allowed under the current legislation. The Minister of Conservation has indicated that he is not going to have a bar of it. That is probably because he has not had quite enough time to reflect on it, let alone listen to any members of the public or let them have their say, but we are putting it forward in good faith, anyway.

The second amendment that is proposed in that same Supplementary Order Paper from Moana Mackey is in relation to clause 5. It is to ensure that the designated area and the maps that indicate the designated area are actually included as a schedule to the legislation. That is quite straightforward as a procedure. It is not unusual. It is something that offers some security and protection. I suppose the members of the public have lost quite a lot of trust in the Minister and his Government over the last little while, and this would give them some reassurance that the comments that have been made in public are ones that will be adhered to because it will be in the law.

The next Supplementary Order Paper I just want to comment on is in the name of Green Party member Eugenie Sage, and that is Supplementary Order Paper 474, in relation to clause 5. Again, the member has put more than one amendment on the same Supplementary Order Paper, so clause 5 actually has quite specific changes to the definition of “designated area” that have made it more restrictive in terms of the areas that are covered in terms of the legislation. It has got specific references to conservation parks, to national reserves, to nature reserves, to scenic reserves, and to wildlife management areas. I think, again, those are sensible amendments to try to make what would, I think, generally be regarded as a bad bill better.

The provisions that we are discussing at the moment in Part 1 cover the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to actually tear to pieces the 27-year agreement that has been in place between Labour and National, originally, and then with other parties as they have come into Parliament, to say that the logging of native timber on the West Coast—and in the rest of New Zealand as well, but, of course, particularly on the West Coast—is not something that we support. We ended that practice completely with the Timberlands agreement in 2000, and this really says: “Well, we have had enough of that. We think that logging on the West Coast is OK again.”

It is very surprising for the current Minister of Conservation to be leading this debate, because I am not sure whether he actually has his heart in it. He has indicated some courage in some of the decisions he has made. I have put it on the public record that I have supported some of the more courageous decisions he has made in regard to the monorail, in regard to the Milford Dart tunnel, and in regard to approving the marine reserve in Akaroa. Those were clear and courageous decisions, and he made them through a considered process, but here he is, trampling over a very longstanding agreement. So I do not think that his heart is in it. I do not think he believes in what he is doing. I think it is a cheap political stunt, and I am really disappointed in the Minister for doing it.

The purpose of the bill is to rip up the protection against logging native timber on the West Coast. It is proposed that this bill lasts for 5 years. There have been, as I have indicated, amendments to say that that should be less than that—that it should be only 2 years, if at all. There are a lot of definitions that are covered in this part, and then, of course, Part 1 concludes with the Act binding the Crown.

I was very interested in the second reading contributions that were being made, but one thing that really puzzles me—and I guess that if the Minister is going to take a call, he might like to address this one question that I have—is when we have a pile of logs on the back of a truck, how is it going to be determined that they are all wind-blown? How is that going to be determined? Is every tree going to be checked? Are we going to check that they are not doing any felling that is not permitted? Are we just going to risk it? How will we know that any trees that are on the back of the truck are not trees that have subsequently fallen down, rather than trees that have fallen down through the cyclone? It is just a nonsense, as the Minister knows. We know that there will be cheating of the system, and this is really the start of the slippery slope that I find so frustrating.

It is being wrapped up in a parcel that is designed to say: “We are supporting the West Coast.” Well, it is clear from the Minister’s rejection—and, actually, from Minister Brownlee’s attitude in the earlier stages of the debate—that that parcel of wrapping is absolutely untrue. There is no protection that any increased employment would be going to people who live on the West Coast or to people who are from the West Coast. Of course, we like jobs for other people as well, but you have to tell the truth, Minister, when you are presenting an argument to somebody and saying: “This is because the West Coast has been so badly done by.” Yes, it has, actually. A thousand miners have lost their jobs because of this Government’s incompetence and lack of oversight into the activities of Solid Energy. We know that the bottom is falling out of the coal market anyway, but those were high-paying skilled jobs that were lost to the Coast, and now in this legislation there is no protection at all that any new jobs that come from here in the take of the timber, the transportation of the timber, or the milling of the timber, let alone any subsequent processing of the sawn logs, will be of advantage to the West Coast.

