West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill

I do not like reading out the details of bills too much, but I think it is important just to clarify exactly what the Supplementary Order Paper 476 is that I am putting forward on the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. The Minister of Conservation was determined to try to mislead people. My amendment to clauo’se 9 basically puts in place an obligation on the director-general to consider a West Coast - registered company or operation prior to anyone else. The wording is: “A person may apply for an authorisation under section 10 only if that person—(a) is a West Coast registered company or operation; and (b) has been invited to do so by the Director-General.” It goes on to insert a new clause 9(5), saying: “The Director-General may only invite non-West Coast resident people to apply for an authorisation under subsection (3) if he or she has not received any applications from West Coast operations.”

The Minister in the chair, the Minister of Conservation, thinks it is a joke. In fact, regional development has been a long-held principle of the Labour Party—and Labour Governments, actually. The Minister would not know anything about that because he is a flat-earth, free-market ideologue who believes that development just occurs—yet he wants, in his electorate of Nelson, to get money from the Government to build a dam. Why do you not apply the free-market approach there, Minister? He cannot answer that. No, he wants to have his cake and eat it. I am not going to go on. That is the first part of the amendment I have put forward.

The next amendment is to clause 10. It simply says that one of the requirements that the director-general must consider when receiving an application under clause 10(3)(a) is that “(vii) the timber is released into the market in a managed way to avoid flooding the market;”—that is, that we do not sell or provide logs to anyone who is simply going to cut them up as quick as they can and dump them on to the market for a quick buck. It relates back to Part 1, where the issue of the time line for this legislation is a point of contention. My colleagues believe that it should be 2 years. It is indeed more economical and feasible to extract all those logs in a short time frame when we have the helicopter and the infrastructure and the skills on the ground. The logs need to be cut as quickly as possible, and then they can be stored, as the Minister from the other side said, for tens—if not hundreds—of years, literally, if kept dry.

So the objective is to get it out of the bush as quickly as possible, but the Government has contradicted itself by on the one hand demanding urgency in the House and then saying that there needs to be a 5-year time line. Had the Government come back to the 2-year time line and accepted the wise amendments put forward by Labour, then the whole caucus would have supported this legislation. I would have preferred that. In the meantime, I put forward my Supplementary Order Paper 476 to ensure that West Coasters, not other people, get a fair go at utilising this resource for the jobs and the people of the West Coast region.

The question is that Part 2 stand part, but before we do that we have a number of—[Interruption] Oh, I am sorry. I did not hear the member call.

I am sorry, Mr Chair. I was not calling loudly enough. Mr Chair. Going back to the research programme, it is interesting that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Conservation, has not taken a single call to answer any of the questions that have been put by Opposition members. The National members are not taking any calls, either, to defend this bill, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. Once again, Government members are not committed to this legislation in the sense of being able to defend it. They are quite happy for our conservation lands to be opened up to logging without even echoing any concerns. That is why the Department of Conservation analysis in the regulatory impact statement is very telling.

Going back to this research programme, it is going to be quite comprehensive, across a large number of forest types, slopes, and geologies. It will have multiple research sites, with measurement undertaken over a long time period to track the changes. It is going to cover a wide variety of physical matters. So why is this comprehensive research programme being established unless the Government wants to open up conservation lands generally to logging? That is just the sort of philosophy we have with this Government. It fails to understand that for a healthy economy we need a healthy environment. The Government has got a whole history of opening up our protected areas to resource use. This bill is the very latest in that whole “dig it, irrigate it, mine it, drill it”—and now—“log it” philosophy.

This part of the bill, Part 2, has a lot of the detail around how the conservation lands are going to be logged. Certainly, there has to be an authorisation by the director-general, but this part allows anyone to apply for that. It cuts across the Resource Management Act. This bill is making it easier to log on public conservation land than it is for private landowners to log on private land. That is because on private land those forest owners have to satisfy the Forests Act, they have to have a sustainable management plan or a sustainable management permit approved by the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Secretary of Forestry, and they have to comply with any necessary provisions in the Resource Management Act—any requirements for a resource consent to clear vegetation and any requirements for land disturbance consents to control the amount of sediment that ends up in streams.

