Forestry Corporation

"The new Forestry Corporation was originally going to start functioning in September 1986, but it was held up by parallel work being done in other parts of the public service. The ideas in Gibbs’ model of a state-owned enterprise, operating under the Companies Act with staff who weren’t civil servants, fed into work also under way at the Treasury, led by Rob Cameron, Graham Scott and other officers, and at the State Services Commission, particularly after Roderick Deane took over as chairman on 1 April 1986.[42](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-42) It made sense to handle the state’s other commercial activities — such as electricity, Telecom and State Coal — in the same way.[43](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-43) Complicated legislative changes were required, which set back the new dawn until 1 April 1987."

"The Forestry Corporation, meantime, generated much satisfaction for Gibbs because the stunning turnaround in results continued. It also provided the opportunity for some contact sport with Fletcher Challenge, the nation’s largest public company. Fletchers had inherited cutting rights to large areas of forest from Tasman Pulp and Paper, with which it had merged in 1981. Gibbs was incensed that politicians, going back to the 1950s, had ‘let them get away with murder’ with contracts that had no escalation clause for inflation for 25 years and other such details.[38](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477346-006497775-38) He was determined to claw back some value for the Forestry Corporation and had lawyers trawl through the contracts to see what rights and powers they had."