All those amendments are before the Committee, and I hope that over the next couple of hours we are able to really consider them properly. I resent this bill not being given the opportunity to be presented at a select committee and for the public to have their say. This is a very, very important issue. There is the changing of the Conservation Act after 27 years, the dismantling of the agreement with Timberlands after 14 years, and the undermining of the deal that the then-Government made with the people of the West Coast for their compensation package of $120 million to go into local jobs. It is all now up in the air, and that was a hard-fought agreement. It was one that has been courageously taken up by the people of the West Coast, and now I bet that they are saying “Where does this leave us? What does that mean for our future?”. That is not the way that the Government should treat good, hard-working New Zealanders. We should not have all stages of this legislation being rammed through the House under urgency. I hope that we get some answers to the questions and some positive response to the Supplementary Order Papers that have been presented.

I have some amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 475 in my name on Part 1 of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. I too would like to voice my concern that this bill has not gone before a select committee, even for a very short period of time. I appreciate that the Minister of Conservation wants to get this done quickly, but there was not any consultation with members on this side of the House. With regard to the grand statements that we have been hearing of “It would be so wonderful if we could get Labour to support it.”, well, maybe if Labour had been involved earlier on so that we could have asked some of these questions, then maybe that could have happened. But, of course, there was never any intention or desire to have cross-party support on this issue at all, which is why that did not happen. There was no consultation with the local MPs, and here we are in urgency having to put a bill through.

I have to say, with the greatest of respect, that having been through the Ruataniwha Dam issue with this Minister, I am afraid that I do not trust some of the things he says—bluntly. As my colleague Ruth Dyson said, there have been a couple of issues where the Minister has done a sterling job, and we will always give credit where credit is due, but then we have also been burnt a fair number of times by this Minister, and the Ruataniwha Dam was a classic example. So we have deep concerns over the accuracy of some of the statements that have been made. How many jobs and how much wealth is actually going to come back to the West Coast due to this piece of legislation? How much money from royalties is actually going to go to conservation purposes? Although that is stated in the documents, there is nothing in the bill that requires that to happen. I think we have just been burnt a few too many times by this Minister to be able to accept at face value everything he has said to us—to accept that there is no ulterior motive here—and support the legislation.

Once again, as we keep saying time and time again, if, as the Minister keeps saying, this was about taking a few logs out and bringing jobs to the West Coast, and if the proper protections were there, that would be absolutely fine. Why does the Government keep deliberately overstepping on all these pieces of legislation? There are provisions in here that do not need to be in here and that are deeply worrying.

We are being told “Well, you don’t need to worry about it. There’s nothing that members opposite need to worry about.” Well, if that is the case, then why do they need to be there in the first place? The provisions are obviously there for some reason, and that is why we have Supplementary Order Papers to remove and change some of the provisions in the bill.

The first amendment in my Supplementary Order Paper is to change clause 4 to reduce the time frame from 5 years to 2 years. The Minister gave us his reason in his first reading speech as to why that time frame was the case. Again, I would actually like to be able to sit down with officials and go through a lot of that stuff. I think that is what a select committee process, albeit truncated, would have allowed us—to hear from experts. As a scientist myself I know it is very easy to cherry-pick research. It is much better to be able to sit down with groups of people. I am sure there are divergent views on this issue, as there are on many things, but it is good to get that expertise at a select committee, to be able to sit with people who know a lot more about this than we do, and to be able to actually hear from them what they think an adequate time frame should be.

I was also concerned to hear the Minister during the first reading speech of my colleague Ruth Dyson, who was talking about the Conservation Act, turn round and say to one of his colleagues: “Oh, that means we can never change the Conservation Act, because it’s been there for so long.” It worries me—so we are now talking about changing the Conservation Act. This is the worry. The Minister nods. This is the worry: that this is actually a stalking horse for something more. If this was simply about what he has been talking about—taking a few logs out after a major weather event and bringing jobs to the West Coast—then that would be fine. But that is not what this legislation does. It goes so much further, and there must be a reason why, which begs the question: what is that reason? And when I see the Minister nodding to show that the Conservation Act might now be up for review and discussion, despite the fact that it has been settled since 1987, then that does make me concerned that this is, as I said, a stalking horse for something else.

We have reduced that time frame from 5 years down to 2 years, which we think is appropriate, but we clearly acknowledge that we are picking numbers out of the air here because we have not been able to have the advantage of expert opinion through a select committee process. Also we have an amendment to clause 5 to include the designated area maps in the legislation. It is a simple change, really, but they should be in there. They should absolutely be in there. I am not sure why they were not included in there in the first place. I think when it comes—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The honourable member Moana Mackey.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am not going to take too much longer.

