Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill

This debate was interrupted at the last session, and ACT have the next call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The great thing about a five-minute call is that by the time you get this thing off [Refers to face mask], a minute’s gone. It doesn’t actually give me a great deal of pleasure to speak on this bill, and the reason for that I’ll enunciate in the short time I’ve got. I’ve spent a lot of my life looking around farms in New Zealand, being part of the farming community of New Zealand, and I’ve had the privilege of visiting many of our iconic high country farms in the South Island in my time on this Earth. I think that some of them are magnificent. One of the problems with this bill is it’s trying to, effectively, reinstate or reverse something that started to occur some 170-odd years ago. No matter how we try to reverse things that have happened in the past, they can’t be reversed unless we reverse them with human invention. So you can’t expect things to just go back to how they were when they’ve been, effectively, changed by, I guess, human method or whatever we use to do things. So we change things as we go along, and history sometimes proves that some of the changes we made weren’t necessarily ideal. If that happens, then we can at least make an attempt, I guess, to put things back in as best a state as we can, but unless we use modern science and technology, human intervention, we can’t achieve that.

But to get back to the real issue around this bill, the people who took up these—I guess I’d call them property rights or leases, some of them 160 and 170 years ago, some families did, and still hold them today. They took them up in good faith, and the Government put them out there in good faith. In fact, I remember in my time even being part of a lease a little bit like this—different leases in the North Island. The North Island didn’t have the same kind of pastoral lease as the South Island did, but, none the less, we did have what were called 99-year leases. They did expire; these ones don’t. So, effectively, when these were taken up, they were seen as property rights, and those people were seen to have the care of that land—I guess they could’ve foreseen that it would be for ever.

We’ve had a few goes at interfering in this process in New Zealand’s history, and I think all of them have been unfortunate. But I think that one of the issues that we should consider as a Parliament when we’re dealing with issues like what, effectively, is here called the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill is that people who have what could be termed property rights or the right to occupy and to operate land for profitable reasons or whatever can reasonably be expected to look after that land in a manner that’s fully sustainable. The problem here is that we’re interfering in a process, and, in my view, negatively interfering in a process, because we’re putting constrictions on people who entered this process, as I said, sometimes, 170-odd years ago, in good faith and with a view to being there for ever.

When you hold land, you’re not going to hold it with a view to undermining its future potential, or, in fact, undermining its value to New Zealand either, for that matter. As I said earlier, the fact that we’ve changed the very nature of a lot of this land, sometimes 170-odd years ago—or even much longer ago than that, actually, because for ever we’ve been using land for different reasons in New Zealand. I accept that we need to make provision to, I guess, as best we can, ensure the sustainability of all types of business in New Zealand, particularly agriculture because that’s our keep, but at the same time we need to take those people with us and take them with us in a manner that they can see a future in and that they’re confident that they and their partnership, in this case with the Government, will operate in a manner that’s sustainable.

So I think it’s very disappointing that we’ve gone again into this area and tried to—I’m not sure what we’re trying to set out to achieve here, actually, because when you talk to those landholders, and, as I said, almost all of them without exception are extraordinarily capable, very talented people who have a love of that land and of the environment they live in, that you seldom see matched elsewhere in New Zealand—and I think it’s pretty special.

I don’t have long to speak on this bill, but I do think it’s a great shame to have gone down this path with this bill, and we certainly can’t support that. I’m sure that this very issue will come back to this Parliament again in the future one day, because it certainly hasn’t been—

The member’s time has expired. Thank you.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Thank you, and I take a call on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill, and I want to thank our very capable and well-versed Minister, the Hon Damien O’Connor, for bringing this to the House. I also want to say thank you to our select committee, which I was not part of, but I want to say thank you so much for the work that they did in the Environment Committee on this, and to all the members from across the House.

Just in noting in looking at what went on there, 161 submissions. There were 59 submitters who gave oral evidence to this piece of legislation, which really is about amending the Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and the Land Act 1948. Now this is around the 1.2 million hectares of Crown pastoral land; about 5 percent of New Zealand’s total land area. That’s ours, it’s the Crown, it’s us as a nation, and we want to do our best to look after that. So, therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real delight to speak on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill. I want to acknowledge how enjoyable this bill was to work on. As a member of the Environment Committee, we had the pleasure of being hosted by the High Country Accord. Absolutely, for those of us who have been born on farms in rural communities and grown up in rural communities, their commitment to their farming practices, their sustainability, and their intergenerational connection to their land resonated with many of us. It was certainly an enjoyable time to hear from them.

