Forestry 'labours under disability’

Press, 25 August 1980, Page 2

Forestry 'labours under disability’

From

BRIAR WHITEHEAD

There twas nothing to fear in select committee proposals to turn the commercial workings of the State Forest Service into a limited liability company, the member of Parliament for Marlborough, and chairman of the Public Expenditure Committee (Mr D. L. Kidd) told Parliament.-

Mr Kidd was reporting back the committee’s findings to the House. Its deliberations turned un a “massive amount of material” showing that the service was “substantially impeded by the accounting procedures” under which it was required to work. “Receipts from. sales go into the public accounts and become part of the Government’s amorphous income,” Mr Kidd said. “The service has to beg through,, public estimates procedure’s ■ for money it needs immediately, and the pressures on Government spending, not the needs of the forestry service, determine to a great extent whether essential works are done. j “Forest Service staff labour mightily under this disability, and morale would improve dramatically if they were given the management and accounting tools needed to do the job.” Mr Kidd said the committee did not intend to sell the Government’s share to private interests. He commented that the member for Lyttelton,, Mrs Ann Hercus, “nailed her. colours firmly to the mast by saying she was sorry to see private enterprise intrude into government.” . The member for Yaldhurst (Mr M. A. Connelly) said he suspected the Government would sell its shares, if the commerical division of the Forest Service was given a company structure.

The Minister of Forests (Mr V. S. Young) had already said that State control of forests was too high at 60 per cent, and that private enterprise should be “more involved in afforestation,” he said. L.P.G. subsidy? Speaking in the estimates debate, Mr Connelly said that improved Railways

management ' would allow this year’s proposed $37 million subsidy to be spent in? stead on giving the South Island liquefied petroleum gas at ' the North Island price. “If uniform rates were given to the South Island, the South Island could make its goods more competitive in the main North Island markets.” Full use had to be made of the railways’ installed capacity to eliminate the heed for subsidies. The Government needed to expand freight volumes. The member for Sydenham (Mr N. J. Kirk) said that the big subsidy to the departm'ent this year was the-out-come of Government decisions to " “buy trains that would rust, and not fit through tunnels.” It was also caused by talk of road transport delicensing. The Minister pf Transport should .ensure (hat road transport operators would not “burglarise” the Railways, especially in the Waikato and Taupo areas. Codes of practice The Government should watch the use of codes of practice, the member for Christchurch Central (Mr G. W. R. Palmer) said in speaking to the Railways Amendment Bill.

The bill allowed the General Manager of Railways to issue codes of practice that were not under the scrutiny of Parliament, publication, c select committee reviews.

Regulations made under the bill could enforce compliance with codes of practice, making it a criminal offence to break them. People could be entirely innocent of the contents of any code of practice, he said. The Minister should make it clear that codes of practice in the bill would be limited to defining hazardous and dangerous goods, and not be extended to setting out skills and experience required as job qualifications. This could deprive a person of his livelihood. ‘A good bill’ The Historic Places Bill, introduced by the Minister for the Arts (Mr Highet)

was a “good bill,” said the member for Papanui (Mr M. K. Moore), but it was subject to the National Development Act. Excellent concepts in the bill of traditional sites, historic areas, covenants, and innovative funding schemes, could be destroyed for ever by bulldozers, he said.

There was also no assurance that the Government would put up enough money to make the legislation workable. The bill should include clauses allowing “adaptative uses” of historic buildings, allowing properties to be used in their present state, but with exteriors preserved. Rates postponements and life tenancies would provide alternative funds, sparing] the State vote. Trout fanning

The Under-Secretary of Agriculture (Mr Talbot) told the House that the Government had no plans to allow trout farming in New Zealand. He had been asked whether procedures existed to prevent the spread of disease from trout farmed on the Chatham Islands — the only New Zealand territory on which trout farming is legal.

Mr Talbot said an examination of Chatham Island suitability for trout farming was done during a feasibility study of wild eel farming there last year. Measures under existing legislation were adequate to prevent the spread of disease.