The other area I would like the Minister to elaborate on is the issue raised by my colleague Ruth Dyson about the monitoring of this and how we will know that it is actually windfall timber that is being taken out and not timber that is actually fine. We have a definition of “irreversibly damaged” in relation to timber that is “dead; or damaged to the extent that it is likely to die within the near future”. “Damaged to the extent that it is likely to die within the near future” does seem to me a fairly subjective definition. Although “dead” is obvious, how are we going to make sure that the logs being taken out—where someone is making a judgment call based on the fact they can get a bit of money for that—are going to be likely to die in the future? Where are the belts and braces around who makes that determination?

How are we going to check that the logs being taken out are actually logs that were damaged or destroyed during that storm and are not perfectly healthy logs? I suspect, given the comments the Minister has made, particularly about beech, which deteriorates quite quickly, they might want to take a couple of healthier-looking trees because, obviously, if a tree was alive when they actually felled it, then it is going to be in much better condition by the time it gets to market. So I think, particularly in terms of those trees the Minister himself has identified as being ones that deteriorate quickly, there is a real risk that it is not going to be windfall timber that is taken but is actually going to be trees that have nothing wrong with them or are in a state where they would regenerate if they were left to do so. So I would like a little bit of comment from the Minister, because, obviously, that is not stuff that you would expect in legislation. Who is going to be checking this? Who is going to be monitoring it? And how are we going to know that we are not creating a massive loophole for people who want to go in and actually take healthy trees, healthy native timber, out of our conservation estate, as opposed to the timber the Minister is talking about, which is the excess stuff that is lying on the ground?

I think we have general consensus around the House that it is a normal part of the ecological cycle to have trees that fall, that die, and that degrade. It is all part of the nutrient cycle. It is part of the habitat. The Minister is talking about a level above that. I am not clear, from reading the regulatory impact statement, the departmental report, or the bill, about exactly what level the Government is expecting in terms of the timber take.

I note the comments from my colleague Damien O’Connor, which I thought showed his knowledge of the area around how much, economically, is realistically going to be able to be taken out and what the trees that are most likely to be targeted are going to be. What my colleague Damien O’Connor, who has on-the-ground experience of the West Coast in this area, is saying is quite different from what the Government is saying in all its documentation.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Yep, absolutely. Who knows the place better?

That is right. So my worry is that, in fact, this is not just about what my colleague Damien O’Connor talked about, which was that when going in and taking out some of those extra trees, it is not going to be a lot, and it is most likely to be rimu more than anything else. I am a bit worried that this is actually going to be about flooding markets that are already depressed with a large amount of native timber, despite the fact that the economics are not necessarily there for some of it.

Again, I come back to that very serious question around how we know that the timber we are taking is stuff that has been damaged in the storm and is not stuff that someone has just decided to cut down and say was damaged in the storm. I really just want to leave my comments on Part 1 there but I welcome the Minister’s clarification on those points.

We are dealing with Part 1, including the purpose clause, of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill, which is to allow the Director-General of Conversation to authorise the removal of timber from certain conservation areas and reserves. I would like to make some general comments before going on to talk a bit about the specifics of Supplementary Order Paper 474, which is in my name. The Minister of Conservation should well know that one of the key aspects of the restructuring of environmental administration in the late 1980s under the fourth Labour Government was the recognition that multiple-use agencies did not work and that the Forest Service, which at the time was napalming rimu forest to plant pines on the one hand and trying to encourage recreational use and environmental forestry on the other, was utterly conflicted. So it was a decision of the Labour Government to bring together all of the green dots that existed in Lands and Survey and the Wildlife Service and to separate out the use and development agencies into the Forestry Corporation, which then became Timberlands.

This whole purpose clause is fundamentally changing the purpose of the department. It is turning the Department of Conservation back into a multiple-use agency. It is corrupting the core mission and focus of the department and its staff, because at the very time that the department is supposed to be focused on ramping up pest control to deal with the beech mast year and the huge eruption in pests in South Island beech forests—the explosion of rats and stoats, and doing a sixfold increase in control to tackle that—the department is now going to have to train up and appoint a whole team of logging supervisors in order to manage the logging that this bill allows. The bill is wrong, as Moana Mackey has alluded to, with its very permissive terms and the way in which it creates an environment where all of our conservation lands will be at much greater risk of illegal logging and poaching of logs by opportunists. Where you have got the department allowing logging in some parts of the West Coast, there will be others who will see it as a giant opportunity to go in and take timber.

