"The second and most important and crucial right is that these things he's talking about need to happen right now – not next month, not next year – right now."
Mackay questioned whether Nash had as much sway over policy as Williams thought.
He suggested Environment Minister David Parker or Minister of Climate Change James Shaw would have more influence.
Williams stuck to his guns.
"He's the man with the power to stop it right here, right now. He's a pretty influential guy in there and he talks really sound sense and those are his portfolios.
"You know, with respect to those other fellas [Parker and Shaw] what they need to do is get up here."
On The Country earlier this week, Nash opposed overseas investment in carbon forestry in New Zealand saying: "I'm certainly against foreigners coming in and buying up large farms and planting them, certainly into carbon forest, I think that is just not on."
Williams agreed. He said rural communities were concerned that swathes of profitable sheep and beef land were going to foreign buyers to be planted in trees in perpetuity.
"This is about real people in real communities doing real work producing real export dollars with the best real food in the entire world, whilst living in real houses beside a real school, on land that's flat enough to build 100 real golf courses – and they're thinking of putting it into carbon trees? It's just bizarre."
Williams said the proposed sale of the iconic Huiarua Station on the East Coast had been a lightning rod for the fight against carbon farming, much like Charlotte Bellis had been for MIQ.
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He hoped the local outcry over the sale would gain national attention, especially after TVNZ 1's Sunday programme on Huiarua, which he said was due to air later this month.
"It's basically putting the issue into everyone's living room in the major cities throughout New Zealand because to a large extent, they're fully unaware of what's happening."
Despite his concerns, Williams believed there was a place for carbon farming in New Zealand and had a solution.
He suggested farmers use the Class 6 and 7 land on their farms for planting native trees.
Williams said he'd mustered 350,000 goats on this type of land since 1990 and that there was "heaps and heaps of it at the back of people's farms".
"It's exactly the land that Stuart Nash is talking about that should be in trees - not places like Huiarua.
"Class 6 and 7 land ... farmers would be more than happy to sell that to carbon for the benefit of the whole country and to plant it in natives.
"It's just a win-win all 'round. I can see absolutely no reason for it not to work. So it's a no-brainer."
