Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It's a humiliation to watch a member of the calibre of Dr Duncan Webb come to this House and have to defend and apologise to this House effectively for a shoddy shameful shambolic piece of legislation of this sort. It's a crying shame that someone of the calibre of Dr Webb is not currently in Cabinet nor his predecessor as chair on that committee Deborah—the current member for New Lynn—Dr Deborah Russell: Russell—Russell.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —Russell; that's right. How quickly we forget. Once they leave the lofty heights of the select committee chair how quickly we forget. Dr Deborah Russell would have chaired that committee completely differently because as the Rt Hon David Carter said it was a shambolic process. It was short it was brief it was incoherent it was insulting to the 650 submitters who at very short notice presented to the committee and a massive 640 of those submissions were opposed—implacably opposed—to this bill.What really is going on here is the bigger question of coalition politics. First of all this bill was introduced surprisingly as a Budget urgency piece of legislation. It's got absolutely nothing to do with Budget 2020 but here it was under urgency as part of the Budget legislation introduced into the Parliament without notice and really the question has to be asked: why? Well when we tried to find out why the answer actually goes to coalition mismanagement and another bill we were told actually couldn't come in because the coalition couldn't get agreement from the three coalition parties. So this bill had to be rushed in at the last moment. So rushed in under urgency rushed in under the guise of the Budget debate—Barbara Kuriger: Just like the last one.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —and as my colleague Barbara Kuriger says just like the last one. And then we had a bizarre situation where the select committee that was chosen by the Government to consider this bill was the Environment Committee—of all committees. Why? Why would that be? Forestry matters in this House have always been the purview of the Primary Production Committee and that's where this bill should have gone. But clearly the Government didn't want to have the scrutiny that would have properly been applied at that committee rather than the rather shoddy quick and hasty process that was conducted under the chairmanship of Duncan Webb in the Environment Committee. So this bill is a bit of a shadowy bill because there are so many questions that are left unanswered.Now on the face of it it seems that the initial purpose of the bill would appear—on the face of it—to be sort of quite benign and the purpose says to establish … a registration system for log traders and forestry advisers". Now we supported the bill at first reading under urgency as part of the Budget debate without having had an opportunity to quickly and fully discuss matters with the sector. But it became very apparent very quickly as soon as we started having those negotiations and discussions with the sector that they were implacably opposed to this piece of legislation. The Rt Hon David Carter rightly asks who benefits. "Follow the money honey." I think is the correct phrase—"Follow the money honey."Michael Wood: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker For the second time in this debate a National member has made a clear implication that money is motivating the votes of members in this House on this particular bill. I find that offensive and it should be withdrawn.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): I heard the previous Speaker before I came to the Chair warn the member who was speaking at the time on that very issue and I'd ask the Hon Scott Simpson to desist and carry on with your speech. Thank you.Rt Hon David Carter: Very sensitive!Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Thank you Madam Speaker—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry. The Rt Hon David Carter knows better than that.Rt Hon David Carter: I was just talking to my friend. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): You're absolutely entitled to have friends; you're absolutely entitled to have a conversation with them. But you're also well aware of what you just did.Tim van de Molen: Take a point of order.Rt Hon David Carter: I did!Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Was it resolved?Rt Hon David Carter: I'm not allowed to talk to my friends. It's not on!ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): You can talk to both of them.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: So the industry it turns out were not consulted on this bill not consulted on the implementation of it and not consulted as to why the Government thought it was needed in the first place. The Minister is effectively saying—and I tried to glean from his speech earlier in this debate something tangible something meaningful that we could hang some kind of debating point on but it was typical of the Hon Shane Jones. It was a speech of fluff and verbiage and rhetoric that actually didn't say anything. So he spoke for a long period of time without actually giving reasons why this bill should be passed. But as I understand it the Minister is effectively saying that it's his way or the highway in terms of this piece of legislation. He's saying that he wants a change made and the question has to be: quite why?Well I think that the Rt Hon David Carter made that very clear in his speech: there are a handful of sawmillers who for some reason or other feel that they are being disadvantaged by an open and free market disadvantaged by foresters being allowed to decide for themselves when they harvest their trees and who they sell them to. Somehow the Minister of Forestry the Hon Shane Jones sees that that is some kind of sin and something to be overridden. At the core of this piece of legislation are property rights issues and the property rights issues go to the foresters who should in my view and the view of the National Party be allowed the harvest the logs when they see fit due to conditions and market situations that they feel are appropriate and then also to sell those logs either domestically or for export if they wish. The role of Government in that process should be zero should be nothing. The Forest Owners Association has labelled this new bill as an "avalanche of clipboards" and what they mean by that is that it's a piece of bureaucratic nonsense. It's going to add cost add red tape slow down the process and it's not going to give the value that the sector needs or the certainty that the sector needs.I want to refer to the paper and analysis that was done by none other than the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) on the bill and they made a number of very pertinent and appropriate points. They made the point in terms of their summary that the proposed remedy being proposed by this bill is forced diversion of the current export trade in logs to local processing. And why would that be? It would be certainly because local processors are actually in some cases inefficient—not all of them; many of them are very efficient. Many of them manage very well but there are a small number and as the Rt Hon David Carter pointed out located primarily in—guess where! Oh Northland! No surprises there. And what we find is that those processors allege that they have difficulty sourcing logs. So this Minister comes along and says "Well I can fix that. We'll pass some law that will regulate the process and we'll get the advisers to actually advise foresters what to do. And if they don't follow the advice well then there will be repercussions."The New Zealand and overseas experience that the NZIER points out is that in this case and in others not just here in New Zealand but overseas as well heavy-handed industry policy interventions are unlikely to succeed. That's what they say: "Heavy-handed policy interventions are unlikely to succeed." They go on to say "Our experience with industry policy schemes show that they are fraught with problems. The administration costs are likely to be high." That's the point that the Forestry Owners Association made: that this is a bill that adds cost doesn't solve a problem—because there isn't a problem to solve unless you are one of a handful of log processors who are inefficient and not able to operate in a way that is competition—and NZIER says that there is some confusion about what this bill is trying to address. Well that's the point the National Party made in select committee given the very short period of time that we had.But one of the bigger concerns actually relates to the blocking of the request by the National Opposition in select committee to seek Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) advice on the World Trade Organization implications. Now the Minister dismissively wrote those off as if they were of no importance and no consequence and here we have again a Government Minister just dismissing—just dismissing—criticism: hear no evil speak no evil see no evil. If you don't acknowledge it it can't be so. It was the select committee chair in his capacity as chair who blocked the opportunity to have MFAT officials come and brief the committee on the very important and potentially damaging impacts of the World Trade Organization considerations around this bill. We oppose this bill. We think it's bad law and it's unnecessary."