I would like the Minister to take a call and explain how the department is going to know whether a log comes from one of the designated areas or from nearby conservation land, or any other area of conservation land for that matter, because by promoting this bill the Government is signing off on a huge increase in illegal logging on the West Coast. We already know that it is happening. Locals in South Westland report that they have seen roading contractors who were logging along State Highway 6 in the road reserve with approval from the Transport Agency and the local councils, sneaking on to adjacent conservation land to get the giant rimu trees out when they knew that departmental staff were not around and that they would not get caught. How is the Department of Conservation going to enforce this bill? How many staff are going to be turned from focusing on pest control and the management of biodiversity to supervising logging? That is the huge tragedy at the heart of this bill: it is taking New Zealand back into the 19th century, into that colonial attitude where wild nature existed for human use to be exploited by whomever could get in first and take the most.

The other tragedy is that 20 years ago the New Zealand Forest Accord was signed. It is different from the 1986 West Coast Accord. It was a voluntary agreement between environmental organisations and the forestry industry. The industry agreed not to clear native forest and convert it to plantations, while environmental organisations endorsed plantation forestry as a renewable and sustainable source of timber. This bill, with this purpose in clause 3, turns its back on that voluntary agreement and the philosophy that was at the heart of that, which was to protect our native forests and instead promote the use of plantation forests as the major source of timber. This purpose is taking us back to the bad old days, where the department becomes a promoter and a manager of logging, where we have deep conflict between those who want to protect the forests to safeguard their biodiversity, and where there are those who see forests just as a source of money and a source of timber.

If this Government was genuinely serious about jobs and regional development, it would not be passing this bill. It would be promoting much more processing of plantation timber. If the Government was serious about job creation, instead of the giant piles of raw logs that we have got on wharves around the country, which are shipped off without being processed, without creating jobs for New Zealanders, it would be investing in ensuring that plantation pine was used for manufactured products. The purpose in the bill is fundamentally wrong and it is a major attack on conservation legislation. What it is going to lead to is Department of Conservation staff being faced with a whole host of dilemmas. They know about predator control, about trap-building, about recreational maintenance, and about conservation planning. They are not forestry operators. We know that under this Minister we have seen political interference, so that a 32-page comprehensive submission on the Ruataniwha Dam project suddenly disappeared and was not lodged.

So are we going to get pressure from this Minister on the department to approve logging wherever someone seeks an application to take timber? This bill allows huge discretion to the director-general, in terms of making decisions on applications to log. The Minister’s press release included three maps. There are no maps in this bill that identify the designated areas where logging will be permitted. So, instead, it is just any area that people can say was affected by Cyclone Ita. There is a lack of specificity there, and there is huge scope, because of that, for illegal logging. Then, in the list of areas that was attached to the Minister’s press release, there were a number of areas, such as various scenic reserves, the Punakāiki Nature Reserve, and areas that the Nature Heritage Fund had bought for addition to the conservation estate, like the Ballyhooley Scenic Reserve on the Whataroa Flats, which is one of the best areas of totara forest on the Whataroa Flats. Those were all part of the areas that would be open to logging in terms of the Minister’s press statement, but there is no identification of them in this bill. That is why I have introduced Supplementary Order Paper 474, which would seek to exclude scenic reserves, nature reserves, scientific reserves, and Victoria Forest Park from the ambit of the bill.

One of the other areas that the Minister’s map showed was very close to the Lewis Pass National Reserve. National reserves have a status almost equivalent to national parks, and yet the Minister’s map was suggesting that that was open for logging. That is why in my Supplementary Order Paper we are suggesting that there be a wider range of areas that are protected from logging—not just the ecological areas, Waitangi Roto Nature Reserve, and the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area that the Minister suggested. This is because, Minister, we set these areas aside and they have been protected under the Reserves Act, with the provisions in the Reserves Act that control any removal of vegetation intended to protect those areas since the 1970s and some of them before that. This bill, with its purpose of giving the Director-General of Conservation the discretion to approve logging, is a fundamental change to the purpose of the department.

One of the other major problems that the regulatory impact statement identifies is the research that is going to be done on logging. Why is there extensive research being done if the logging is to end in 5 years? The Minister has not closed off the prospect of logging being allowed much more extensively on conservation land. Is it going to see Scion and other agencies doing this research in order to justify opening up conservation land around New Zealand to be logged? That is a question we would like some answers to. The other area that the Supplementary Order Paper addresses is the whole issue of ground retrieval of timber. If logs get dragged through streams there is major damage. There is nothing in the bill that prevents the use of diggers, of bulldozers, and of big haulers, and all of the problems that go with that and all of the destruction. That is why the Supplementary Order Paper provides for a restriction, so that recovery can be only by helicopter.