This bill, essentially, ends tenure review—the 1.2 million hectares of land, or 5 percent of New Zealand, the tenure review will cease. Tenure review was around changing land from these leases into fee simple land which then was able to be sold. What this bill has done is put in a whole series of protections for the owners of the land, which is the Crown, their relationship with tangata whenua, and also ensured that the high country farmers were able to be protected and had certainty. It ensures the permitted discretionary of prohibited acts on-farm are clearly identified.

This bill, quite simply, has come at a time when we need to ensure that we do everything in our greatest powers to protect and support our land. The high country farmers do this, and this bill supports them to continue. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, the member Glen Bennett just said it all when he said it’s our land. That typifies the Labour Government in that everything is about them; everything is about centralisation, with no thought for the people that have been on this land for a very long time.

The second thing that Glen Bennett said was that their esteemed Minister Damien O’Connor had brought this to the House. Well, I was here for the first reading of this bill, and I remember I spoke in slot No. 4, and what was really interesting, I heard Eugenie Sage get up and speak on the bill. Then I heard Damien O’Connor get up and speak on the bill, and they told two different stories about what this meant. And I was really regretting that I’d taken speech slot No. 4. I would have rather been No. 6, because I was waiting to see what Mark Patterson was going to say, from a New Zealand First perspective, because he had a different view altogether and was saying, “Well, we’ll see what happens with this.” Unfortunately, for the farmers, Mark Patterson would have been a good advocate.

This thing is wrong, wrong, wrong. The bill is an omnibus bill that amends the Crown Pastoral Land Act and the Land Act 1948. What it seeks to achieve is the following outcomes: “maintaining or enhancing inherent values across the Crown pastoral estate for present and future generations, while providing for ongoing pastoral farming of pastoral land”. What on earth does this Government think that the farmers are doing now? We have a zero readiness report here, which none of the Government members are choosing to talk about, which was done by KPMG last week or the week before, and while New Zealand is actually ninth in the world out of 32 countries, on this table, agriculture is sitting at number one. And where do you actually hear anyone on the Government side of the House talking about that? You don’t. It seems to be a big feature of this Government to want to lead the world in COVID response—well, that’s all gone wrong. That’s all totally gone wrong—not leading the world. Nobody even knows what the traffic lights mean anymore.

So this bill seeks to end tenure review and improve. It says, “the way Crown pastoral land is administered and regulated.” Well, there goes that word “regulated”, because there’s that many regulations around now that people are still trying to work out which ones work and which ones don’t work. And “The bill aims to ensure that the department administers Crown pastoral land in a way that maintains or enhances the … inherent values that arise from ecological, landscape, cultural, heritage, and scientific attributes or characteristics, while providing for ongoing pastoral farming.” It says, “The bill does not seek to change leaseholders’ tenure, right to pasturage, quiet enjoyment of the leasehold properties”. Well, I can tell you there’s been no quiet enjoyment of these leasehold properties since this Government’s tried to take over, take the power, and take everything away from the enjoyment that these leaseholders have had for many, many, many years.

So it’s talking about “Redesigning regulatory system to”—theoretically—“deliver improved Crown pastoral land outcomes.” So I’m going to read that again, because maybe the person who’s speaking next on the other side of the House—so, “Redesigning regulatory system to”—theoretically—“deliver improved Crown pastoral land outcomes.” So what is this theoretical delivery that’s going to do something any better than the farmers can do? I mean, I was at a catchment recently, not in this particular area, but talking about land improvement, and these people had to have six different entities to work through their catchments, and they had to report back to the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry for the Environment, which is fair enough—no one minds accountability. But they had to report back to each one quarterly at different times of the year. So tell me how theory and box-ticking actually gets the boots on and gets anything done?

