Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Well we've heard from Mr McAnulty You can tell when the Opposition's had a raw nerve touched because they start shouting" and he started shouting—he did Mr McAnulty. He really got into it. He also said that the Opposition has taken no general debate contributions on the subject. Well I would ask Mr McAnulty to ask the Parliamentary Library of himself how many general debate contributions he has made on this subject. How many questions has he asked his ministerial colleagues? How much attention has he paid? Well he's given us a three-part plan. He's told us that he's got an announcement to make tonight. He's told us what the third one will be. He's made the classic announcement about an announcement in other words and we can't wait to hear more detail about what they are not going to do.He's criticised us for issuing no press releases on the subject. Well ironically the press releases on the subject are about all that that member has achieved if even he had done that. If he were to print them off and shred them he'd be doing more to affect the forestry sector than any ideas he's had that have come into practice so far.Now I don't pretend to have great knowledge in the area of forestry. I'm humble at least about that. Mr McAnulty would be wise to make a similar confession rather than pretending to the contrary. But therefore I do take the opportunity at first reading to say that this is an opportunity to ask from first principles what it is that the legislation is designed to achieve. What is the context of the legislation? That's the word that it used and I'm going to come back to that because it's got much to say about why things are so very different in 2022 than just a couple of years ago when the same Government but a previous term of the same Government had different changes to make in that space and how much sense it all made then according to some of the very same people that stand up now and tell us why of course it all much change. We're living in a completely different world in the forestry sense in 2022 apparently.So let's be honest: whereas the explanatory note talks about the economic and regulatory context having changed and therefore it's important to consider the environmental social economic and other impacts on investment. The reality is it's not so much the economic and regulatory context that have changed; it's the political context. Others on this side of the House have noted quite rightly that it was the political context. The first term of the Labour Government propped up by New Zealand First—or vice versa; take your pick—that came up with this sort of bizarre idea that forestry should be treated in the way that they did.The National Party pointed out the anomalies at that time; we're still pointing out anomalies in the way that the Government handled it. Notwithstanding that we're saying "Well they're going to have a bit more of a sensible approach no longer shackled to their coalition partner." Some might say it was a coalition of losers—I wouldn't use that term myself—but the three-headed monster the three-headed beast that was the last term of Parliament—the Government that put together such anomalies as the previous policy in relation to forestry investment. We're apparently moving away from that; so far as it goes that is to be celebrated.So the bill says that it aims to ensure that overseas investment in forestry benefits New Zealand. There's a little bit of the "how" but more of that detail will be thrashed out of course at select committee and that's one of the reasons that we have the first readings so we can flag the things that the select committee process should aim to uncover. Mr Bennett has given a typically thoughtful contribution—Nicola Grigg: Very thoughtful.CHRIS PENK: "Very thoughtful" Nicola Grigg points out. Her own contribution was also very thoughtful. So the thoughtfulness on this side of the House at least is aimed to understanding what the issues are pointing out the kinds of areas that we want to hear from submitters at the select committee and of course these relate to the balance between the New Zealand benefit test the forestry benefit test and the farm benefit test and how those all interact and relate and of course what will be the best outcome overall for New Zealand not only in terms of the environment but also of course the economy social and other impacts of investment.So it's been touched on by almost all speakers—I think probably all actually now I think of it. The context of this bill includes the overseas investment regime as a whole. So the Overseas Investment Act—often referred to as the OIA confusingly I suppose for those uninitiated in the area because it's the same acronym as the Official Information Act not to be confused. As the bill points out this is the main way in which overseas investment is regulated or managed in this country.And I think it's worth noting that foreign investment in itself is not a bad thing as one might possibly have thought if one arrived from another planet and listened to debates in the last Parliament. Indeed some of the debates were conducted I think by people who had arrived from another planet or New Zealand First as they were known. Anyway so they made a case that it was a terribly bad thing for people who don't come from around these parts to do such horrendous activities as planting trees and building houses and so forth and how dare they! But actually we've always taken the approach that some degree of foreign investment is a good thing in itself. Of course we need to mitigate any risk that too much of a good thing will have negative effects and so it's right and proper that we have a regime where we say that if the benefit to New Zealand overall is greater by having a certain activity notwithstanding that it's done by some of these terrible people known as foreigners—which I hasten to add for the benefit of anyone who might have tuned in at just that moment was heavily ironic in the context of New Zealand First's position on the subject in the last Parliament. So we're talking about the conversion of farmland and this is the really gnarly issue. So colleagues of mine who know more about rural New Zealand than me—and that's most of them—have spoken with eloquence and passion indeed about the need to ensure that rural communities are well serviced by the activities that are taking place on the land that surrounds them and indeed that they live on. Of course forestry is one such activity; it's a legitimate thing in itself it has benefits in terms of the environment but also it comes at something of a cost and the cost is obviously not just in dollar terms. And if we're on that subject cost can go the other way of course—we can actually actively make money from forestry most obviously from wood products and so forth but also of course the carbon aspect under the emissions trading scheme and so on. But the cost in the more general sense is that if we use the land for forestry then by definition we cannot use it for other things which are precluded by the planting of trees. Farming in the more traditional sense is of course one of those. In all of this it's important that we understand that if one-off decisions that are made such as Greg O'Connor had the grace to acknowledge he'd made some bad decisions in his past—I mean we know that because he's obviously a member of the Labour Party—but also in relation to our forestry investment. And I think he would acknowledge I'm using the term reasonably loosely; by his own telling of the anecdote it was an experiment into which relatively little thought was put whereby they would sort of whack in a few trees and sort of see what became of it was a growing problem. Anyway so the afforestation can take place and historically I think has taken place in a reasonably haphazard way—it's been more of a natural process. Obviously growing a forest is natural to some extent anyway with photosynthesis and so forth—I'm just really digging into my fourth form science here Mr Speaker as you can tell we're getting close to the end of my 10-minute contribution thankfully.So the Government's goal of stimulating the forestry investment is said to have been a need at the time that the relatively permissive special forestry test was introduced in 2018. Well it seems to me that what's changed in the last four years is that the Government has taken a different form. You know you win some you lose some—the good news is that New Zealand First is no longer with us in the Parliament; the bad news is that Labour sort of filled the gap and then some. So there we have it you can't win them all Mr Speaker but we do intend to win the next one—I was going to say "As you know" but I don't wish to bring you into the debate. Mind you you're already wearing a couple of different hats with your sort of spokesperson role and you've acknowledged that.Hon David Bennett: Bring him in.CHRIS PENK: Mr Bennett encourages me to bring him in but I don't think I would do that. I will just say that a wise man once said that you can't eat trees—or something like that—which obviously I suppose depends what you'd call a tree as opposed to a plant and I wouldn't know where we draw the line. But in 40 seconds we'll have a good idea where to draw the line. But anyway that person who made such a profound comment that trees can't be eaten was I think alluding to that fundamental tension that we were talking about before—the mutual exclusivity of planting certain types of forest as compared with farming the land. So I think these are the factors that will go into the test ultimately when it becomes an amendment to the law and at select committee it will be very seriously thrashed out. I'm sure we'll have lots of good discussions there; I welcome the submissions that will come in and the consideration by fellow MPs in that forum."