Mr Peters claimed last week that exporters had deliberately duped officials, while MPI Minister Nathan Guy had "insanely" suggested that there was no loophole.
Mr Peters will have plenty of support for his view that the time has come to establish exactly what the MPI and Customs have or have not been doing to police a trade that he believes has clearly been in breach of the rules.
He described allegations that export documents were not being filled out adequately, and that "superficial" carvings were satisfying officials, as serious. Pity the ministers don't agree.
He has also pointed to the continuation of an attitude that has long plagued the Far North, and the country as a whole, which sees valuable commodities exported in their raw form for the financial benefit of others. How many jobs the ancient swamp kauri 'industry' creates in this region isn't known, but it would be negligible. The people who are making the money are the exporters, and when the kauri runs out they will move on.
There is a not unreasonable view that those who own the land that yields the kauri have every right to sell something that is legally theirs. Few would dispute that, but the returns they receive fall well short of the real value of the resource. They too are being ripped off, even if they appear to be happy to accept a smaller immediate windfall rather than exploiting their buried treasure over a longer period of time.
Meanwhile, no one who believes the trade is illegal will be satisfied by protestations from politicians and bureaucrats to the contrary. If the exports are illegal this will not be the first time that a supposedly effective mechanism for exerting control has proved to be easily circumvented.
Anyone who wants another example of that need only look at the rules governing the customary harvesting of seafood. Any number of impeccable sources have long claimed that the unsustainable taking of paua, for example, continues unabated, with the full knowledge of the people who are supposed to be protecting them.
Defenders of Ahipara's rapidly dwindling paua beds have told this newspaper more than once that the number of permit applications burgeons when conditions for taking the shellfish are at their best, with no correlating evidence that the circumstances that supposedly qualify for such harvesting have suddenly increased in number or urgency. The oft-repeated allegation is that the permitting system is being abused, but again officialdom ignores those allegations.
The laws that supposedly protect patently finite marine resources are a farce, and there are strong grounds for suspicion that the same applies to protection of swamp kauri.
The laws governing the export of swamp kauri are clear. It may only leave this country in the form of a finished or manufactured product, or as a personal effect. Whole or sawn stumps or roots may be exported with a milling statement and export approval, but logs, whole or sawn, may not be.
The exception is logs that have been carved in traditional Maori fashion, but that condition too is being flouted according to Mr Peters. He dismisses the 'fact' that some logs had been blessed by a kaumatua as irrelevant, saying "there is always a kaumatua for sale".
The Northland Environmental Protection Society claims to have evidence to back those concerns in the form of documents obtained under the Official Information Act, citing the example of a supposedly carved log that ended up in China in 2013 despite a MPI official describing it as having a 'raw' appearance. An unnamed 'expert' who was consulted by the ministry had doubted its authenticity, but had been unable to rule it out as legitimate.
In the meantime stories about swamp kauri being exported to China for the manufacture there of coffins continue to circulate. Those stories might be unfounded, but we need more than an assurance from Mr Guy that that is so.
The fact is that if there is a quick buck to be made, some people will do whatever they have to to get their hands on it. Assurances from Mr Guy that his ministry manages the exporting process "very, very closely" need the support of evidence.
And those who suspect that Winston Peters isn't too fussed about the veracity of claims of skulduggery might consider what Forest and Bird is saying. Last month it joined the Northland Environmental Protection Society in laying a complaint with the Auditor-General over what it labels discrepancies in the exporting of swamp kauri. They note that environmental groups and media have been questioning the MPI and Customs for several years, to no effect. They too are asking, again, for an investigation into "wide-ranging and systemic" shortcomings on the part of both organisations.
Sooner or later the pressure that is being brought to bear on the MPI and Customs will prove irresistible, and it would be nice to think that will happen before the last of the kauri disappears in the direction of Chinese funeral parlours.
Whatever happens now, Northland has every right to question the sincerity of a political party that professes to represent its best interests, but that just three months ago could think of no better way of retaining its affections than promising to widen some bridges. National Party stocks might improve somewhat if Mr Guy and Customs Minister Nicky Wagner conceded that there is an issue with swamp kauri and showed some enthusiasm for at least investigating it.
The North has been pillaged of its natural resources ever since Europeans came here looking for spars, but in the 21st century it is entitled to expect a degree of protection that this government is steadfastly refusing to provide.
Politicians pontificate at every opportunity on this region's potential, but do not listen to it. Nathan Guy and Nicky Wagner are not serving us well, and this time we should not take no for an answer.