There’s a classification of activities here intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the decision-making process. Under the bullet points, permitted pastoral activity, leaseholders may undertake these activities without applying for a consent. Then you turn over the page: discretionary pastoral activities—leaseholders must apply for a consent to undertake these activities. So this is going to turn into a “What do I apply for consent for? What is going to be the thing that I’m allowed to do that’s going to continue my quiet enjoyment of my leasehold property?” And then we come to prohibited pastoral activities, and leaseholders may not.

Now, I know how the lines get blurred between some of these things, and I can see a lot of the people that are going to win out of these are going to be the lawyers and the people who are going to be challenging what’s discretionary; what’s prohibited. All of that sort of stuff.

Then we come to the statutory decision-making process, “the application of an effects-based test aimed at both assessing the level of adverse effects of an activity and minimising those effects as far as possible”. So this is an effects-based test. Who knows what theory that’s going to be based on?

“A pastoral farming test to establish whether an activity that has more than minor adverse effects on inherent values” and “a final decision-making stage where the Commissioner can carry out a range of further considerations before approving the application in full or in part, with or without conditions, or declining it.” So, you know, there’s going to be a pastoral farming test. Pastoral farming, generally, in our book, involves having animals on pasture, and we know that there are some things that happen with pastoral farming that can have some effects, and we’re working on those as an industry, and nobody would dispute that we need to make some changes.

Then you get to the final decision making where the commissioner can, you know, make a range of further considerations. Nobody’s talking about what these further considerations are, before approving or declining. So this talks about “Increasing transparency, accountability, and public involvement”. Now, this really annoys me. The Crown is going to take this over. We’re going to have the most open and transparent Government, who tell nobody anything, saying that this will increase transparency, accountability, and public involvement. I don’t think so. I think the minute that the Government signs off on this bill, it’ll probably be the last we get any transparency and accountability. It’ll all be tied up behind the doors, and no one will ever hear anything about it ever again from this Government. They’re not talking to our mayors during COVID. They’re not open and transparent during anything.

So this bill is a really bad move. National opposes this bill, in its absolute entirety. It should be ripped up. It should never be allowed to happen, and while it says it seeks to provide stronger and clearer accountability and transparency in the department’s administration of Crown pastoral land, I have no faith in the system to deliver anything better than what those good farmers have been delivering for generations and who should be able to carry on doing it for generations.

We strongly oppose the introduction of a new infringement regime, which confers to the commissioner additional enforcement powers. So these people who are going about, you know, their quiet enjoyment of their leasehold properties are all of a sudden bound to the introduction of new infringement regimes where people will walk in with their clipboards and tick the boxes. Nobody minds having accountability, but another set of regulations is something that these farmers do not need. Section 100GA is too heavy handed—reinforcing, monitoring, and policing of Crown pastoral leaseholders, insinuating they are to blame for the position of the high country, is where they have done their best to look after the land. I had a firsthand look at the weekend and they’ve done a good job. This bill is rubbish. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I rise very briefly. I have listened closely to the words of my colleagues. I could not have said it better than Angie Warren-Clark, therefore I will not attempt to, other than to say I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This was a difficult bill for somebody that doesn’t hang about on high country stations to get their head around, but actually, it’s really important. I want to refer to a couple of the submissions, namely the one from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, who came to the committee and said to us that they thought that as we’re refreshing this framework, as we’re putting in some standards and some monitoring systems for what Crown pastoral lands actually entail, what they wanted was for the partnership that they signed up to through their settlement, through the Treaty—they wanted their partnership honoured through this process.

So one of the things that they said was that they wanted to be able to access some of this, the Crown pastoral land, that is out on lease. They wanted to be able to acknowledge some of the wāhi tapu involved in those spaces, some of the places where they go to gather their kai, some of the ancestral lands, some of the very special water bodies that run across some of these Crown pastoral lease lands as well. So what we’ve gone and done as a committee is that we’ve understood that the Crown does in fact have an obligation to recognise and respect its responsibility to give effect to the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi. And so for that reason, we’ve gone and reformed the purpose of this Act to reflect that.

