Shirley Ken: Forests Amendment Bill — Consideration of Report of Local Government and Environment Committee 
Shirley Ken: Forests Amendment Bill — Consideration of Report of Local Government and Environment Committee 
[Volume:617;Page:12612] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party will certainly be opposing this legislation the Forests Amendment Bill. The policy for the management of our indigenous forests in this country has been a mess and a fiasco for about 15 years. Successive Governments have failed to get on top of it. This Government in particular is driven by meaningless mantras rather than intellectual rigour. I guess we can understand why it is not driven by intellectual rigour. However its policies with regard to indigenous forestry are a disgrace. As the Hon Nick Smith said New Zealand is a laughing stock when it comes to those policies. 
In the mid-1990s I was privileged to chair and convene an international committee that developed global sustainable forest management policies and those codes persist to this day. Various groups came to New Zealand at that time and our proposals to manage sustainably our West Coast beech forests were regarded as a model for the world. The Forest Stewardship Council that came here recognised that our proposals were a model for the world. 
One of the first actions of this Labour Government on being elected in 1999 was to renege on the West Coast Accord. I remind people that the West Coast Accord was signed by a Labour Government—by the Hon Phil Goff in 1986 as the Minister for the Environment. It was a negotiated accord that was to persist in perpetuity for the sustainable management and utilisation of our indigenous forests. This Labour Government reneged on that accord and the real problem we have is this: with regard to the South Island Landless Natives Act forests and to Maori ownership it is saying: “Because you have this 1906 piece of legislation you’ve effectively got a free hand. You can clear-fell your forests”—and in many areas they have—“but in the West Coast and elsewhere around New Zealand—nothing. You can’t do anything.” It is bizarre. What is the logic of that? 
If we look at what was proposed for the West Coast forests it was talking about helicopter extraction with one tree per hectare on a 15-year rotation. That is considerably fewer than the wind blows down. The wind blows down more trees than that per hectare per year let alone in a 15-year rotation but because of the mantras of this Government it said: “No; zero; nothing.”—unless one is Maori of course living in part of the landless native forests principally in Southland. Then Maori can clear-fell. What is the logic of having that sort of dual race-based policy? That is another example of the race-based policy this Labour Government has persistently developed in this country. 
But it gets more interesting still. The Maori owners of the forests covered by the South Island Landless Natives Act also hate this legislation and with absolutely good cause. This Government is saying: “While you can still clear-fell your forests when it comes to exporting we’re going to be prescriptive and have export controls. So we’re saying that because we want to see low volume high value you can’t export wood chips and you can’t export sawdust. It has to be in a sawn product.” That might be superficially seductive at first glance but with any sense of intellectual rigour one would look at it and think: once the tree has been cut down does it really matter in what form it is exported in terms of its impact on the forest? Of course not. 
The goal should be sustainable management of the forest. The standard can be set but to have export controls is counterproductive because there are thinnings prunings and wood shavings. If we are going to maximise the value then wood shavings prunings thinnings and the chip from those can be very valuable in composite products and in all sorts of developments that modern technology allows us to have. But the mantra of this Government is to say: “No you can’t do that. It has to be buried or wasted.” That emits carbon dioxide or methane then in its decomposition so the policy that this Government is bringing to the House is just utter foolishness. 
Certainly there are many beautiful timbers. We are surrounded by native rimu. In recent times we have refurbished the whole of this old Parliament Building. It has been done in solid rimu solid wood. It is not veneer; it is solid wood. But it gets better. Members will remember that just after this Government came to power it renovated the Beehive. It put up New Zealand native tawa in the Beehive foyer. Then when the Government realised it had used New Zealand native tawa it ripped it all down dumped it and imported an imitation tawa at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was actually North American ash but the Government felt good because it was not using native timbers from New Zealand any more. The Government tore them down and dumped them pretended the trees had never been cut down in the first place and imported imitation tawa—North American ash. That is the sort of thing these loony Labour nutters do. That is a classic example and this policy epitomises that sort of foolishness. 
It just goes on and on. Can members guess whom I met on the tarmac at Tauranga Airport on my way to Parliament at the start of this week? It was Kit Richards. Do members remember Kit Richards? He was the champion of sustainable forestry a top scientist and a good friend. He is the person whom Prime Minister Helen Clark harangued mercilessly because he had the temerity to point out the foolishness of this Labour Government’s policy. In fact all the scientists I know who are associated with sustainable forestry emailed each other saying: “We don’t believe it. These are nutcases in Government.” That was back in 1999. How right they have been proven. But because Kit Richards had the temerity to say so he lost his job. He was harangued by the Prime Minister in a very vicious and vindictive way. But who was right? Kit Richards was right. And who was wrong? Helen Clark and this Labour Government were wrong. 
We have seen the dual double standard of their race-based policy on the one hand where if one is Maori because of a commitment in 1906 one can clear-fell but if one is a West Coaster and not Maori the Government will tear up the agreement and the pledges made just as recently as 1986 and one cannot clear-fell at all. By the way even if Maori are cutting down and harvesting forests under the South Island Landless Natives Act the Government will restrict control and prescribe the form they export it in. That is very foolish policy. I agree that I would like to see high value low volume but the market determines that. By allowing the various mixes the operators in a commercial world are smart enough to get the best value for products. But oh alas this Labour Government is driven by its mantras and its rhetoric and the outcome is appalling.