SpeechHon AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn): Mr Speaker thank you. I also want to make a contribution on this issue of the referral motion to the select committee and in particular but not exclusively the three-week time frame. Following on from Mr Seymour who spoke previously to me I think it is vitally important when we are in this House debating the adequacy of a referral motion and the adequacy of a report-back period that we do so in consideration of the context of the bill the scope of change that is being made to the sector and therefore the ability for those affected to really understand and communicate adequately with the committee the impacts of that.In that context I want to refer the House to comments the Minister made when he was introducing the legislation when he referred to the legislation as being something in the nature of a fundamental reset of the way forestry works. This isn't a small change in excise duty rates or tax rates where you know we are making simple—none the less important—changes to our structures which are the sorts of things we would see in Budget day urgency. This is in the words of the Minister—and I apologise it's not an exact quote; I don't have the Hansard transcript in front of me—what the Minister described as effectively a fundamental reset of the sector. Now to undertake a fundamental reset of the sector surely should scream to members of this House: OK. Well that's something we need to take pretty carefully with great deliberation and certainly involving the most fulsome consultation with those affected that we possibly can." We're all very mindful of the context that we're operating in with the nature of the economic impact of COVID-19 and we are mindful I'm sure—every member of this House—that the last thing we would want to do is do more harm to our economy. But how can we possibly assure ourselves unless we have the somehow misguided belief that we know everything and don't need to have that communication with those involved in the sector how can we possibly do our jobs as members of Parliament and assure ourselves that we're not doing more harm to the sector when we're designing a fundamental reset without giving a select committee—which I personally am of the view is an incredibly impart of testing and considering and working through the detail of legislation—without giving that sector that time to be involved?I want to just take a moment of my contribution to outline the reality of what a three-week select committee process means in reality because I think for people watching or following these debates who maybe aren't as involved in them as the members of this House are they won't understand. They might think "Well you know gosh in three weeks if I work really hard I can probably pull together a bit of a breakdown of this and make some input." It doesn't mean that at all. A three-week select committee effectively means that the chair will call for submissions I imagine as soon as the bill is referred to them and I can only guess—obviously it's a matter for the chair but my expectation would be that that call for submissions will probably last in the order of a few days. I would be very surprised if a call for submissions was more than three or four days in length. That is the time that we would effectively be giving people to submit because once the submissions come in they have to be analysed by officials reports have to be given to the select committee there has to be time for the Parliamentary Counsel Office to work through any drafting changes that might be required there has to be time for the select committee to deliberate and then at the end of that there is a time for the committee staff to work through the report and draft it and debate it with members and prepare it for report back to the House. All of that has to happen and the report be back in this House by the end of that three weeks. So the actual time that a report-back referral motion of this nature gives those who want to submit is in the order of just a few days—a few days for a piece of legislation that in the Minister's own words fundamentally resets the way this sector operates. I want to use the words "woefully inadequate" but the words "woefully inadequate" are woefully inadequate to describe the woeful inadequacy of that. I would hope that that is self-evident to this House that you can't possibly do the job we're elected to do properly in that time frame.It isn't OK to simply say "Well we think it's necessary so we need to get on with it." This is not our livelihoods that we're talking about. These are not our businesses. This is not our capital that's invested. These are not our jobs. These are the jobs of the people who work in the forestry sector. These are the businesses of the people who have invested time and money in that sector. They deserve the respect of a chance to at least let the members of this House know what they think about this legislation.We've heard already today of many many people in the forestry sector who have indicated to us that they had no idea of this bill. So it isn't as if a lot of this work has been done a lot of the thinking has been done and they can simply add it into the process. Despite the representations that we've had in the referral motion I know personally of large-scale forestry associations who had no idea of this legislation until we gave it to them yesterday. These are businesses that are deep in the throes of trying to get back on their feet after the lockdown—and we all understand the context of that. But to say at that time "Actually drop everything. Get your legal advisers in the room get your experts in the room get your bankers in the room and figure out what this is going to mean for your business and then get a considered detailed breakdown into a select committee within the next couple of days." is an appalling abuse of the powers of this House—it is appalling.I cannot accept the Minister's argument as to why this sort of shortened time frame is required that we heard in the referral motion. It is important that we consider the rationale that the Minister gave us for the referral motion when we're debating it. He said it was because it's important for jobs and regional economies. But we can have no understanding of the impact of those matters when we're not allowing the very people who are affected to have a say. It is arrogance in the extreme to think that we all know far more than they do and because the Minister has decided that it's what's necessary that's all the thinking that needs to be done and now we just need to get on with it. Not only is it arrogance it risks doing real harm to a sector and economy that is already in dire and desperate straits.There's one other matter of the referral motion that I want to address in this contribution and that is the inexplicable request that it be sent to the Environment Committee. If this is indeed a bill as we heard in the referral motion that is critically important because of jobs and regional economies why on earth is the Environment Committee considering it? If this is indeed a matter of jobs and rural economies why isn't either the Primary Production Committee or at least the Finance and Expenditure Committee given the reference to export taxes considering it? You cannot separate the justification that is being put up for the shortened select committee—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Order! That matter has been settled in a previous motion. It's not relevant.Hon AMY ADAMS: Thank you Mr Speaker. The bill deserves to have proper consideration by those that are affected it deserves the members of this House getting that input before they deliberate on it and it deserves frankly a full and proper process. No basis has been laid out by the Minister that justifies the shortened time frame. It is utterly outrageous that under the guise of a COVID recovery package this House is being asked to rush through what Ron Mark just told us is something that he's wanted to do for years. This isn't about COVID recovery; it is about them using the excuse of the situation that we find ourselves in to ram through what their ideology tells us which is that they know best and that they're taking the opportunity to ram that down the throats of the industry—and it's appalling."