Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill. This is a bill which Labour supports but it's moving through the House's urgency now through all stages so it's really important for parliamentarians around this House to be able to appreciate the decisions that are being made here and also for the Minister to take full responsibility for those concerns which my colleague the Hon Damien O'Connor has raised. Because this is an incredibly important sector for New Zealand.We want our foresters to do well. I came to this House from a role in a large corporate group which owns the Woodhill Forest and that forest was an important strategic asset not only for that group and its intergenerational commitments to those people who are shareholders in it but also to the wider Auckland region. The economic impact of that forest the way that it is used—it also has a big tourism element in the forest—is all really important as part of the economic engine room of that region. So we want these businesses to absolutely thrive and it's important that they aren't burdened with unnecessary regulations.However when we have a piece of legislation like this going through all stages we need to know from the Minister that he's got the right kind of safeguards the right kind of checks in place to make sure that those businesses that will be now operating without the oversight of something like the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) are fully equipped to take into account those considerations that the Hon Damien O'Connor has raised.I think it's going to be really useful for us in the committee stage to hear from the Minister on his intentions around the conduct of those businesses and to make sure particularly around those questions of rogue trading that we're not going to see that in our market. Although I think it is really important to acknowledge here that the sector has changed since that legislation was brought in and so we have some comfort there around the kind of operators that we're seeing in New Zealand forests.I also want to make sure that the House knows of Labour's intention here to always be scrutinising the forestry industry in relation to those interests of Māori forest owners. We know that forestry is a big part of the $40 billion Māori economy. Māori are very over-invested in forestry and so anything that would damage the performance of that sector and the ability of that sector to return gains to the shareholders who are actually iwi members—many of whom have benefited from settlements which involved Crown forest which has been returned to their iwi—that is of utmost importance to the Labour Party and is something we will watch closely.We know that the Māori forestry sector is also poised to do incredibly well in the next two decades and so we want to make sure that this House is enabling legislation which gives a real framework for that. We want to see a forestry sector that changes; that delivers good jobs highly skilled jobs in our regions and in places like North Auckland for the Woodhill Forest. We need to make sure that—Hon Member: Safe jobs.ARENA WILLIAMS: —exactly: safe jobs that have the right kind of checks and safeguards around them and the right kind of oversight from something like MPI and from a health and safety perspective where everyone in the sector is empowered to sort of unlock the economic potential of that asset.Māori as investors in that—whether it's through the post-settlement governance entities that have received Crown forestry assets through the settlements or whether it's through their own investments in rural forests like say the Mangatu Blocks that have had since the 1930s a policy of buying back forestry land out of private hands to restore their tino rangatiratanga over the realm of kaitiakitanga. In both of those scenarios we want to make sure that they are not only able to realise the economic gains out of their forestry but also to realise the gains for future generations of owning the whenua of having a relationship with it and tying up into commercial agreements which are not advantageous to those iwi is something we would be concerned about. Because iwi members need to be able to not only realise the commercial gains that forestry allows for but also the access to their land the access to their hunting rights access to their wāhi tapu [sacred sites] which are often in these forestry areas.So working with good foresters who also know those obligations and who are interested in their obligations in New Zealand—when of course Madam Speaker you will know that many foresters are overseas-based many of them are US operating here in the New Zealand market. We need to make sure that our provisions in here that we decide on are the kind of empowering legislation that Māori need to realise the benefits of their forestry asset.With that and with no notes I commend this bill to the House.