Dialogue: West Coast skulduggery makes joke of openness

TERRY DUNLEAVY* says West Coast forestry legislation raises as many questions about transparent government as it does about the conservation of native forests.


For all the emphasis recently on the Employment Relations Bill and changes to ACC and top tax rates as collective causes of the loss of business confidence, it is equally likely that keen investment intelligence has focused on the extraordinary machinations which have led to the Forest (West Coast Accord) Bill. Submissions on the bill, now before Parliament's local government and environment select committee, close next Monday.

The committee, chaired by Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, is due to report back to Parliament on August 3. These dates are significant because the date on which the accord is to be legislated out of existence - May 10 - has passed.

This retrospective validation of the ending of the accord is just one of the disturbing aspects of a bill which should arouse the passions of all New Zealanders who believe in honesty and transparency in government.

There are other disturbing aspects, including the diversion of the bill from the primary production select committee, which is chaired by the embarrassed MP for West Coast, Damien O'Connor, to the committee chaired by Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Her impartiality on this issue is hopelessly compromised, to the point that she should do the honourable thing and step aside from the chair during the consideration of submissions on the bill.

Secondly, the breach of the sanctity of contract that is the very core of the bill. In the bill itself, the West Coast Accord is described as: "The agreement dated November 6, 1986, and executed by the Minister for the Environment on behalf of the Crown and by the West Coast United Council, Native Forests Action Council, Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Federated Mountain Clubs, West Coast Timber Association and Westland Timber Workers' Union."

The Minister for the Environment at the time, who signed the accord for the Crown, was the present Minister of Justice, Phil Goff. How can overseas investors, let alone New Zealanders, have faith in a Government whose Justice Minister can so easily repudiate a contract he signed little more than a decade ago?

The accord was negotiated to bring an end to political controversy surrounding the use of indigenous forests by a mutual agreement between conservation interests, industry, workers, local and central government.

Forestry and timber are vitally important to the West Coast, the third-largest region in New Zealand with only 1 per cent of our total population About 78.7 per cent (1.8 million hectares) of the land area on the West Coast is held as Crown conservation land. This amounts to 26 per cent of all conservation land in New Zealand. The West Coast has by far the largest proportion of protected land of any region.

The vast majority of the forests on the West Coast are owned by the Government, but the accord is concerned only with native or indigenous forests. The total area of native forest on the West Coast (north of the Arawata River) is 1,458,300ha, so the area allocated to Timberlands West Coast (129,856ha) following the accord was about 8 per cent, and is less than 2 per cent of total native forest.

The third disturbing aspect is the readiness of the Government to buy off protesting West Coasters with a $120 million bribe of taxpayers' money.

The Government has acted in the best traditions of the Mafia in its "godfather" offer to West Coast mayors - you can't refuse it because we're going ahead anyway.

A fourth disturbing aspect is the singling out of West Coasters for the economic penance which arises the Government's unilateral breach of contract, while Maori-owned forests in Southland remain permitted to clear-fell rimu.

This comment is not aimed at the Maori owners of forest lands originally granted to them under the South Island Landless Natives Act in 1906, but not effectively transferred until the Ngai Tahu settlement.

Rather, this is a reflection on a Government which purports to save all native rimu, but is not prepared to buy a fight with Maori owners of a native forest area which totals almost half as much as the land allocated to Timberlands for sustainable management by selective logging.

A fifth disturbing aspect is the intention stated in clause 8 of the bill to empower "responsible ministers," by gazetted notice, to declare any of the disputed indigenous production forests to be transferred to the conservation estate, set apart as reserves or added to a national park.

This in spite of a long-standing convention that no areas will be added to national parks without the matter going before the Conservation Authority. This bypassing of consultative and review processes follows the earlier Government decision to prevent Timberlands West Coast from having the sustainability of its selective logging programme tested by the Environment Courts under the resource management mechanism.

These are but some of the reasons why the Forests (West Coast Accord) Bill should be a matter of deep concern for New Zealanders who place as much value on transparency and legal process as they do on the conservation of native forests.

* Terry Dunleavy is the national convener of Bluegreens, who advise the National Party on environmental, cultural and heritage issues.