by Catherine Delahunty
Last Wednesday night I introduced my Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bill to Parliament for its first reading. The Bill would have regulated tropical timber imports to stop illegal and unsustainable logging of the world’s rainforests.
The Maori Party and Labour Party gave excellent speeches in support but to no avail, and the Bill was voted down by the National/ACT Government.
I was expecting the result but not the appallingly incoherent responses by the Government speakers. They muttered about trade being a terribly important matter and about how my Bill might create compliance costs on New Zealand forests. They shed a few crocodile tears about the poor old rainforest and climate change. They couldn’t respond to the fact that the forestry industry organisations actually wrote asking the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry to support my Bill.
The last straw was Shane Ardern claiming we were urbanites who knew nothing about forests. The other speaker for the Greens was Jeanette Fitzsimons who is a noted farm forester, and I have lived in country areas planting trees for most of my adult life.
However it was a salutary experience losing my first Bill. It reminded me that this Government doesn’t need to respond to logic or justice; the numbers don’t require it. They see no need to protect the climate, or biodiversity or indigenous peoples’ rights, let alone our own forestry idustry.
We can speak truth to power but power won’t be speaking back, because they just don’t have to.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Parliament | THE GAME by Catherine Delahunty on Mon, November 23rd, 2009
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
yah. Provide your reasons please. One would think...
Yep, I don’t see this trend changing in a hurry.
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Shane Ardern – heard him squeak at a BlueGreen’s do.
Pillock.
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rimu – that trend is very interesting indeed.
Casts the MOU in a pale light.
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Yeah can’t see Catherine being an ardent supporter of the MOU
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BTW: anyone asking what it is that distinguishes NACT from other parties..? Backers wise..? Suggest mebbe you start with asian importers.. and discover the prices they charge local retailers etc.. power, after all, has a price… heh
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It would be an interesting exercise to analyse the legislative changes introduced/voted down by the new government since coming into power which actually had any positive impact on the environmental/climate/social equality/indigenous rights versus legislation which had a negative impact on these issues. Anyone aware of this having been done?
Suggest you may be p###ing into the wind trying to introduce any legislative changes designed to positively address any of these issues.
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Catharine: I am very sorry that you bill did not reach it’s final goal.
Regardless of Keys ‘greentalk’ before the election we now know Nationals true agenda and that’s 100% support for the capitalist oligarchies riding roughshod over all environmental,democratic and human rights issues.
I hope that you with a few other Green MP’s are not too disapointed. What did we expect?
So now that we know what they are all about maybe the best course of action is to change the government and start thinking of election campaign and forging a united front with other left parties.
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