O'Connor Damien: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionO'Connor Damien: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 June 2014. Volume:702;Page:18941. Text is subject to correction.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman):Natural events occur. They occur right through this country on the East Coast and on the West Coast. We make changes to adapt to or to mitigate any of the effects of those things. On the East Coast we have had a major event and the Minister of Conservation raised the comparison of what is going on in Christchurch in terms of managing contracts. He said it would be ridiculous to manage and oversee the contracts in Christchurch. I put it to him that perhaps if he had not handed over the contract to Fletcher’s and there was a bit more control over who did what local people over there would have had a fairer go.On the West Coast he now wants to impose upon our region a possible contract and access to a resource that is one of the few things we have on the West Coast. We use it for tourism we use it for our natural beauty and for the ecosystems and occasionally under sustainable management we use the logs in the timber industry. It is a very fragile indigenous timber market and any logs that come into that particularly rimu will potentially upset that market. One of the things that we attempted to do through my Supplementary Order Paper 476 was to ensure that this natural event this one-off event was not going to tip a fragile sustainable industry on its ear.We also believe that our region deserves to have first go to deliver some job opportunities—not guarantees as the Minister said but opportunities—for West Coasters almost 1000 of whom have lost their well-paid jobs because a Government-owned company Solid Energy—mismanaged by the National Government—simply had to get rid of them. Our communities are reeling under that massive job loss and we do look for opportunities wherever they might be. That is why the West Coast would like to see some of those logs taken for job opportunities. That is why I can understand that it can be done and I support my local community as does my colleague Rino Tirikatene.But what concerns me is that this Government was not prepared to amend this hasty piece of legislation the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill in order to give more assurance to our region that indeed we could be the beneficiaries. That is what concerns me most. The crocodile tears that come from that side of the House—when it comes to regional development and when it comes to areas up and down this country that have been suffering from unemployment the Minister quite clearly explained the Government’s position: it would be ridiculous to have any kind of intervention any kind of preference or any kind of advantage for people who live and support those communities. That is a flat-earth free-market ideology that comes from the National Government not just in this legislation but indeed across all its areas of governance.I will support this legislation. I will be monitoring very closely the process of allocation of the rights to this timber and I expect the West Coast community and the West Coast economy to be the first ones and the main ones to get the benefits from this. If not this has been a cheap political stunt from the National Government and some pathetic attempt to try to get political advantage. We are talking about real jobs and real opportunities. It is now up to the Government to make them happen.