Smith Nick: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionSmith Nick: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 June 2014. Volume:702;Page:18941. Text is subject to correction.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I move That the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill be now read a third time. I am pleased to stand in the House as a practical conservationist and put the case as to why this bill makes good sense. I understand much about why New Zealanders value New Zealand’s clean green brand but that does not mean that we surrender our common sense. When trees are fallen and are dead there is nothing wrong about saying that we should utilise that wood for people’s jobs and economic well-being. I say quite simply that we are not such a wealthy country that we can let valuable felled timber rot. I do want to run through just quickly and respond to a few of the reasonable points that were made between much of the invective directed at me in the Committee stage.Firstly there is a real contradiction from Labour members arguing in one breath that this bill should apply for only 2 years and then in the next breath arguing that they are worried about a flood of indigenous timber into the market place. Those two positions are not compatible. The reason the Government wishes to run the bill over a period of 5 years is that that is a reasonable recovery period for the timber. The more ridiculous demand from the member Damien O’Connor is that the Government must guarantee in law—this is exactly what he said—that West Coasters get the jobs and that West Coasters get the revenue from the timber. That is a nonsense. They are the exact words that the member said in his press release. That is a complete nonsense. We do not do that in any other part of the country. That would be as sensible as saying that with the billions of dollars that are being spent on the earthquake recovery in Christchurch we have got to guarantee that the building contracts or the jobs go to Cantabrians. They need to go to those who are best able to do the work.Members opposite said that rather than putting the bill through in a single day it would be OK if we set it down for a select committee process over 2 weeks. I simply make this bet. If the Government had come to the House and said that it was going to refer this bill to a select committee for 2 weeks there would have been cries of “Foul!” and “Horror!” that this process was way too constrained and claims that there would not be time to publicly advertise and for people to be able to come before the select committee and have their views represented. I very openly published this bill a week ago to give members the chance to study its details. It is only temporary legislation which will not be permanent.I also note the amendments from Moana Mackey in which she wanted to have maps put into the schedule of the bill. The reason the Government did not support those amendments is that they actually would have created more uncertainty. These were very broad maps and there is no way in which the Director-General of Conservation who has responsibility for administering this legislation could have been able to reasonably decipher where it would have been acceptable to grant permits. It is more sensible to do so by using the description of the status of the land as has been done in the bill.There have been all sorts of spurious claims made about the fact that I have been quite open that as part of the recovery of the timber after this massive storm on the West Coast it is the intention of the Department of Conservation to commission research so that we can see exactly how forests that have had some timber removed recover in comparison with those areas that have not had removal. That is being done with no secret agenda or anything other than to say that in the event that that research shows that timber recovery is quite reasonable in situations involving wind-blown incidents of the massive scale that we have seen on the West Coast with Cyclone Ita then I would be open-minded about making a permanent change to the Conservation Act. One of the more extraordinary contributions in the Committee stage was members asking how I dare as Minister of Conservation amend the Conservation Act. Well if we are going to adopt that ridiculous approach why bother having a Parliament? Why would the Minister of Labour amend the labour legislation? The Conservation Act is not some locked-in holy granite stone that we must never ever amend or rethink. This is a Government of practical conservationists who think that if we can reasonably use timber we should take that opportunity.I do have to note the extraordinary event in this House that I have not seen in 24 years which is that we have two members of the Labour Party voting against their party. That just shows the level of disunity the level of division and the lack of leadership in the Labour Party. I challenge any member of the Labour Party to tell me any time in the last 90 years when you have had two members of your caucus vote against your party.Sue Moroney: Oh actually quite a lot of times.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Sue Moroney says that there have been quite a lot of times. When? No not once. Not once and that shows that the Labour Party for the very reason that Shane Jones left is in a mess. Those members do not know what they stand for. They are in no position to govern on their own let alone attempt to govern this country with the other parties on the Opposition benches.I want to conclude by saying that this is a sensible pragmatic bill that does no more than enable the Director-General of Conservation to grant permits for the recovery of wind-blown timber. Eugenie Sage when this issue first arose 4 weeks ago challenged me and said that if we wanted to recover the timber we needed to bring a bill to this House. That is exactly what I have done. It is the right way for the Government to be open with Parliament to make the law clear. I have got confidence in the Department of Conservation and the Director-General to make sure that this work is done in a sensible way that enables that valuable timber to be recovered without putting the core conservation values at risk.