Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): A graceful ascent—thank you Madam Speaker. I rarely launch myself out of my seat—actually no I do probably. That's probably a fair comment. I would normally always start my speeches by saying I am pleased to take a call but I have to say I am not pleased to take a call today on the Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill. The reason I'm not that keen to speak today or not happy to take a call I should say is that this is a dog of a bill. Let's start from the very beginning. We got this bill under Budget urgency. It was the second bill introduced under Budget urgency. We're in the greatest economic crisis of our lifetimes the like of which we will probably never see again and have not seen before certainly in our lifetimes and we have a Budget that's delivered that is borrowing record amounts of money—tens of billions of dollars—to go some way to solving the crisis we find ourselves in. We would expect to find that the bills that are put forward under Budget urgency would also go in some way to helping us through this serious economic crisis that we find ourselves in. And yet what do we find is the second-most important bill under Budget urgency? It's this bill. It's the bill to regulate the industry. It's the regulation of log traders and forestry advisers. It's very interesting timing given that as I said we're borrowing tens of billions of dollars and here's a bill that is as Chlöe Swarbrick just pointed out a bit of a tidy-up in some legislation that is quite old and regulating an industry. How on earth this ties in with our COVID-19 recovery and Budget urgency one has to wonder. As has previously been mentioned there are many many problems with this bill that were pointed out by the submitters but the main problem was the rush. I've already mentioned that it was put under Budget urgency. Why on earth that was the case hasn't been answered by the Government. There are no reasons given by them whatsoever; not a single speaker has been able to stand up and say why this bill was introduced under Budget urgency. To give submitters six days or four working days in reality—four working days to provide a submission—now it's really important we all know it's not just about writing a submission and sending it off. It's about understanding the consequences of the bill—reading the bill. It's not a small bill and it was extremely poorly drafted on top of that. As Duncan Webb and also Shane Jones pointed out a lot of work—a lot of work—went into this bill at select committee. So you can imagine the poor submitters reading and trying to understand this bill which was hugely complicated which in its purpose says things like it's to support the continuous predictable and long-term supply of timber" and then has all these regulation-making powers at the end. The poor submitters didn't know what that meant and they all assumed that that would mean that the logs that they were producing would have price fixes on them that they would be forced to supply the domestic market and not the export market and that the choice would be taken off them. So you can imagine the number of submitters that were very upset by this bill. They had to read what was a bit of a mess of a bill get their head around it and then submit in such a short time frame for absolutely no reason. I'm going to read out some of the comments from the submitters in a moment but if you go back and read the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) they also make these points. They acknowledge that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) had not been able to undertake a full formal public consultation process that there should have been a longitudinal study and that that would have been a much better process. They continue right throughout the report in saying that it would have been preferable to define the magnitude of the problem for growers and to explore the full nature of the issue. They accept that this longitudinal study would have been preferable. This is a theme that is right throughout the RIA and it was a theme that was carried on with the submitters as well. Without fail every single one we saw first off the bat complained about the fact that they had no time to understand the bill and no time to get a submission in. They felt rushed. They were aggrieved they were angry and they were confused. We put the question to them time after time with each submitter: did you know this bill was coming? Were you consulted on this before it came? And without exception they said they had no idea. They were blindsided by this bill. And then the indignity of only having a few days to read it understand it get a submission in and come and talk to the select committee—it's an appalling process. You can just imagine if the shoe were on the other foot the conniption that the Green Party members would be having if the National Government were undertaking such a process for a bill under Budget urgency when it can't be explained why it's under urgency. They would be hitting the roof. But here they are saying "It's a perfect process. No problem we're all happy. Let's pass it through." The reality is almost every single one of its submitters that we saw was opposed to the bill. There were 650 who managed to put in a submission. That just shows you how incensed they were with this bill that there were 650 only given six days who managed to get their submissions in. That's how incensed they were and 640 of them were opposed to the bill. And they weren't just mildly opposed were they Mr Simpson?Hon Scott Simpson: They were strongly opposed.ERICA STANFORD: They were strongly opposed. In fact the language in some of those submissions was very strong. It was very strong about the intentions of the Hon Shane Jones. They called into question many things and we sat there and had to agree with them because we also were confused about the speed of the bill and why it was a rushed process. We'd read the RIA. Hon Scott Simpson: Never adequately explained.ERICA STANFORD: Nope never explained. It was very interesting actually reading the RIA because it also points out that the MPI commissioned Forme Consulting Group and Scion in early 2019 to examine the log-supply constraints that were emerging in—guess where! Tim van de Molen: Where?ERICA STANFORD: Guess—guess Mr van de Molen. In Northland. That's where they undertook their research. So the overwhelming evidence that we saw in select committee—it didn't matter who we were speaking to. Growers processors sawmills—no matter who we were speaking to they were saying "This is not an issue where we're from. There's no issue with supply in our region. There's no issue that we can see with dodgy advisers. We don't understand the need for the bill." And it didn't matter which submitter we had: they all said the same thing. And it makes a lot of sense when you look at the RIA and you understand some of the background to the bill that the problem only seems to exist in one place. Hon Scott Simpson: Where?ERICA STANFORD: In Northland. And it's just coincidental! Well it's not coincidental but the member whose name the bill is in the Hon Shane Jones is from—guess where! Northland. So we are suspicious of the intentions of this bill we have to say because there wasn't a single submitter anywhere else in the country who said there's a problem with supply. They all in fact said "Well you know what there are some sawmills that aren't efficient that need to come up to modern standards."Hon Scott Simpson: Haven't invested.ERICA STANFORD: "They haven't invested. They don't talk to the growers enough." But this isn't a problem such that we need to tar the whole country with the same brush because of a couple of sawmills in that member's electorate that he's trying to win. It doesn't make any sense. Many submitters called this bill a Trojan Horse that had other recommendations that were not in the title of the bill. They were concerned with what the problem was to solve. They said there would be increased costs to the sector. It's a sector that has very low returns anyway—we're talking 5 percent—and this is a bill that is going to increase costs and red tape and add extra processes that aren't required. Many people said that there is already a regime in place a voluntary regime where you can go and get registered. And if you want to use a registered person—and you should use a registered person—well then you can already find one. There is no problem to solve. They also asked why the bill was under urgency. As I mentioned they said that they were rushed. What the chair of the Environment Committee Mr Duncan Webb said which was that this whole issue around the World Trade Organization potential breaches was only cooked up by the National Party is rubbish. The reason it came to our attention is that submitters brought it to our attention and it was never properly addressed. MPI said "We don't think there's a problem" and Duncan Webb obviously went away and did his own research. Well good on him. But I tell you what we asked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) to come to our select committee. I put the motion. We were about to deliberate that day. In fact we ended up deliberating on Monday. So we had the time to bring MFAT in. We had time. We could have brought them in on Monday before we deliberated and he blocked that—well we put it to a vote and that was voted down. He didn't want them to come in. Now why that is I have no idea. If he was confident that there were no breaches because of his own research well there was no reason not to bring in MFAT to put our minds at rest. It wasn't the National Party that brought that up; it was submitters. This is a rushed bill. It's a bad bill. There are reasons that this bill has been brought to the House that we will never know perhaps.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The following call is a split call. I call Dr Liz Craig."