Genter Julie Anne; Nash StuartHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I thank the Minister in the chair Stuart Nash for his contribution so far. I wanted to ask about three different issues that the Minister alluded to in an earlier contribution. One is the issue around timber processing here in New Zealand. Certainly out there in the building sector there is a lot of concern that right now it's extremely difficult to get processed timber that a large number of sawmills have closed down in recent years and that in particular cross-laminated timber (CLT) structural timber which is a huge opportunity for us to deliver the sustainable wood-first buildings in public building—some of those cross-laminated timber outfits have even not been able to make it. So I'm just wondering if the Minister has any more detail on short-term solutions that the Government could engage in to deal with this current crisis as we're trying to build a lot of homes and we are seeing a shortage of ability to process our own logs and even some forests deciding to cancel contracts to sawmills here in New Zealand in order to ship logs back to Japan when it's a Japanese-owned forest for example.Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): First of all I would say—and I've been on record as saying this—in the 1980s when we sold our forests we actually sold our ability to control a lot of the forest industry. So we're a little bit of an outlier in the world actually in that the State does not own its own forest. It's almost impossible for us to dictate to any owners what they can and cannot do with their forest. What I will say is that the Provincial Growth Fund has invested money in Red Stag in their—I think they're a CLT plant but it's certainly an engineered lumber plant which will have the ability to provide engineered lumber to the house-building sector. We've also invested money in Wood Engineering Technology in Gisborne which has allowed them to put together one of the most innovative plants in the world in terms of processing timber.So in terms of the Provincial Growth Fund we have made a lot of investment to get these mills off the ground so to speak I suppose. You are right: a number of sawmills have closed over time. Again it's difficult for us to put interventions in place to stop these sawmills from closing. Obviously they don't approach Government and ask for money but we're not in a position to do that. But what the Industry Transformation Plan (ITP) will do is it will take a look at the settings under which people invest in the forest sector and say Have we got these right?" If we haven't got them right then I expect a series of recommendations to come out of that ITP that I will then take to my Cabinet colleagues to see if we can actually implement them in order to improve the incentives for investing in the forest or in the timber processing sector.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. Two other questions about Government procurement policy and one is around buildings if it is through your ministry that there could be a signal to have pilots for buildings built to a Passive House standard particularly schools or if that's a decision that is simply left up to the Ministry of Education—just more clarity on how that approach to procurement works. Then the second point is around the—there's a bus company bus manufacturer in Christchurch which actually designs and builds buses has their own intellectual property even software as well as the actual buses themselves. They produce electric buses hydrogen buses—Global Bus Ventures GBV. I guess my question is around Government procurement of electric buses because clearly we've signalled that we want to shift public transport to being renewable. Councils are in varying positions to be able to make those outlying capital costs and some have already been making decisions where they've prioritised purchasing electric buses from China. There are questions about whether or not those buses have been constructed using Uyghur slave labour.So I'm just wondering—I heard from Global Bus Ventures which is an amazing kind of company to have here in New Zealand employing a lot of different skill sets that when they've tendered for contracts in Australia they've missed out despite having a better product at a better price because states in Australia have a local procurement preference and yet there's nothing like that in New Zealand. So I'm just wondering if you see any opportunities through a procurement process to take advantage of some of the skills and grow some of our local talent when it comes to electric buses or zero emissions buses.Finally sorry just on that last point about timber in addition to supporting timber processing do you see any potential for supporting renewed public ownership of forests themselves either at a local regional or central government level?Hon STUART NASH (Minister for Economic and Regional Development): Thank you very much. Let me answer those three things first of all. So procurement—how procurement works is we set out guidance OK? So it's not centre-led. We provide what we think is quite sound guidance around what agencies must do in terms of their procurement how they must do things. We're looking at the model at the moment—when I say "we" myself and Minister Grant Robertson are seeing if this is right. We don't think we're going to go back to the national stores where you've got to come to the Government if you want to buy pencils but we do think that the guidance we need to put in place needs to be robust. I mean I'm looking at the English model for example at the moment where in the senior leadership team of large agencies there was a dotted line through to the agency head as well as through to Government procurement. So we're looking at different models around how we can use procurement to drive the sort of innovative development we need.In terms of buildings I think that from the Prime Minister down we have made it very very clear we are keen to decarbonise our whole economy and building is one sector where we believe we can do that. It's the reason why for example as I mentioned to Mr Brownlee we have a policy in place now or guidance in place that if it is $9 million or above and it's built by the Government or for the Government it must be built out of the lowest-carbon materials possible which is in essence a wood-first policy. Now if it is not being built out of wood then it has to be signed off and I'm bringing that exemption into my office so I have complete oversight of this. But the Ministry of Education I understand is leading a lot of this. Minister Shaw and myself are leading stuff around Green Star rating for commercial buildings. So we do see the building and construction sector as really really important in driving the decarbonisation of our economy.And this comes to your question about the procurement of buses. Now I can't speak specifically about that company or situation. I do know that they're building a hydrogen bus. They're trialling a hydrogen bus which is being funded by the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority I understand. So we are certainly working with them in innovative technologies but again when I talked about decarbonising our economy through the construction sector obviously the transport sector is something that we are working incredibly hard to decarbonise. In fact there are very strong obligations we've got to meet as you'll be aware and we know if we don't work incredibly hard to decarbonise the transport sector we won't come within a bull's roar of meeting our obligations.So whilst I don't know much about the company you're talking about I do know that they are absolutely on the radar of the Government. I see Government procurement as playing a really really important role in terms of driving the change we need in our economy and this sort of company from what you've mentioned is the sort of innovative company that I think will be at the forefront of where we need to be in terms of technology.The last point you made is around nationalising some of our forests. We won't be buying our forests but one of the things that I'm looking to do with the new Forest Service is work very closely with stakeholders like iwi Māori like regional councils like landowners to plant a lot more. We have to do this under the emissions trading scheme anyway—well we don't have to but it's something that we're very keen to do. The Forest Service has identified about 2.7 million hectares of land which should be in some form of forestry whether that's a permanent forest sink because of conservation or ecological values or in production forestry because it is simply unproductive to put livestock on that land. So there is a whole lot of land that has already been identified in this country which is more suitable for forestry than any other land use. But I will go back to—it is about right tree right place. But all the areas that the member has mentioned we are doing a lot of work in progressing."