West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill

This is a very dismal process. We have got a bill, the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill, being put forward by the Minister of Conservation that attacks the very integrity of conservation land. We have had a process that is totally anti-democratic. There has not been any opportunity for the public to have say, and in the Committee stage we had the Minister in the chair, Nick Smith, sitting there and not answering a single question posed by Labour members, New Zealand First members, or Green members. We have had Government members not engaging with the debate to defend the bill because they know that it is indefensible, yet we have got this bill, which should really be called the “Logging of Conservation Land (Opening Up Conservation Land to the Worst Sort of Damage from Chainsaws, Haulers, Skidders, and the Removal of Trees that are Part of the Whole Forest Ecology) Bill”. It is a very sad day for conservation when we have this bill being passed without the public having the ability to have a say on what happens on public conservation land.

The Minister, by not answering, shows that there are objectives here that he is not being honest about. It is very interesting reading through the departmental disclosure statement and seeing what consultation—or lack of consultation—there has been in developing the bill. There is no reference in that disclosure statement that I can see to the Minister seeking any advice from the bodies that are charged under the Conservation Act with providing advice, the New Zealand Conservation Authority and the West Coast Conservation Board. If he was not going to subject the bill to public consultation, at the very least he could have requested advice from these authorities. Yes, it was considered at a meeting, but it was just rammed through. He did not ask for their advice. So again, Minister, you had the opportunity to respond to the questions, and you have not done that. You have highlighted that we have not closed off the likelihood that this will be applied to other conservation land. What is the agenda here?

The very dismissive way that you have treated the amendments that were proposed by Opposition members—my amendments were suggesting that there be a ban on heavy machinery such as skidders and haulers and that there be a prohibition on new roads and vehicle access tracks being constructed—and the fact that you dismissed them without any comment means that the Government is not serious about minimising the damage from these logging operations. There has been no consideration of other amendments to prevent the spread of weeds. With the introduction of skidders and haulers and with new roads being constructed, we are going to be damaging the integrity of areas that at the moment have very few exotic plants and little weed spread, but the Minister will not even consider a small amendment to make sure that there is little or no risk of exotic plants being introduced.

That shows the contempt with which the Government is treating our conservation lands—that it does not even see it as important to minimise the impacts that logging will cause and that it is just prepared to go ahead with the bill as introduced, without any public process and without recognising the work that Opposition members have done to try to make a bad bill a little bit less bad by putting in a few more controls on the way in which logging can occur. As Mr Prosser from New Zealand First noted, the way in which the bill allows the export of sawn timber means that it will not minimise the amount of timber that is taken off these conservation lands and that it will be creating a big market overseas for our treasured native trees.

This is a very bad bill. From Mr Brownlee’s comments when he led off the speeches in the first reading, it is all about resuscitating an industry that should have died properly last century. But that is typical of this Government’s economic policies. It is not interested in sustainability, and it is not interested in long-term, well-paid jobs. It wants a short-term, boom-and-bust industry that perpetuates those cycles that we have seen on the West Coast of extracting resources, whether they be trees, coal, or gold—a boom-and-bust industry. That is what this bill will do, by resuscitating an industry that we closed off on public land and that people thought our conservation lands were protected from in 1999, when the Timberlands beach scheme was wound up and when those forests were subsequently added to the conservation estate. This Government is looking backwards in allowing native forest logging to restart.

I move, That the question be now put.

Thank you, Mr Heatley, for taking your seat. Here we are, a mere few hours after this non-debate began, and we are already debating the title clause of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It is unfortunate that the Government does not have the courage of its convictions and that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Conservation, is content to sit in the chair and smile benignly at the Committee. At no point is he defending this appalling piece of legislation. He is not endeavouring to rationalise it or to justify it because it is beyond rationalisation, and the justification is not one that I believe the Minister is willing to voice openly.

The title of this bill is the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. It could more correctly be called the “National Government’s Assault on Conservation Bill”. That would be an honest label for this bill. It would reveal, in fact, what is going on here. This bill has no rationalisation other than that it is chipping away at conservation values. It is chipping away at the legislation. Every member of the public who has ever stood up for conservation in New Zealand should be offended by this bill, and they will be in large numbers.

I am grateful to our colleague Rino Tirikatene for reminding us of that interesting kōrero from back in the day about the fellow who entered the forest and just mindlessly began cutting a tree in order to carve a waka. He worked hard all day. He went back to his village. The next morning he came and discovered that his work had been undone by the kaitiaki of that place, by those who genuinely cared for it. The teaching within that simple story is about respect for nature, because only through respecting nature and caring for nature can we respect and care for ourselves.

We are living at a greater distance from the natural environment in one sense than our tūpuna Māori lived, but the principles remain to the extent that when we inflict damage on the natural earth, when we degrade what is left of our wilderness areas, we reduce our own well-being—our spiritual, our social and, indeed, our economic well-being. That is what this legislation will affect. That was a simple story and I am grateful to Rino for reminding us of the learning and the teaching that is embedded in it.

So we could just as well call this bill the “Turning Our Backs on Sustainable Management Bill”, because there is a clause in the bill that suggests that the director-general can allow or authorise any removal of timber only if “the effects of activities within the specified site ... are not contrary to the purpose of the Resource Management Act ...”. I remind people that the purpose of that legislation, the Resource Management Act, is the promotion of sustainable management of natural and physical resources while, among other things, “safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems;”. We have delivered ample evidence tonight. We have argued and revealed, and we have based that on information from the Department of Conservation and elsewhere, that there is no way that this intervention, this removal of timber, can possibly do other than almost wipe out the life-supporting capacity of ecosystems. We have the evidence before us, even in the very flimsy document that is available to us. I have no idea what the Minister in the chair is trying to indicate to me, but I will let that moment pass.

It is undeniable that this will destroy the ability of this ecosystem to restore itself to the canopy forest that was there before the cyclone hit. We have evidence in the information, sparse though it be, that the resilience of that ecosystem is dependent on it being allowed to restore itself. Nature will do that—it will restore itself. This bill could also be called the “Assault on Natural Values and the Assault on Nature Bill” because that is what it is doing. We pride ourselves and we base our economic well-being on this notion of being a clean, green country. It is an image that we enjoy and that enables us to meet our needs. It is only an image. This bill is a step towards destroying that image.

I seek leave to correct a vote that was made earlier in the second reading of the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill. The vote for New Zealand First was recorded as seven opposed. I would like to change that to seven in favour.

Leave is sought to correct the New Zealand First vote on the second reading of the bill. Is there any objection? There is no objection. The bill will be corrected. The Ayes, therefore, are 72 and the Noes are 44.

Third Reading