Dyson Ruth: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 26 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18996. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):I have just been perusing the Supplementary Order Papers that are attached to the West Coast Wind-blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill and note that all of them had been made by individual members and tabled directly in the House. There are none that have been made by a select committee none that have been made as a result of a submission and none that have been made as a result of members of a select committee—probably the Local Government and Environment Committee—sitting around and constructively discussing the merits or otherwise of the bill. That is because this bill has not been through a select committee process. The bill debate started only a few hours ago. Not one single member of the public has had the opportunity to make their views known to a select committee let alone have the select committee consider them and amend the bill.I cannot recall a bill that I have been party to at a select committee as a Minister or as a contributing speaker in the debate where there has not been some change made by a select committee. It is a really smart part of our process. Actually it is the time that I wish more members of the public would go and listen to because it is the time when members do engage very well with each other regardless of their political party differences. That is what could have happened with this bill. That is what should have happened with this bill. If the Government is so determined to have this bill done and dusted before the House rises at the end of July we still could have had as Labour proposed and as I heard the Green Party propose a truncated select committee process where members of the public could be invited to come and have their say and members of Parliament would have been better off for it. But we have not done that.We have ended up with quite a few Supplementary Order Papers and I know there are some more on the way. I just want to draw the attention of the Committee to two. The first one is Supplementary Order Paper 475 which is in the name of Moana Mackey. She has got quite a few amendments within this one Supplementary Order Paper but the two that I just want to comment on are those related to Part 1 which is what we are up to in the debate at the moment. The first is in clause 4—page 2 line 16—and that is to replace in the “Repeal of this Act” provision the words “2019” with “2016”. So instead of having the 5-year period for the life of this bill it would compress it into 2 years. You know that is quite a generous consideration actually. That time frame is lot tighter than would be allowed under the current legislation. The Minister of Conservation has indicated that he is not going to have a bar of it. That is probably because he has not had quite enough time to reflect on it let alone listen to any members of the public or let them have their say but we are putting it forward in good faith anyway.The second amendment that is proposed in that same Supplementary Order Paper from Moana Mackey is in relation to clause 5. It is to ensure that the designated area and the maps that indicate the designated area are actually included as a schedule to the legislation. That is quite straightforward as a procedure. It is not unusual. It is something that offers some security and protection. I suppose the members of the public have lost quite a lot of trust in the Minister and his Government over the last little while and this would give them some reassurance that the comments that have been made in public are ones that will be adhered to because it will be in the law.The next Supplementary Order Paper I just want to comment on is in the name of Green Party member Eugenie Sage and that is Supplementary Order Paper 474 in relation to clause 5. Again the member has put more than one amendment on the same Supplementary Order Paper so clause 5 actually has quite specific changes to the definition of “designated area” that have made it more restrictive in terms of the areas that are covered in terms of the legislation. It has got specific references to conservation parks to national reserves to nature reserves to scenic reserves and to wildlife management areas. I think again those are sensible amendments to try to make what would I think generally be regarded as a bad bill better.The provisions that we are discussing at the moment in Part 1 cover the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to actually tear to pieces the 27-year agreement that has been in place between Labour and National originally and then with other parties as they have come into Parliament to say that the logging of native timber on the West Coast—and in the rest of New Zealand as well but of course particularly on the West Coast—is not something that we support. We ended that practice completely with the Timberlands agreement in 2000 and this really says: “Well we have had enough of that. We think that logging on the West Coast is OK again.”It is very surprising for the current Minister of Conservation to be leading this debate because I am not sure whether he actually has his heart in it. He has indicated some courage in some of the decisions he has made. I have put it on the public record that I have supported some of the more courageous decisions he has made in regard to the monorail in regard to the Milford Dart tunnel and in regard to approving the marine reserve in Akaroa. Those were clear and courageous decisions and he made them through a considered process but here he is trampling over a very longstanding agreement. So I do not think that his heart is in it. I do not think he believes in what he is doing. I think it is a cheap political stunt and I am really disappointed in the Minister for doing it.The purpose of the bill is to rip up the protection against logging native timber on the West Coast. It is proposed that this bill lasts for 5 years. There have been as I have indicated amendments to say that that should be less than that—that it should be only 2 years if at all. There are a lot of definitions that are covered in this part and then of course Part 1 concludes with the Act binding the Crown.I was very interested in the second reading contributions that were being made but one thing that really puzzles me—and I guess that if the Minister is going to take a call he might like to address this one question that I have—is when we have a pile of logs on the back of a truck how is it going to be determined that they are all wind-blown? How is that going to be determined? Is every tree going to be checked? Are we going to check that they are not doing any felling that is not permitted? Are we just going to risk it? How will we know that any trees that are on the back of the truck are not trees that have subsequently fallen down rather than trees that have fallen down through the cyclone? It is just a nonsense as the Minister knows. We know that there will be cheating of the system and this is really the start of the slippery slope that I find so frustrating.It is being wrapped up in a parcel that is designed to say: “We are supporting the West Coast.” Well it is clear from the Minister’s rejection—and actually from Minister Brownlee’s attitude in the earlier stages of the debate—that that parcel of wrapping is absolutely untrue. There is no protection that any increased employment would be going to people who live on the West Coast or to people who are from the West Coast. Of course we like jobs for other people as well but you have to tell the truth Minister when you are presenting an argument to somebody and saying: “This is because the West Coast has been so badly done by.” Yes it has actually. A thousand miners have lost their jobs because of this Government’s incompetence and lack of oversight into the activities of Solid Energy. We know that the bottom is falling out of the coal market anyway but those were high-paying skilled jobs that were lost to the Coast and now in this legislation there is no protection at all that any new jobs that come from here in the take of the timber the transportation of the timber or the milling of the timber let alone any subsequent processing of the sawn logs will be of advantage to the West Coast.All those amendments are before the Committee and I hope that over the next couple of hours we are able to really consider them properly. I resent this bill not being given the opportunity to be presented at a select committee and for the public to have their say. This is a very very important issue. There is the changing of the Conservation Act after 27 years the dismantling of the agreement with Timberlands after 14 years and the undermining of the deal that the then-Government made with the people of the West Coast for their compensation package of $120 million to go into local jobs. It is all now up in the air and that was a hard-fought agreement. It was one that has been courageously taken up by the people of the West Coast and now I bet that they are saying “Where does this leave us? What does that mean for our future?”. That is not the way that the Government should treat good hard-working New Zealanders. We should not have all stages of this legislation being rammed through the House under urgency. I hope that we get some answers to the questions and some positive response to the Supplementary Order Papers that have been presented.