Muller ToddTODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): Thank you Mr Speaker and it is a great privilege to stand and speak on the Forests (Legal Harvest Assurance) Amendment Bill. I thank the Minister for his pretty comprehensive summary of the purpose of the bill and what the Government is seeking to do. I can confirm that the National Party supports the bill. It's a solid piece of legislation and does tidy up an area which as the Minister has noted has needed some focus. There's been some good voluntary frameworks in place particularly on the importer side and this is the appropriate step forward.I do have a few comments that I'd like to share with the House this evening. Firstly in terms of the detail of the bill and how it is structured I'd like to just build a little bit on what the Minister has said. The proposed bill does amend the Forests Act 1949 and it will be three new parts in that Act: Part 5 talking about legal harvest assurance Part 6 around log trading and Part 7 around cost recovery.As you look through the proposed legislative changes that are listed in the bill they all make sense but there is an issue that jumps out to me Minister and I would hope that we explore this as we work through the select committee process. There has been a lift in imports of timber into this country and as the Minister says a 70 percent increase now to $2.3 billion. That's a higher number than I expect most people listening tonight would have expected. Most people when we reflect on our forestry sector see it through the lens of exporting to the rest of the world as opposed to the quantum and value of the imported product. I also accept and the National Party accepts that we are part of a global trading environment a multilateral global environment that has been seeking to put into practice greater assurances and compliance for all trading of wood products globally to ensure that illegal harvesting doesn't occur. So we of course accept that as part of that commitment we are going to need to put obligations on our exporters to ensure that they meet the standards that are being taken up across the world.Now we have absolute confidence that our exporters do. We are known for our quality of exporting to the world the quality of the wood both in terms of native and exotic products. So from our perspective from an exporter perspective it is overlaying a compliance framework that confirms what we already are doing. That is accepted no doubt in some corners reluctantly as the price of doing business in a global world that people need the assurance and it needs to be buttressed if you like with a formal certification process. But when I look through the bill and the detail that is suggested most of the focus is on ensuring that our exporters are very clear around what the obligations are for them to meet the certification and to formalise the compliance—little acknowledgment that they largely do this already.It is quite an explicit framework of additional cost and effort that they will need to go to to ensure that they meet these expectations. It is relatively silent on the core issue that has brought this to the House which is the challenge of ensuring that what you import into this country has actually come from an appropriately sourced harvest in a country that has met the standards that we apply to ourselves. That is the critical part of this bill.Now it is noted in here that it is part of the framework but the detail that this bill outlines is heavily weighted to framing the compliance obligation on the exporters of wood products to the rest of the world. It is relatively silent on what the obligations are going to need to be for those importers and how they are going to assure themselves that what they are bringing into this country meets the standards that we are committing to in terms of our exporting around the world. I think that's an area that needs further exploration in the select committee.We all understand the importance of demonstrating that you are best practice in terms of a certification framework. That's a given. A lot of our exporters understand that regarding a product particularly in an agri-sector. Like I say there will be some frustration that it is more compliance on a sector that feels particularly weighed down by additional compliance year in year out from this Government but if they helicopter up and look at the global trade context I think it actually makes some sense.But I return to that issue: when you look through this bill—and I will listen intently for those who are yet to speak—where is the fundamental change of ensuring that the importers have the confidence of their supply chain that they actually can look back through their customers to give the New Zealand public the assurance that actually it has been sourced sustainably and sourced appropriately? That has to be more than simply saying that the person that you bought it off in the particular country just confirms that it was sourced appropriately; it needs to match the obligations the significant obligations that we have put on our exporters in terms of their harvest" definition their confirmation that we have done everything according to this new framework. It needs to be just as explicit and just as demanding and just as transparent or we are weighting this too much frankly against our exporters and not demanding enough of importers.The other issue that I just want to quickly touch on is the exception with respect to indigenous timber. That is an exception of this framework because it is apparently already regulated under Part 3A of the Forests Act. I just want to test that because why is it that indigenous exports and imports are exempt but non-indigenous wood and timber isn't? Why do we have the confidence that Part 3A provides the protections the confidence of appropriately high-quality assurance in terms of the harvesting in a New Zealand context but the exotics we do not? It is lacking in the exotic space that needs this new framework.I'm not convinced from the Minister's answer and speech here this evening that there is enough clarity as to why the exotic timber harvesting and products need this new framework but the indigenous timber and harvesting does not and particularly in the context again of the import context because when you reflect as a potential consumer of imported timber from around the world often it is framed up in some of those places that you can buy exotic timber or indigenous timber that you've imported as very special qualities that have come from a particular space in the world. It was pleasing to hear that Indonesia has made a commitment to this sort of framework but it is not just Indonesia from which we import timber that is promoted as special indigenous timber.Again we've got to ensure that we've got consistency comparability between the exotic and indigenous timber trading and that it is fair and efficient. But overall this is a step in the right direction. We support it with those caveats. I won't be sitting on the Primary Production Committee—I've got too much on in the oceans and fisheries space—but I look forward to hearing how that committee progresses those issues. It is a committee that is known for its thorough investigation of bills such as this and often in quite a bipartisan way. I hope they bring the best of their thinking and ensure that what we get back in the second reading is a further step forward again. Thank you."