Utikere TangiTANGI UTIKERE (Labour—Palmerston North): Mālō e lelei Madam Speaker. Thank you. I rise to take a call on this the Adverse Weather-affected Timber Recovery on Conservation Lands Bill. In doing so I note that this piece of proposed legislation essentially was prompted by the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Act 2014 which I think I will just refer to as the WBT Act moving forward. But I note actually what's proposed is quite different from that piece of legislation. There are two points of difference that I can take from it. The first is that it's not limited to a specific area geographically in its sense such as the West Coast. Maureen Pugh: Weather happens all over the place.TANGI UTIKERE: And for the benefit of the member whose bill this is reviewing the Hansard I noted that she asked my colleague previously what the conservation land had to do with it when she was identifying the list—Rachel Brooking who did a very good job of doing that in the last call. So for the benefit of the member—I mean it's her bill. I would have thought she would know but I will just reiterate that this would essentially identify conservation areas under the Conservation Act and also under the Reserves Act. When it looks at the Conservation Act we are specifically looking as I understand it to conservation parks wilderness areas sanctuary areas water course areas amenity areas wildlife management areas and other conservation areas being that of stewardship. But also it would apply to land that falls under the Reserves Act and four of those sit comfortably: recreation historic scenic and Government purpose reserves. So we are not talking about just a specific locality or locale; it's much broader than that. That's the first thing. The second thing is that it's actually not limited to time. The WBT Act does have a time frame of five years; this doesn't. So I think it's really important that we do acknowledge the context within which the proposed bill would lie. So what then does the bill seek to do? Well it would kick in related to an adverse weather event and that's not defined but I accept the member whose bill this is did suggest in her opening remarks in the first introductory speech that the select committee process would be one where that could be sort of looked into. But it does none the less still raise a number of concerns because when you look at the relevant clauses within it I turn my mind to issues around the process of removal. So OK it's clear in the bill that items must be authorised by the Director-General of the Department of Conservation and when I have a look at clause 8(4) there are essentially four things that the director-general could do in his or her absolute discretion. The first is they could accept an application the second is they could decline one the third is they could enter into some sort of private negotiation to try and get some agreement and the fourth one is to reject all applications. But what's interesting is that if we go on further and have a look the discretion of the director-general seems to be rather loose because he or she may have regard to the interests even including the financial interests of the Crown in relation to the specified piece of land but also any other matters the director-general considers relevant. So in essence it is a catch-all that et al: anything else that he or she may consider relevant. When you look at the regulatory impact statement that accompanied the former Act what it did actually note was that dead standing and fallen trees are an essential or favoured habitat and food source for many species a normal part of nutrient cycling and forests and beneficial to regeneration. In that sense the timber component for which this bill is primarily related to does have a purpose. So it really does I guess come down to a balancing act and the concern that the Government has is that there is simply too much uncertainty. It's too loose and therefore we simply cannot support it. There is uncertainty in the provisions that I have just touched on. There is uncertainty in that there is a real risk to local in situ ecology because there is a biodiversity value proposition at play there. Finally there really is uncertainty in the long-term impacts of the removal of the timber. So when we look at all of those aspects the common-sense approach is not to support the bill in its current form because of the huge level of uncertainty and that's something that we are not prepared to support at this stage. So obviously we will be voting against it.