The bill is very uncertain in a lot of the provisions. It is very vague. It leaves a huge amount of discretion to the director-general, and, again, that highlights one of the major problems with the bill—that it is going through under urgency. It has not been to a select committee. There has been no opportunity for submitters to highlight changes to the bill.

We are debating Part 1, the purpose, of this unfortunate piece of legislation, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. Of course, as soon as one sees the statement of purpose, it is to allow the Director-General of Conservation to authorise the removal of timber. The process that we are undertaking tonight to endeavour to embed this legislation is an offence to the democratic process. This is a significant shift in a country where we highly rate our conservation estate, where the integrity of the public domain, particularly our conservation and wilderness areas, is very close to people’s hearts. Jamming this legislation through in one night, with no opportunity for the public to make comment, is an offence to the democratic process. It is also an offence to anybody with the most basic knowledge of ecology. The content and the propositions within the legislation are utterly offensive to stage 1 ecology students. No doubt they are laughing around the country when they read the provisions of this bill—the endeavour to rationalise it, and the claims that are made within this legislation. It is an offence at many levels, but I will confine my comments to the purpose for the time being.

In terms of the purpose, we have heard a number of propositions about why this legislation is going ahead—that it is ultimately a political act. It is difficult to refute that, because if one looks for a sensible, rational, logical explanation, it is extremely hard to find one. We hear a great deal from this Government about balance—needing to balance the economy and the environment. That is a false dichotomy at every level. Joined-up thinkers, nationally and internationally, know that environmental well-being and economic well-being are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. You degrade one; you degrade the other. If we cause harm to the natural environment, it affects us not only as human beings but there will inevitably be a negative economic effect. Joined-up thinkers know this. This notion of this split, that one must serve the interests of the economy or of the environment, is such dated thinking as to be laughable. Unfortunately, this bill embeds that sort of very dated thinking, which probably was never right but certainly is not appropriate. It is not acceptable in the 21st century in New Zealand.

So why then are we proceeding with this? We are told that there may be economic benefit. I wonder whether any members of the Government who have taken calls on this bill have actually read the regulatory impact statement. Anybody reading that document must realise that there is an underlying purpose to this bill, which is not the one that is stated. It is not about an economic well-being or an economic boost to an area where undoubtedly the economy is, and has been, constantly under stress as a result of centuries of extractive industries. The economic analysis is very brief because there is very little work that has been done. I actually have some sympathy for the unfortunate people who were obliged to write this document, because essentially they were obliged to make it up as they went along.

The document tells us, for example, that there is an attempt to estimate what the income from the entire project may be. Essentially, the question of what the income would be is virtually impossible to calculate, because the information is not there. They have looked at the volume of timber, the likely value of the timber, the cost of extraction, and the level of opposition to the extraction, which will be significant and will drive up the cost. This is a Ministry for Primary Industries figure, in fact. Its highest estimate of overall income is $8 million; its lowest is $810,000—a tenfold difference in its guestimates. Essentially, that is what they are. They are guestimates as to the likely income from this ludicrous project that has been proposed.

The author of the regulatory impact statement goes on to say “I am not aware of any work that has been done to set a limit on what level of economic benefit would justify new legislation, or new urgent legislation.” This is being made up as people go along. It is extremely unsatisfactory to propose that we intervene in a wilderness area, in a conservation area, in a way that we know will be destructive to the ecological values and the future economic value in terms of tourism. We know, for example, that the Ministry for Primary Industries has warned us. This is not the Greens or Labour making things up. The Ministry for Primary Industries has raised concerns “about the potential for a spike in supply to have negative effects on the sustainable forestry industry overall.” So the existing industry can be undermined. We have no idea what suddenly putting this volume of logs on the market would do to the price, but we can make some pretty bold assumptions. In Economics 101, supply and demand, dump an oversupply on the market and it will very quickly drop the price. It will drive down whatever economic value there may have ever been, which we know in any case will not compensate for the substantial ecological value.

We are told that this will provide a research opportunity. We will be able to research the effect of the removal of wind-blown timber from a forest ecosystem. What an interesting proposition that is! The research question would have to be one of how badly this ecosystem would be impacted on by the removal of these logs. It is not a question of whether there will be an adverse effect; it is how long the ecosystem will take to recover and whether it will be able to recover, in fact, to anything resembling the ecosystem that was there prior to the cyclone. It could, if we leave it alone, be restored in its own right. It is simply dishonest to suggest there is a need for such research. This document, the regulatory impact statement, flimsy though it may be, has two pages of references and commentary about scientific research and some recent publications.