One of the other changes that we made in the submissions process was also to just call out the iwi that are directly involved in this. There was, in the initial drafting, just general references to “Māori”, but actually, we know that it’s not just general references. We knew that Ngāi Tahu are giant stakeholders in this. There’s also other iwi that wanted themselves listed in this too: Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Kōata, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu, Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira as well. So for that reason, we made those amendments, and I think that our Māori submitters should be very supportive of the efforts that we’ve made in that respect. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill.

Well, here we go again: more virtue; no ideas. The Minister for Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) should get off his ideological hobby horse and actually ride a real one. I’m sure many in the high country would offer him one if he actually took off his high-vis coat for more than five minutes and spent time on a farm in New Zealand. This bill has completely eroded farmer morale. There is further angst and, frankly, anger. High country farmers and landowners will see their heritage and their history irreversibly changed.

Now, I just want to, if I may, quote the Minister. When he was asked in question time about his position—and I quote—“Does he stand by his statement on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill, made before his appointment to the Land Information portfolio”—he quotes—“My primary focus has been to ensure that the bill recognises that Crown pastoral lands supports a prosperous high country pastoral farming industry and I’m confident that this new regime proposed by the Minister will ensure that sustainable pastoral farming on Crown land will continue to thrive”. Well, gracious me, what does that mean if you’re one of those farmers? I’ve just come back from there, and they’re disgraced.

This bill seeks to remove a perpetual 33-year lease. This is generational. It will change the whole construct of existing legislation, this new omnibus bill. For the context of those happening to listen at home, it speaks to pursuing better environmental outcomes on Crown land. Well, gracious me, these people are doing that. They are moving the wilding pines, they are mitigating the pest damage, they are controlling the goats, and on and on it goes. But this Government, they don’t care. It’s all virtue. Jobs for Nature—we don’t even know what the full-time equivalents are there when they’re asked for in the House.

So many took an affront to this legislation being in front of the Environment Committee, and the Minister at the time saw prudence and gave it over to Minister O’Connor. Arguably, many have asked why it wasn’t in front of the Primary Production Committee. After all, it affects my kind of people, Barbara’s kind of people, people on this side of the House—farmers. Ultimately, it’s farmers that are affected. They are the leaders of environmental protection in the high country.

The report back from the Environment Committee made several suggested changes. The bill seeks to end tenure review. As previously mentioned, it amends clause 2, introducing monitoring and enforcement regimes. Well, haven’t we got enough regulation in New Zealand?

The dairy sector is all too often lauded on the other side of the House, and the primary sector, by the Minister of Finance, and here we are with more regulations, more red tape, and more “You can’t go outside and do anything.” Notably, the provisions relating to a penalty regime come into effect six months after Royal assent. They’re not even sure of the issues they’re trying to address in the bill.

The crux of my debate is that this erodes totally the relationship between the Crown and 150 years of farmer-Crown relationship. There has been significant capital investment by farmers down in this Crown pastoral land, to the sum of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars adding to community productivity and wellbeing. These are families. These are the local schools. Every day, farming in New Zealand gets a little bit harder, and this is a prime example of that.

If I can just contextualise, we’re talking about environmental concerns. In July 2021, Stuff ran an article, “Losing the war on wilding pines”. In context, wilding pines are increasing across the country annually by approximately 5 percent. They cover 1.8 million hectares, and that increases by a further 90,000 hectares a year. Who’s removing these? They are the farmers—these are the very people you seem to deride.

If I can quote Jess Cocks, who lives on Mt Nicholas station, she notes that “This bill has been formed with the lack of active consultation with lessees. It does not recognise the 127 completed and implemented tenure reviews that have achieved good outcomes for all concerned.” She goes on: “There is also a contractual obligation on behalf of the Crown that is being overlooked. This Government routinely overlooks the very part of the primary sector that has kept the country and the economy going.”

The ACT Party notes overwhelmingly that submitters were in two camps: those in LINZ’s camp, and the rest of us—the farming community. Currently, there are approximately 165 to 170 lessees. Now, arguably, those on that side of the House will say that it’s a small number. Well, gracious me, they are real people. They are communities. They are families. They are schoolchildren going to the local schools. Their whole family construct will change. The community will erode.

The current Act allows for certain activities like pastoral farming for cattle, deer, and sheep grazing. Well, what an onerous thing! What environmental degradation this seeks to fix, when these are the very people that arrest the problem.

