Goodhew Jo: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoodhew Jo: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5625. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): It is great to rise and speak on Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety. In particular I want to cover off on my responsibility for forestry and also for food safety within this sector which is so important to New Zealand. We would not necessarily know it from some of the comments that are coming from the Opposition but it is.Let us start with our $4.5 billion forestry sector. This is a sector that is attracting capital from within New Zealand and from overseas at the moment because if we think about engineered timber this is the way that this sector can grow to what it has set as a lofty target of $12 billionby 2022. The sector is going to be able to do that only if the much more valuable products are in fact put together and engineered timber is the way for that. What the Government is doing to support this sector is we are getting in place plans for skills development and for the review of New Zealand standard 3603 which allows engineered timber to be used in a standard measure in a standard fashion by the sector. It is getting those barriers out of the way that will see that sector continue to grow and reach towards its potential.I want to touch on the Afforestation Grants Scheme which was a Budget 2015 announcement—$22.5 million over 6 years. That will see an extra 15000 hectares planted—but you know every week I hear about more businesses going out and planting more. I believe that the tide has turned and there is much more confidence in the sector.Let me address some of the ill-informed comments from the member from Labour who was on his feet before Stuart Nash. You see yes there was an Institute of Forestry conference yesterday followed by the DANA Ltd forestry conference this evening. I have just left from the dinner at the DANA conference and I have been hearing about the Institute of Forestry’s conference yesterday. Back in 2013 the Institute of Forestry asked the Government to put together a forestry sector policy and I said to it: “Why doesn’t the forestry sector put it together? Get the politics out of it.” And that is what it has decided to do. Had I been able to attend yesterday had I not already committed to doing other things yesterday I would have done so but instead in fact I sent three Ministry for Primary Industries people rather than as Stuart Nash said no one. So in fact the Opposition members are out of touch on forestry and they are out of touch on food safety and many other aspects of the primary industries sector as well.You see the Recognised Season Employer scheme was mentioned before. Well the onions do not get packed and the apples do not get picked in my district in the Rangitata electorate unless we have workers under the scheme so that would be millions of dollars out of New Zealand’s primary production sector because we have low unemployment in South Canterbury and cannot get people to pick those particular products. So the scheme is doing a particularly important job down there.The wine industry—well apparently it needs help! It is going better than ever before at $1.42 billion in the last year and is getting really excited about getting geographic indicators from this Government which will be very important for that sector. The wine industry is having one of its best years as is kiwifruit. There are great prices for beef—actually there are lots of things going well but you would not know it if you talked to the Opposition.I want to briefly mention a trip that I had to Viet Nam because from this Government’s perspective not only are we trying to get free-trade agreements and understand the benefit that they would be to New Zealand—the Green members could well listen to this—but at the same time we know there are non-tariff barriers that we also need to be out there trying to reduce. On the forestry and also food safety front which was the reason for my visit to Viet Nam last week—it was the week before in fact—those sorts of non-tariff barriers going into a market that is for the very first time seeing $1 billion of two-way trade will put money into the pockets of New Zealanders. So New Zealand needs to reach out and work out what these non-tariff barriers are work on them with the politicians and with the officials in the countries like Viet Nam because far from just $443 million worth of export produce into Viet Nam we can do so much better. People in Viet Nam trust us. They trust our food safety systems. They trust our honesty and integrity in exporting products to their nation. They want our technology transferred. They appreciate the fact that we have supported them in aid projects as well.