Delahunty Catherine: Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 18 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:7807. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 I really was fascinated by the responses to my bill the Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill and also by the strange description of me and Jeanette—who have spent most of our adult lives living in rural areas working on farms supporting farming working with forestry and planting hundreds of trees—as if we have absolutely no idea of how the rural economy functions nor of the importance of looking after our land. As Sandra knows having spent 10 years working in a shearing gang and planting many different trees I have a great passion for forests—forests with justice. This is not a light matter. It is not a matter of debating who in this House understands it best; it is a matter of understanding what is going on in the world and taking this country’s responsibility on illegal logging seriously. 
I thank Mita Ririnui Te Ururoa Flavell Stuart Nash and Jeanette Fitzsimons for their constructive comments on what is a very very serious matter. In my meetings with the current Minister of Forestry he conceded that voluntary efforts are not working to control illegal and unsustainable wood products. So doing nothing is not an option unless we want to collude with basic and well-documented vandalism. Even the rules of the World Trade Organization acknowledge that there are environmental reasons for regulation in specific instances so there is no need for National to panic about having no ability to negotiate this. For example when dolphins are found in tuna nets or rainforests lie in the path of bulldozers it is possible even under that Draconian institution to negotiate environmental protection. 
It just takes some leadership to identify that this is an opportunity to help our own industry. Far from being something that our forestry industry rejects the industry has written to the Minister. In my previous speech I listed the names of the foresters and the forestry organisations alongside the environmental ones that stood up and said to the Minister that it was time to do something. The importers of tropical timber asked the Minister to support my bill; it is not as if the Green Party is in isolation or asking for something outside the agenda of the forestry industry. The forestry industry wants this bill because it will benefit New Zealand forestry. 
The bill as defined is not perfect. In order to improve it I urge members to send it to the select committee where work can be done to make it more practical and workable. In terms of international best practice a number of countries are working to regulate illegal and unsustainable tropical timber. These include the United States where the Lacey Act bans the sale of illegal and unsustainable timber within the United States and the European Union where a number of countries are working on bilateral agreements with timber-producing nations. 
This effort of the Green Party may not appear significant and I am aware that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry thinks it could impose compliance costs on our own timber. But Jeannette Fitzsimons asks members to read the fine print of the bill where they will find nothing that actually disadvantages our own industry—nor does our own industry think that anything in there does. I believe that the bill could be modified at the select committee to negotiate a way through the compliance issues within Aotearoa New Zealand. 
As Jeanette also said our forestry industry is embracing the opportunity for there to be robust certification. Other speakers have mentioned that it is obviously important to be able to demonstrate certification in the world market and the countries we trade with that make up lie about and distort what is going on in their own timber industries should not be colluded with in the name of trade. We stand for fair trade and we stand for trade without blood on its hands. Ultimately all timber products need to meet a robust standard in order to stabilise the climate protect biodiversity support our forestry industry and—most of all—protect the people who still live as one with the forests. Their human rights are on our conscience and their relationship with the forest holds a line that we should resolutely uphold for the sake of us all. I have been privileged in the last few months to talk to the forest peoples and they are watching tonight to see whether members of this Parliament have the courage of their convictions; some of us do. Kia ora.