There are limitations on soil activities and burn-offs. Well, the farmers already acknowledge that. I am one, and I’m acutely aware of my environmental footprint.

I’ll close up with a quote to make the other side of the House actually acknowledge what the concept of family in rural New Zealand is all about. Caroline Tamblyn said, “I have worked as a LINZ contractor for 12 years doing pastoral lease consents, valuations, and tenure review.” She goes on: “I no longer work as a contractor and have no connections to pastoral leases. I have submitted on this so-called land reform bill because I disagree with the adversarial approach to removing longstanding property rights. It’s deliberate sabotage of good working relationships between the Crown and farmers of New Zealand.”

I and the ACT Party unequivocally oppose this bill. It totally fails to acknowledge the private property rights and the significant investment in high country communities. ACT stands with National on this side of the House, and we support farmers and rural New Zealand.

I call Stuart Smith—five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I welcome the opportunity to get—albeit at short notice—this short call on this bill. I had the pleasure of sitting on the select committee during the hearing of the evidence on this bill and to attend a meeting and a field trip, as it were, down in Central Otago, where we particularly went to the Branches Station, which I think was phenomenal. The owners of that station were very moving in their discussions with us. I thought that was a day that, actually, when we all travelled together with the whole select committee, we travelled back on the boat back to Wanaka after being at—what was the name?

💬 Hon Member: Minaret.

Sorry. We travelled back into Wānaka, and it was from Minaret Station. It was a phenomenal time for us all, and I think it moved us all. Unfortunately, the select committee members from the other side were only doing what they were told, and, of course, they had to ram it through, even though they knew in their heart of hearts it was the wrong thing to do.

Having said that, we did all that, it was a great day. We learnt a lot, but I had the pleasure and the honour of actually taking a couple of my colleagues with me through my part of the electorate, Joseph Mooney being one of them, where we drove up the Awatere Valley up to Muller Station, which is right next door to the historic Molesworth Station. And we saw firsthand—actually, how good the Ford Ranger was when I drove it round through some rivers and around the farm tracks. But we saw firsthand how those farmers are managing the noxious weeds. And so in South Marlborough, there is a significant issue with wilding pines and Pinus contorta. And it is really making inroads into and across that Awatere Valley and the upper area there. However, what we saw on the Muller Station is the Satterthwaites, Steve and Mary Satterthwaite are doing a fantastic job. Because merino wethers are being run on their property, and they eat the little seedling pines as they come through. They don’t get them all, but there’s only a few they don’t get, and they can spot spray them from a helicopter, the ones that get too big for them to eat.

However, when we went on to Molesworth Station right next door, they run cattle, they don’t run sheep. Cattle won’t eat the wilding pines. It is going to get away and it’s going to become a significant environmental issue, not just for the fact that we’ve got this noxious weed going to actually choke the land out—in parts of South Marlborough, it is impenetrable. You cannot walk through those trees. But when it gets to Molesworth, it will become almost impossible to control and it will be a significant fire risk.

💬 Joseph Mooney: It already is.

It already is, as Joseph Mooney just said. It is already a significant issue.

But we went through from there up to the Lakes Station in North Canterbury to see that property. And it’s right on Lake Sumner virtually, and it’s a beautiful high country place. Similar issues. What we’re seeing is quite different stations that are run differently. As we saw down in Otago, different farms and different land requires different management. What the takeaway was: these people know the land. These people know how to manage it. Unfortunately, best intentions and all, Department of Conservation (DOC) don’t. DOC don’t know how to deal with it, DOC are stretched anyway—not to say they are not genuine in their concern for the land. They simply aren’t capable.

So what we’re seeing here with this bill is adding layers of bureaucracy on top of people that are already dealing with bureaucracy and being snowed under—and sometimes literally snowed under—with all of these compliance issues that will make no difference, no difference to the outcome for the land. It will make it worse, if anything. These people are doing what’s best for them and what’s best for the land, because those things are the same. They know that the land is what they live off and they therefore are not going to make decisions that will impact on the long-term viability of their farm and their rights. And I think this is a travesty, this bill. I think it’s a shame and it’s a shame the other members had their hands tied and had to support it.

The question is that the amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority be agreed to.