We know very well that species, as it tells us, are resilient to wind damage. Although individual trees—and, indeed, many trees—can be knocked down, the ecosystem can come back. That is the nature of resilience. If you have sufficient diversity in an ecosystem, if you allow the system to work in its own way, to recover in its own way, it will restore itself. That is the wonderful thing about nature. It is self-restoring. An intervention of the scale that is proposed here will deny that ecosystem the ability to restore itself. You will be left with degraded land. We will take away the nutrients that are required for the regrowth. We will take away the areas where seedlings can be protected as they grow back. We will take away the habitat for the insects, for the invertebrates, for the bird species, for the mammals, which are, many of them, rare and possibly endangered. All of that we are going to take away for the spurious claim that it will derive or generate economic benefit. It is simply dishonest to suggest that there is any net economic benefit from such a bizarre undertaking.

The industry tells us again that clearing wind-blown timber is an extremely dangerous proposition. You do not put untrained, unskilled people into that environment, because you will have serious injuries and you will have deaths. To carry through this task to get that timber out would require teams of extremely well-trained, experienced, and well-equipped people. This idea that I think people might have in their minds—because the Government is trying to sell this—of a very light-handed intervention, large helicopters coming in carefully selecting logs and removing them, is a nonsense. This would be a major intervention with heavy machinery on very fragile, delicate ecosystems.

One of the works in progress, this consultation, we are told, with Ngāi Tahu—at the time that the regulatory impact statement was written, that was a work in progress. We heard an unfortunate comment earlier this evening that Māori would understand the pragmatic, practical benefit of removing this resource, so-called. I find that quite offensive. I think cultural harvest has a long-term place. In the long term there is a place for cultural harvest in our conservation estate. That is a contested notion, and I am willing to have that contest; I am not suggesting having it at this time. The idea that Māori would accept the notion that you can go in mob-handed and start tearing out massive volumes of wood, irreversibly damaging a very fragile ecosystem, denying it the right to regenerate naturally—to say that Māori would somehow be involved in that, would tolerate that or accept it, is simply offensive, again. Yes, I know that back in the day the tupuna, after a major storm event, might have taken advantage of fallen trees.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou ngā mema. Huri rauna i tō tātou Whare. I am really pleased to take a call in the Committee stage of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. Before I get into the details of Part 1, I do want to mihi at this time to our leader, the Hon David Cunliffe, and to all of my colleagues in the Labour caucus. I would like to acknowledge them all for allowing my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor and me the opportunity to vote in support of this bill, to act as local MPs for Te Tai Poutini, which is the area that we both cover. As my honourable colleague mentioned earlier, we have stepped out in faith today. It is not the norm, obviously, that we would be doing this. But we do listen and we do represent the good people of Te Tai Poutini, West Coast - Tasman. I know that we have searched deep within us. My honourable colleague was talking about his Catholic upbringing. He was clutching on to that. I myself was saying a few Rātana prayers. I do want to acknowledge my colleagues for allowing us to express our vote in this way.

However, we would all be supportive of this bill had the Government merely responded to some simple requests that our leader wrote in a letter to the Government yesterday. The amendments that are contained in these Supplementary Order Papers were outlined in this letter. It was a very genuine, sincere request we made in the context that urgency was called around this very issue. What did we receive? What response did we receive to this letter? Absolutely nothing. Nothing from the Prime Minister’s office—or the Minister’s office, for that matter. That was very disappointing, because there really was a genuine willingness from this side of the House that we fully support this bill. Be that as it may, it is regrettable.

Turning to the various provisions in Part 1—as we know, we are dealing with the clauses relating to the definitions, and the purpose clause. Thinking about what Mr Clendon has said in his contribution, Māori are very much aware of the values of conservation. We know the science of conservation. But we are also pragmatists as well. When Mr Clendon was referring to cultural harvest and the like, I think it goes all the way back to our wonderful legends and stories and kōrero, like when Rata carved the first waka. To be able to carve that first waka, it took him a few attempts, but he finally realised that he had to say the right incantations, the right karakia, because, otherwise, the children of Tāne, the insects and the birds, would put the tree back where it was. Try as he might to carve that waka, he did not do it the right way and therefore he could not complete his waka. But according to the kōrero, when he was able to say the incantations and the karakia and follow the right kawa and the right tikanga, he was allowed to extract that tree to carve his waka.

