Delahunty Catherine: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionDelahunty Catherine: 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.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):It seems that it is now easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the Department of Conservation to uphold its fundamental business. It is now easier under the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill to log conservation land than to log private land—talk about perverse incentives.It is clear that the people who put this bill up have no interest or ability to talk about the cycles of nature and really do not care. During the Minister of Conservation’s last speech on the bill there was no reference to anything to do with nature no reference to anything to do with ecology and no reference to the impact of what happens when trees die and become part of the natural cycle. I am not sure whether it is because he is utterly uninformed—I find that hard to believe—or because he just does not care and that is not what this bill is about. This bill should be called the “Trojan Horse Bill”. This Trojan Horse as he was happy to confirm is about opening up the whole of the conservation estate to multiple uses and the potential further logging of trees in various states all over the country if his research shows it is worthwhile. There is a level of disingenuousness and there is also a blatant agenda that he is quite comfortable with.What he is not saying is that he has broken the consensus. He is saying that he is allowed to change the Conservation Act 1987 but he is not prepared to go through a select committee process. Actually no Minister has the right to just change the law without going through a select committee process. They have no right to do this and then say that they represent conservation. It is extraordinarily disingenuous to say that this bill will help the West Coast. It is full of deliberately loose drafting that cannot be monitored. It is going to create an incredible burden on the Department of Conservation and the director-general. As my colleague Mr Prosser pointed out it may also lead to extremely dodgy and unfair decision - making behind closed doors. I fear for the department in its wonderful new role of trying to manage this purpose because it has enough to do. It is going to cost it it is going to distract it and it is going to put it in an invidious position vis-à-vis its community and vis-à-vis the environment.But that is no problem to the Government because there is a political game to be played here and it is being played for the benefit for the vote in the election not for the benefit of the environment or the community. It is also extraordinarily disingenuous for the Minister to say that the bill was shared with the House. Actually that is a disgrace. The bill turned up a couple of days ago and we did not see all the detail. There has been no proper process. We did not even get to debate Part 2 properly. We had a shortened debate on Part 2 because everyone else decided they were sick of it and they wanted to go home. Well actually we are not sick of it and we do not want to go home. We want to fight this because it is wrong.It is bizarre in the 21st century to attempt to set up an export business in native logging that relies on pillaging the conservation estate. That is bizarre. That is an odd thing to do. It is a terrible legacy for this Government. It is against the will of many people. All around the world I am sure it would be possible to convince people to buy rimu because it is a beautiful timber especially if you can say it is legal. Those of us who work trying to stop the illegal logging of indigenous timber are going to be even more undercut by this delightful piece of legislation which is trying to manufacture a new industry. It is not about the people here. As the bill clearly says this is about export—export to whom for why for what and what about the consequences? There is no responsibility here. The Government is throwing up its hands and saying: “We are just nice people doing a nice thing with a bit of wood that is lying on the ground.”Let us openly admit Minister that the bill is a deliberate act of sabotage—that there is a sabotage going on of the natural cycle there is a sabotage going on of the conservation consensus there is a sabotage going on of honest politics and there is a sabotage going on of the processes of this House. Yet again we are in urgency because these people do not want to talk about this bill. They do not want to hear what anyone else thinks about it. They think that only the people in this room have the right to make a decision on this. Well we do not. A really participative democracy would include the people who might want to participate especially people who have been concerned about how we manage our forests and who might want to have a say on either side of the debate. They are not going to get the chance.However although there are so many things wrong with the bill that I could spend a lot of time on it I would like to comment on just a couple of things. I think the drafting is extraordinary when you put it into the context of the regulatory impact statement. It is very clear from the regulatory impact statement that nobody believed the Minister that this bill was a good idea. It was drafted in such a way that it went against the recommendations of the regulatory impact statement. The statement is full of attachments from scientists who say that this is not going to work. To everyone in this House who is incapable of understanding that things that fall down and die are natural and who therefore thinks that we have to clean them up and sell them because they have not got a function I say go back to your Ecology 101 class and do a little bit of study about how nature actually works and how forests regenerate.If you really want to talk about conservation let us talk about it. But nobody on the Government’s side has talked about conservation. There has been no authoritative statement no willingness to talk about it no commitment to addressing it and no interest in discussing it. It has been all about whether we can make money out of this and whether we can ignore the 27-year consensus. The results of this bill are going to be a disaster for political relationships. They are going to be a disaster for the environment and also for the Department of Conservation in its invidious position. No longer is it the guardian; now it has got a whole new role to play. And that whole new role to play between the miners and the loggers is going to be a great role for the staff in the department if they thought they had signed on to be commercial managers under a different Government department but I feel sorry for everyone who thought they were here to do conservation because that is over and it is wrong.But this will not in the end prevail. That will be in the end the people who laid down the kaupapa for this nation: that we value our environment that we value our conservation land and that we value the people who are prepared to stick their necks out—some who resisted arrest to protect those forests. Those people were not doing it for fun; they were doing it for mokopuna katoa—future generations. If we do not look after the environment who are we? If we do not look after the environment for future generations what are we? If we do not commit to recognising how nature works at a time when this planet faces the greatest crisis it has ever faced what are we? We are the greedy the short term and the selfish and the Green Party will never sign on to that.We have a better vision and we know it is shared by many citizens who are watching this Parliament tonight. They are noting the votes. They are listening to the rhetoric. They are checking who is talking about the conservation values and who is busy trying to count up money. They are checking who is busy trying to distract and who is busy trying to make political capital as opposed to standing up for what is really important. There has been very little discussion of the real issues.There was no select committee process to allow input from the experts in this country who have given their lives to studying the way the forest works. There has been very little respect for them. There have been lots of remarks in the most disingenuous manner possible about making things better for the people on the West Coast. One only has to read Rebecca Macfie’s tale of the dreadful betrayal of the people at Pike River to know that the corporate agenda does not look after the workers or the environment. In this bill there is a work plan required but that means nothing. A work plan has always been required. Every single time environmental agreements have been breached in this country it has happened under a work plan.Let us get real. Let us give the power back to the Department of Conservation to do its job and give it back to the people of this country so they have that consensus that was fought for and treasured. We stand for those values. We know we are not alone. If you look at the polls—I am very proud to see our poll tonight—people are responding to us because we know what we stand for and we will not give up. I think that the Department of Conservation deserves an apology from this House. We are very sorry that we have ruined the mandate that this House once created for it. We are now in an invidious place. But the people of this country will not forget. You cannot force us back to the 18th century—we will not go. A tree is so much more than just the money that you can get from chopping it up. Kia ora tātou katoa.