NZ First looks at forestry

NZ First leader Winston Peters

New Zealand First says it will introduce a "Canadian-style" law to ensure log exports don't destroy New Zealand's wood processing industry.

"We have a bill before Parliament to do just that," party leader and Northland MP Winston Peters said.

"Forestry is our No 3 export, but it is being vacuumed up by foreign-owned companies, with devastating results for the wood processing industry in provinces like Northland.

"When a Chinese company can employ 18 Chinese for the price of one New Zealand worker, how do New Zealand's wood processors compete for the raw log product in the first place? They can't, and politicians should understand that.

"Up here in the North a Chinese company is chopping down immature 20-year-old trees. That might suit their economy; it certainly doesn't suit ours. Meanwhile the National Government is an impotent bystander."

New Zealand First would restore the New Zealand Forest Service, enabling the Crown to establish plantation forests on state-owned land, and jointly with owners of private land.

"That's more forests, more jobs, and more erosion-prone land being put into forestry.

Our bill is about a sustainable flow of wood by way of licensing and management plans to prevent forest depletion. Based on Canadian law, we've seen the cost of National's anything goes approach result in the axing of the $300 million Ngawha wood plant and 200 jobs.

"Our approach requires that processing plants in New Zealand have first rights of supply from our plantation forests before any logs are exported, just like the Canadian model.

"This is about adding value in provinces like Northland, and not Shanghai which is what is happening right now.

By requiring management and harvest plans we will see a much higher environmental performance during harvest and a marked reduction in silt and nutrients entering waterways. Better water quality is another objective of NZ First's forestry policy."