That is no difference, really, from this context. I do see merit in this bill, particularly for my whānau in Te Tai Poutini. I think of the likes of the Mawhera Incorporation and I think of the likes of the many Māori reserves that there are on the West Coast—and there are numerous. These are very historic blocks of land that were set aside way back in the 1860s and 1870s around the original purchase deals around the South Island. For many years, those blocks really have just been lying—well, nothing has ever happened on those blocks. But there could very well be opportunities that could be leveraged in terms of benefiting from the wind-blown logs that are lying strewn right across the blocks. There could very well be benefits to those whānau, to our whānau, from opportunities around the extraction of those logs.

I think I might leave it there. That was my contribution. I acknowledge my colleagues but I also support the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward, especially by Moana Mackey around greater specificity around the definitions in Part 1. I commend those Supplementary Order Papers.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. I want to take just a brief call on Part 1 of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill in relation to a number of issues, including the regulatory impact statement, which is indeed a fascinating document. At least it is not blocked out, like some of the times when we are going through urgency and you cannot read it because it has been covered in black ink.

But if I was the Government, I would wish that it was, because actually this is a pretty damning document. It has clearly identified the status quo, and there are major problem definitions around dealing with the status quo and this new idea. It is quite damning. One quote from page 2 is: “At some scale their removal would have negative effects on overall ecology and forest regeneration.” That is what the regulatory impact statement is actually saying. It is saying very clearly that native forests are subject to periodic wind events, which cause trees to fall, are major drivers of the distributions of trees within forests, and generate the variety of habitats needed to maintain the biodiversity in those forests. So far from saying what I have heard from the Government speakers—that somehow if we cleared away the logs there would be this wonderful opportunity for the forest to grow up—the reality, as my colleagues have said, particularly in David Clendon’s last contribution, is that it does not work that way in nature. The Green Party is, if nothing else, here to respect natural cycles, and it is a shame that other people are not.

The other quote I would like to give from the regulatory impact statement is in Appendix 1, which is the advice from the Department of Conservation’s chief science adviser, which tells you that it was not written by the department. This whole bill was not written by the Department of Conservation. It does not come from it. It is being imposed upon it. It was actually, obviously, the Minister of Conservation who insisted upon this. The chief science adviser at the Department of Conservation says: “Given the severe nature of wind-throw and defoliation in some places on the Coast, extensive regeneration and succession will need to be encouraged as much as possible—thus retention of a high volume of deadwood will ensure adequate release of nutrients for regeneration and suitable substrates for seedling growth.” Either this person, the chief science adviser, knows nothing, or the expertise is all on the Government’s side. But, actually, when the regulatory impact statement says that this is the advice of the Department of Conservation’s chief science adviser, it would be nice if it was heard—not only nice but it is really important for the future of our forests that we actually listen to the science and we actually take some cognisance of that science.

Part 1 is like the rest of the bill: full of interesting contradictions and things that cannot be monitored. I am really interested in this clause about the poor old Director-General of Conservation, who has to make sure that there is no irreversible damage in relation to the timber. You know, this is pretty much an impossible task, as others have mentioned. This person—well, it is Lou Sanson, actually, the poor thing—is going to have to be the authoriser no longer of what goes on in the Department of Conservation estate from a conservation perspective, but now of the new world, and, as Eugenie said, of the multiple-use world. When I first worked for the Department of Conservation in 1990 there were new people there who had come in from Lands and Survey and they had come in from the Forest Service, and there were the conservationists, and we had this tension between those traditions. But over time the Department of Conservation brought the people together and actually strengthened the conservation effort so that the Forest Service no longer wanted to cut down all the trees, and Lands and Survey no longer wanted to bulldoze things. What we did was build a conservation ethic that is the pride of our country.

So instead of supporting that, if you read the regulatory impact statement and if you read these clauses in Part 1, you realise that the director-general has been brought in to oversee the wake, to oversee the end, of the conservation ethic in the conservation estate. That is a great job to have for poor old Lou Sanson, who is a very genuine conservationist. He has been brought in, and I do not know whether he knew that this was coming at him. But if you look at the debacle at Bathurst, where they do not have $22 million and they cannot afford to mine, we have got the myth of net conservation benefit being fobbed off on the Department of Conservation. It is now having to sacrifice one of the rarest ecosystems that I have ever seen in my life at Denniston for a faux mining operation by an Australian company that actually does not have any money because the coal price has collapsed. But somehow we have got to accept that there will be this miraculous $22 million, because mining companies never fail and they never fail to provide the money that they promised! Somehow that is all going to happen magically, and now the director-general has this wonderful new job, and that wonderful new job is to license logging.

