Bennett DavidTHURSDAY 14 MAY 2020(continued on Friday 15 May 2020)FORESTS (REGULATION OF LOG TRADERS AND FORESTRY ADVISERS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed.Hon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Mr Speaker. Good morning everybody. This bill when we look at it doesn't actually look like there's much to it. We're dealing with a registration process for those that are trading in logs and forestry advisers. On the face of it that doesn't look like it means a hell of a lot.But when you look at the speeches that you get from the Minister that introduced the bill the Hon Shane Jones he made it very clear that this bill wasn't just about a register. That's a nice thing to have and a part of it but it's all about dictating to business what they can do with their product. It's all about the New Zealand First Party believing they are better business people than the people that actually plant these forests. It's actually about the New Zealand First Party believing they know more than what the market knows. [Interruption] Now I know their leader is infallible. I know their leader walks on water in their party and I know they all go Our Dear Leader" when he talks but the reality is he does not know what the markets are going to do. He cannot tell what's going to happen in the future. He will not know exactly what's going to happen there. He cannot dictate. Greg O'Connor: At least they've got a leader.Hon DAVID BENNETT: And then we've got the other member over there from the Labour Party and I'll come to your brother-in-law or whatever he was and his speech soon. But we get to the New Zealand First Party and what they were saying. Now the New Zealand First Party knows better than business—we know that! These are the smart entrepreneurs of the world that have never made a dollar in anyone's life. They've sat in this place their whole life sucking off the teat of the taxpayer. None of them have ever made a dollar but they can come in here and they can tell us exactly how it all works. They know better—of course they know better because they're run by their "Dear Leader" and their "Dear Leader" knows everything. So we just have to follow their "Dear Leader" and his great economic advice.We've seen their great economic advice already in the forestry industry. These are the guys that went around the country saying "No more foreign investment. We will stop foreign investment." Fifteen billion dollars has been sold to foreigners under this Government—to January this year. They have sold $15 billion to overseas investors. In 2½ years they sold $15 billion. In Hamilton they're selling an $800 million ultrafast fibre company to overseas interests and they will let that go through. And this is the party that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Mr Bennett you're three minutes into your speech and it would really good if you could link your comments to the bill.Hon DAVID BENNETT: I'm getting there.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No no three minutes is ample time to do that.Hon DAVID BENNETT: You need a build-up when you're dealing with New Zealand First because you've got to build up their party and their leader before you actually take them down and show the reality of their fallacies. So New Zealand First went around the country telling us "We wouldn't sell anything." Now they're selling stuff right? We know that. And they put this great bill in that would stop foreign ownership of land. That was the great idea. But then they realised that they wanted to plant a billion trees so they had to give an exemption to foreigners to come in and buy land to plant trees. Now that was the first start of New Zealand First's attempt to dictate to the forestry industry. And that went really well! You've got farmers all over the country that are seeing prime bits of land now being sold to overseas interests to be taken out of more productive uses and to be put in forestry. That was the economic genius that we got from New Zealand First in the first instance. Now they want to come in with the second part of their economic genius argument for the forestry industry and that's to tell forest owners who they have to sell their logs to. Now this is going to be simply as successful as the last piece of economic genius we had from that party around the forestry industry. First of all who are they going to sell it to? Most of the log processors are going under in some cases. You know it's hard work because the Government is putting such high restrictions on them. They're making them have to pay such high rates. They're making the environmental aspect of their business so difficult to operate in and yet they are telling forest owners "You have to sell to them."So what they're actually telling the forest owners is "Do not take the market price. Do not take the best price available for your product. Take a lower price that will subsidise New Zealand manufacturing." That's effectively what New Zealand First wants. So not only are they going to cripple the decision making of those with land and forestry; they're going to cripple the decision making of those in the business of processing because we will get all these inefficient processes that will pop up and will be under Government subsidy effectively from a New Zealand First point of view. This is nationalisation of the forestry industry by stealth. We know they wanted to do it in other industries but they didn't have the guts to do it. And now they're doing it in a de facto way in forestry.The forestry industry is our third biggest exporter in the agricultural productive sector and the Minister said that quite rightly. But what they're doing to that industry is they're constraining it. They're going to make it inefficient. They're going to make that industry make the wrong commercial decisions and if you're in any other industry that gives you an example of what they want to do to you. So they won't want milk powder being sold overseas. They won't want kiwifruit just to be packaged and sold. No you've got to cut that all up into little slices and have a little sticker on it saying "New Zealand First made you do this and you lost money on it but it's for the best interests of our 'Dear Leader'." They'll make you have to manufacture all these products that won't sell in the international market that will be inefficient and not in the best interests of New Zealand.There is a reason the New Zealand primary sector is the best in the world and the reason is because we are the most efficient and market-led in the world. If the price of beef is bad we have to stick it. If the price of milk is good we get the reward. If the price of logs is going to be manufactured into a certain price because of our "Dear Leader's" decision making that will mean an inefficient industry. And the history of the world is littered with Governments that have tried to indicate what an industry should do or shouldn't do and they have all failed—they have all failed.Hon Ron Mark: Name one.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Name one—New Zealand First wants us to name one. OK car manufacturing. We used to do car manufacturing here. We used to subsidise the guts out of it. And how did that go on? It went under. Even the Australians tried it. It went under as well. You know the Government made it subsidised because they looked at the price of cars. You couldn't import cars and have a competitive market. So the Government changed that and it does that all the time. So there Mr Ron Mark. But before I finish I've got one little comment from Mr O'Connor's brother-in-law. He said we can't create wealth out of trading. Well get real. The whole world is about trading. The primary sector is about trading. We need to trade in a fair market that doesn't have rules set by "Our Dear Leader" who has never made a dollar in his life and has said in this place and told other people how great he is."