Peters Jim: Forests Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Peters Jim: Forests Amendment Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:12899] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First took the position in both the first and second reading and does so again at this point in the Committee stage that this bill should not be passed. This bill does not allow SILNA owners to implement harvest mill or sell their indigenous timber including sawn timber logs and wood-chips. Contrary to the last speaker who talked about two different sets of circumstances I contend that in this unique case there is one circumstance founded in an Act of Parliament in 1906. In the whole discussion that backs into Part 1 there has been considerable discussion over the years on what that Act meant and on its implications. Whether the land given in 1906 was compensation is one of the major issues that has been discussed and teased out. One thing is certain if we ask whether the land given in 1906 was given with great economic advantage to the owners. The answer is yes. In 2004 those lands are of considerable economic advantage. As we know the wasteland of 1906 has now become a profitable resource in the export and domestic timber market at the present time. 
However the premise on which we stand in support of the SILNA owners—as in Part 1 with regard to that part where the Crown is bound—is the honouring of the Act of 1906. When we advance further to a debate on the title I shall go back to the historical basis of why the Crown should be bound with regard to the SILNA lands. It is not a matter of Maori nor of two peoples or two different kinds of decisions as was adverted to by the last speaker. It is simply a case of SILNA owners in Southland and Otago being able to do exactly as we said in our minority report—that is to be able to use their grant and their land with the full recognition of the current value in terms of economic benefit those landowners could enjoy. That is the assumption we have made throughout the debate on this bill. 
The whole of Part 1 reflects the fact that it was believed in 1999—and it was a very rushed decision by the then Government—that the owners would with little preparation accept sustainable management as a method of resolving some of the issues about indigenous timber. In fact the whole passage that has now become Part 1 is marked first by a serious lack of consultation in 1998-99 and second by an attempt by the then Minister the Hon Nick Smith to assuage the feeling of people in Christchurch by saying that he was sorry but that was the way it had to be done because of the domestic circumstances following the court case. Following that there has been no real clear understanding that I can gain from this House and in the minds of those who prepared this bill of the still intense feeling of SILNA owners with regard to their lands. 
I shall quickly go through why the options in Part 1 have been rejected. They were firmly rejected by submitters at the time. Last year one after another the submitters talked about the adverse economic impact of that part upon SILNA forest owners. They opposed the removal of the overall exemption for SILNA lands and opposed the export controls. They talked about the loss of economic opportunity from their forests and the lack of equity in their minds with regard to what had been a historical recognition of their rights. They talked about the loss of property rights as alluded to by the last speaker that allowed them to enjoy and maintain the full economic benefit of their lands. They were not averse to the concept of economic management. However they did say—and one particular submitter said this last year—that if so there must be a recognition that sustainable management as advanced in Part 1 was a costly method of extracting timber from their lands—and it is. Anyone who does forestry knows that if one goes down the sustainable management path as opposed to clear-felling there will not be the benefit of the return that could be. The forest owners felt intensely—and they still do in some cases and as recently as last night—that if we are to go down a sustainable management path for the benefit of this country another issue has to be addressed and I will come back to that in the debate on Part 2. Some owners were also concerned about the lack of flexibility that sustainable forest management has with regard to their schemes and so on. 
In summary New Zealand First opposes this bill. We find it very very strange—although understandable as the Hon Ken Shirley said last night—that both major parties had made a mess of this bill. The issue it addresses has been a long-outstanding matter and it should have been resolved in 1999. When I look at the record of that day I see it is a pity that it was not resolved then but sits here in residue. In conclusion I say this bill is unique. In fact the only other circumstance that is likely to stand where I could look at anything like it is the recognition that was given to Chinese labourers in the South Island. This is a similar situation in that it is a unique one-off situation. Part 2 has a solution for the Government to look at particularly with regard to clauses 25 and 26.