I rise to take just a very brief call to speak to the issues contained within the Supplementary Order Papers on Part 1 of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill.

With regard to Supplementary Order Paper 475, although we feel that the inclusion of maps may be a useful tool for some people, we do not support this move, because the time frame given of 5 years is probably the minimum needed in order to do this job properly, if it is going to be done at all. We certainly agree that, if we are going to do it, it needs to be done in a manner that is measured and not rushed. We do not want to go causing any further unnecessary damage.

With regard to Supplementary Order Paper 474 in the name of Eugenie Sage we do support this initiative, for two reasons. Primarily, the inclusion of wildlife management areas in the excluded zones may well be interpreted as including the management of areas of herds of national importance under the Game Animal Council, and we are certainly in favour of not disturbing them. The other reason, of course, is the idea of removing timber only by helicopter. Although I stated earlier in the debate that we are not opposed to the inclusion of new roads if they may be constructed in accordance with existing Resource Management Act provisions, it is unlikely that that may happen. In actual fact, the removal of timber by helicopter is more likely to have far less of an environmental impact, so we do support that.

I also give notice that when the House resumes I will be seeking to correct a vote on the second reading. We did give an undertaking to the House that we would be supporting this bill to Committee stage, and through error that was not done, so when that time comes I will be seeking to do that. Thank you.

I would like to take another call to talk a bit about the regulatory impact statement, because this is a very honest regulatory impact statement. It makes it very clear that the initiatives of this legislation, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill, are totally and utterly the Minister of Conservation’s, and that the Minister has very clear objectives about the amount of timber that is going to be recovered. The regulatory impact statement, which you would normally get when a bill is introduced, has been on the Table of the House only since late this afternoon, so there has been very limited opportunity for people to read it thoroughly, but it is a very honest and direct document.

One of the options that the regulatory impact statement looks at is whether the recovery of windthrow timber could be done under existing legislation. It goes through the risks of that. One of them was that there would be a risk of judicial review. One of them was that there would be strong opposition because the existing law is seen as protecting conservation land and prohibiting timber recovery, and that people would see it as opening the door for a similar response to common windfall events, so making the risk of judicial review very high.

One of the other risks that the department identified is that the process in the existing legislation—that is, the Conservation Act—was not designed to cater efficiently and effectively to the type of recovery intended by the Minister, and nor would it be possible to allow that level of recovery. So what is the Minister intending here? The very nature of the legislation, which talks about designated areas but then defines “designated area” as “every conservation area and reserve within the West Coast region that is owned by the Crown and administered by the Department ...”, other than ecological areas, the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area, the Waitangiroto Nature Reserve, and national parks—that means that every bit of the West Coast other than those specified areas is open to logging. If the Minister is directing that there be a high level of timber recovery to maximise the potential for revenue gain by logging companies, that is exposing all of those lands to logging.

The regulatory impact statement is also very honest in saying that the reason for the research is that “He”—the Minister—“also wishes to use the event as an opportunity to research the ecological effect of timber recovery, to allow the potential for harvest in future to be better assessed.” So it is being very clear that this National Government is intending to open up all conservation lands for logging. The Minister is shaking his head. Why does the Department of Conservation’s evaluation of this legislation quite clearly say that this bill is all about what the Minister wants in terms of the level of recovery and the inability for people to challenge logging? It highlights some of the problems with the status quo—that there are lots of ecological impacts in terms of the scientific research that has been done, which shows how essential standing and fallen logs are to the whole forest cycle. Yet members on the opposite benches just dismiss all of that.

But this regulatory impact statement is very clear, and I would encourage people to read it, because it is showing that the Department of Conservation did not come up with this legislation. Once again, the Minister has his hands all over it, directing the department to compromise the purpose in the Conservation Act to allow logging not just on the West Coast, potentially, but in other areas of New Zealand as well. That is a travesty.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 475 in the name of Moana Mackey to clause 4 be agreed to.

My apologies, but could I seek leave to correct the voting for the Green Party. It should have been 10 votes in favour.

Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.

Before I move on to Part 2, I will correct the votes so that members are aware. Under the amendment to clause 4 on Supplementary Order Paper 475 in the name of Moana Mackey, the Ayes vote changes to 44. Under the amendment to clause 5 on Supplementary Order Paper 475 in the name of Moana Mackey, the Ayes vote changes to 51. Under the amendment to clause 5 on Supplementary Order Paper 474 in the name of Eugenie Sage, the Ayes vote changes to 51.

Part 2 Removal of wind-blown timber