Jones in forestry strife

Stuff reports:

Forestry Minister Shane Jones is at loggerheads with a major forestry investment broker over a new forestry law.

Jones says it will help domestic sawmills, by reducing the number of raw logs sold overseas for processing.

But Roger Dickie, a broker for forestry investment, threatened to quit the New Zealand Institute of Forestry (NZIF), an industry group, after it expressed its support for Jones’s bill.

In an email to NZIF obtained by Stuff, Dickie said the bill was “unashamedly produced to enhance the so called Minister of Forestry’s electoral chances in Northland [sic]”. He described the bill as “political cronyism at its worst,” and believed it would damage the reputation as a relatively corruption-free country.

As far as I can see they are going to ban forestry companies from selling logs to the highest buyer, instead forcing to sell them to companies in areas such as Northland. So Dickie’s take seems right.