Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's fascinating to hear that last speech from that member Greg O'Connor who indicated that the Government sees its role in the agricultural and primary sector as an influencer and an active participator—Greg O'Connor: Enabler actually—enabler. Too big a word for you.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Enabler is it? Well see that's the member over there. He's talking about regulation and coordination from the Government. That is really typical of a left-wing Government that dictates what business should do. This is what we're seeing in this legislation here today. Industry does not need Government to tell them what to do. That is the fundamental premise of the success of the New Zealand primary industries. No other primary industries around the world are as competitive as ours because we work off the basis of market signals.Now if we take this bill here and we look at forestry the big market signal that was sent to the forestry sector when this Government came in was the billion tree promise. Then they change the Overseas Investment Act to make sure that people could come in and buy New Zealand land from overseas against all of the arguments those Opposition parties had ever made in this House and publicly just so as to facilitate their promise of more trees. Now we get this legislation which is another example of Government intervention to prop up a promise. That is inefficient in the end for the industry. I implore the Labour New Zealand First and Green members that talk big talk now about the importance of the primary industries and they talk about how they can save this economy—the actions of that Government are doing the exact opposite. Legislation like this will make forestry inefficient. It will make forestry having to meet the guidelines of the Government of the day.Then we get more promises because as my good colleague the Hon Nathan Guy registered in his last speech you know there is the problem of land-use change now as forestry is being given that free ride through the Overseas Investment Act. People and communities on the East Coast of New Zealand and Wairarapa are genuinely worried around that change of land use. And yet the Government then has to come out with another promise to try and mitigate that. It's a promise that has no basis. They were talking about resource consents for councils—having to do that for certain areas classes of land. Completely ineffectual promise—will make no difference. At the same time as they are going out there trying to cover their tracks through another promise then they actually have to create a new problem. That is what we are seeing time and time again in the forestry industry. So just in those four examples you can see how the forestry sector of the New Zealand economy is being distorted by this Government.The decisions being made are being made on the basis of currying favour with the Government. For example can you seriously see that those councils that will have to dictate those resource consents would say no when at the same time they've got Ministers coming to their areas with buckets of money for Provincial Growth Fund applications? The forestry aspect of it is a big part of the Provincial Growth Fund—SPEAKER: Just saying forestry" doesn't get the member into the bill all right? The member has got to speak about the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Well the bill is the regulation of log buyers and forestry advisers. It's another one of those examples that I'm pointing out where the Government has tried to protect its political promises and in doing that has distorted the total market. That will be to the detriment of the forestry industry over time. That is why a Government made up of left-wing agendas and political promises like the New Zealand First Party can never be in charge of business because they do the exact opposite—SPEAKER: Order! Order! Second warning now. Back to the bill or I'll terminate the member's speech.Hon DAVID BENNETT: That is why a Government like that cannot be in control of this economy. I understand your concerns about the bill but the fundamental problem in this legislation is that it is a distortion that is to back up a promise that has been made to a sector. That is the fundamental reason we are having this bill in front of us. We're not having this bill in front of us from any economic analysis that's come forward and said it needs to happen. This is only coming forward because of a political promise that's been made and they can't make it work and so they have to change the rules around that sector time and time again to try and make it work. That is the nature of this bill. It is the fundamental premise of why we are having this bill and in this House we should be debating the fundamental principle behind the legislation. That is the important part of why we are here today. So I encourage the Government to act in a principled way and to work with the sector not by creating promises and then having to make a series of regulations to enable those promises to happen because they are going in a cycle of more and more promise. Thank you."