But what does this part of the bill do? It rides roughshod over that. It specifically excludes the provisions of the Resource Management Act from applying and it excludes the provisions of the Forests Act from applying. So you will get a consenting regime that is administered by only the Department of Conservation, without the department having any expertise in how to manage logging.

When you get to clause 10, that has some requirements that the director-general must be satisfied about before he grants an authorisation. But, again, these provisions are very vague. They have very general terms, such as “so far as is reasonably practicable,” that the safety of people working at the site is protected. Since when has the Department of Conservation had the expertise in occupational safety that the Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation has? Why is the Department of Conservation going to be responsible for managing safety? There is a real risk here, given the huge number of deaths and serious injuries in the forestry industry, that we will get that compounded by allowing logging on conservation land, particularly because in the circumstances of windthrow you have a higgledy-piggledy, pick-up-sticks mess of logs that is subject to considerable tension. If you remove one, there is the risk of that tension being removed and other logs damaging workers, causing serious injury and, potentially, fatalities.

The other provision that the director-general has to take account of is keeping the adverse effects on the environment to a minimum. What on earth does that mean? This provision, with its lack of specificity, gives huge discretion to the director-general. Those powers are likely to be delegated, so you will get some staffer in the West Coast conservancy in Hokitika making a decision about whether forests should be open for logging. What will they do? They will be told by the loggers that they need to log healthy trees because they cannot get access to the windthrown timber by helicopter.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: Oh, rubbish!

Yes, that is exactly what happened with Timberlands.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: You don’t know that.

We do know that, Mr Auchinvole, because that is what happened with Timberlands. When we had the helicopter logging on the West Coast—

I move, That the question be now put.

I am going to take just a brief call. I have some questions that I would like members opposite, or perhaps the Minister of Conservation, to answer in relation to clause 11(3), in particular, of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill: “Despite section 67C(1) of the Forests Act 1949, indigenous timber removed in accordance with an authorisation may be exported from New Zealand if the timber is—(a) sawn beech; or (b) sawn rimu;”. My question is, why? We have had Government members earlier in the debate suggesting that timber removed could be stored, and Mr Damien O’Connor also has suggested that timber could be stored once it is sawed. We agree with that. It is a very good thing to do with timber that is harvested but surplus to immediate requirements. I would like the Minister, particularly, to answer why the bill makes specific provision for this timber to be exported, against the provisions of the Forests Act.

Further to that, clause 12(3) says: “The Director-General may, in the Director-General’s absolute discretion, refund or waive payment of all or any part of any royalty, fee, or charge paid or required to be paid under this Act.” Why? Surely we are harvesting a resource that is of great value. We are attempting to extract the greatest value that we can from this resource. Why does the bill provide specific provision for any royalties and fees to be waived or refunded? We want this wealth to go back to the West Coast and to stay in the economy of New Zealand. I wonder whether the Minister could tell us why this bill contains specific provision for these charges, fees, and royalties to be waived or refunded.

Over the page is clause 17, “Permitted activity not an offence”, which absolutely baffles me. I will read it. “A person who carries out an activity in accordance with an authorisation—(a) does not commit an offence against the Conservation Act 1987, Reserves Act 1977, or Wildlife Act 1953 (or any regulations, bylaws, or notices made under those Acts) in respect of the activity; and (b) does not require any authorisation…”, etc., etc. We have not really touched on this, but it baffles me as to why we are passing a bill that allows anybody who has an authorisation to go and collect wind-blown trees and wind-blown timber to do anything they like, regardless of any provisions otherwise covered in conservation, reserves, or wildlife legislation. Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we allowing people to go into the forest, do anything they like to the wildlife, and do anything they like to conservation for the sake of taking out trees, without so much as a “by-your-leave”?

Lastly is clause 19, “Certain sections of Resource Management Act 1991 do not apply”. It states: “Sections 9, 13, 14, and 15 of the Resource Management Act 1991 do not apply to activities permitted by an authorisation.” So by a simple act of an authorisation to go and collect some wind-blown trees, all the provisions of the Resource Management Act pertaining to land use type, to water take, and to putting rubbish back into the water do not apply. All the gains that have been made over 20-odd years are just swept away because—we do not know why. Can the Minister please tell us why? Thank you.

I move, That the question be now put.