Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Madam Speaker I just popped a Fruit Burst in my mouth and Anna Lorck was very quick to finish. Excuse me—excuse me. I rise just to take a very quick call—now that I've finished my Fruit Burst—on the Forests (Legal Harvest Assurance) Amendment Bill. As has been acknowledged before me the National Party will be supporting this bill to select committee and I sit on the Primary Production Committee so I too like my colleagues Anna Lorck and Mark Cameron will be looking forward to hearing the submissions on this.I was very surprised to read in the notes that for the past 20 years or so this has been a largely unregulated sector of the forestry industry and I think it speaks volumes for those who own and operate businesses in New Zealand that thus far these seem to have been self-moderating to a degree. We do like the idea that within this bill it will seek to address illegal forestry and illegal harvest practices by ensuring that wood harvested would have to be verified as legally harvested. And indeed I think that's one of the first more important steps to define what is legally harvested" which is also a caveat in the bill. More importantly I think is to ensure that imported timber is not illegally sourced. Already a number of speakers have mentioned—I think the most obvious example to most people in the general public is the state of rainforests in the Amazon basin and the detrimental impact that has been had on (a) the forests (b) the ecology and (c) probably most importantly the peoples that live in and live off those forests. This bill will also help I think to reinforce the integrity of the New Zealand timber export industry and that is an incredibly important mechanism to put in place as we know. We've seen I think—thrown into stark relief in the last couple of years—that this country really really does rely on our export industries particularly the primary industries. We know in a world of digital and data capability that traceability is easy but also incredibly important. And this is the kind of traceability mechanism that will help to ensure the robustness of this system. We do support legislation aimed particularly at preventing illegal harvesting and most New Zealanders will think with some horror of the examples that we've seen over the years of the illegal harvest particularly of swamp kauri and the export of those largely untreated logs offshore to never return to New Zealand shores again.Like my colleague Todd Muller made reference to we do think that this bill is largely silent on the obligations on importers and we do hold out some concern that more and more regulation layered on to the exporters will prove to be overly onerous and burdensome. And I know that those of us on our side of the House when we do consider this bill at the select committee will be at pains to ensure that that does not actually occur. As I mentioned earlier we are acutely aware of the importance that the export industry plays to the New Zealand economy and I think the last thing that any export industry needs is more and more paperwork that is actually going to prevent them getting product to market and indeed doing business. It is already a heavily regulated industry and it does to be fair have a difficult health and safety track record and we just need to ensure that more paperwork isn't actually going to prevent businesses being viable and being able to operate. When I looked at various clauses within the bill particularly Part 5—being responsible for the legal harvest assurance and establishing that regulatory system for legal harvest—I was particularly interested to read that it would require a person "who is responsible for harvesting regulated timber to (i) provide … legal harvest information about … timber … (ii) keep the legal harvest information up to date; and (iii) keep records of any legal harvest information they have provided". Again when we do come to consider this bill I certainly will be asking the Ministry for Primary Industries in particular what kinds of programmes what kinds of systems what kinds of technologies are in existence or are already in place or are commercially available to this sector to be able to incorporate this new system of regulatory requirements. So we do look forward to considering this bill and may I also join my colleagues in commending it to the House."