McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Speaker. Listening to O'Connor speak is a bit like watching him bowl—you never know what's coming next. Before I start I just want to mention the Hon Kiri Allan. She's one of the toughest people I've ever come across in my life and if anyone can get through the challenges she's got in front of her I think Kiri will certainly do that and I'd just like to wish her all the best because she is a special person. This bill is also the product of a special person from the West Coast interestingly: Maureen Pugh. I think it's a great credit that she's brought this bill to the House as the previous legislation which Maureen Pugh agitated for at length and was put through by Nick Smith has expired. Interestingly despite what we've heard in the House tonight in the course of that legislation and actions as a result of that legislation there was no damage done to the conservation land at all. I think some 30000 or 40000 cubic metres of damaged native timber was brought out of those forests with absolutely no damage and no costs I guess to the conservation estate. I just want to make the point that when you stand in this House all you can see in here is exactly the sort of timber we're talking about and timber that if we're not careful will be lost to future generations for them to use other than to recycle. I was privileged enough to live in a house with not one single treated board in it and nowadays of course we use pine trees which entirely have to be treated and I'm not criticising that. That's the type of forestry sector we've got now. So I want to congratulate Maureen Pugh on bringing this bill to the House. I want to comment quickly on a couple of comments one from Eugenie Sage who thinks it's—in her unfortunate terminology—opportunistic and plundering of the conservation estate. Well of course it's not. What happens with this bill is that the conservator has got the sole right to decide whether or not this gets used at all. In fact it can't be implemented if not for the Director-General of Conservation. I think that's an eminently sound start. The other thing that my friend Tangi Utikere from across the boundary—in fact I'm surrounded in Palmerston North—talked about was the fact that the bill doesn't really stack up at the moment. Well that's why we have a select committee process and of course this Government has tended to forget the need for a select committee process in most of the legislation they've put through in the last four months. So perhaps they don't realise what a select committee actually does. [Interruption] It fixes things doesn't it McAnulty? It fixes things. So I think that to have sent this bill to a select committee irrespective of what it came out looking like would've been a great advance for the Parliament and certainly would be worthwhile. My interest in the bill aside from the fact that I think it's a very good bill is really the result of my role as the Opposition spokesperson for forestry and subsequently that stretches into the manufacturing sector and all things associated with use of wood in New Zealand. To have the opportunity to bring our wind-damaged or storm-damaged timber for specific use in New Zealand I think would've been well worthwhile. It would've added value to that sector and despite what Ingrid Leary said a minute ago it won't pick winners and losers. It will give opportunity wherever the opportunity occurs if in fact it does occur for that timber or that wood to be used and used specifically for special projects in New Zealand. I think it would be quite an exciting opportunity for the sector to be able to do that. I do have some sympathy for a lot of the views and in the north of Rangitīkei you walk through what once must have been beautiful native bush which no longer is because the best bits are all picked off and the rest was left behind. Kieran McAnulty: That's the member's farm! IAN McKELVIE: No farmer would ever treat anything like that. So I think there is reason for us to protect our native bush that's left and protect it as best we can. Certainly this bill would have added to the protection of it because it would give people the opportunity provided the director-general agreed with it to go in and pick the wind-damaged trees out and leave a very clear and much better environment for new plants to regenerate. So I think there is good reason for this bill to have be pushed through but it wasn't. One other point I wanted to make about this is that having altered nature over the last 180 years or 300 years or whatever in New Zealand we're never going to rectify it without human intervention. One of the very quick examples I'll give you of that is where we've got native wilding pines creeping into all of our North Island national parks—Whanganui National Park is a great example of that—and that's going to have to be removed. It's going to be a very interesting debate in this House when we have to go in there and get them out because the same thing's going to happen as when we go in and get wind-damaged stuff out. That's my lot.