Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill

Members, we turn now to the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill. We come first to Part 1. Part 1 of the debate on clauses 3 to 16 and Schedules 1 to 3, “Amendments to Crown Pastoral Land Act 1988”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, this is, I think, going to be a reasonably long session because there is much in this piece of legislation that is abhorrent and fundamentally objectionable to members on this side of the House. So we will want to prosecute the questioning of the Minister in the chair in some detail, and I am looking forward to him engaging in a positive and constructive way as we go through the various parts of this legislation and the detail of it.

I might say, at the outset, that we on this side of the House fundamentally object to the intrusion of long-held and highly regarded property rights bestowed by the Crown to leaseholders in a way that is, actually, effectively throwing them in the rubbish tin and putting aside, in some cases, several generations of relationships with the Crown that have been effective, that have been good, and that have been good for not only New Zealand and New Zealanders, but for our natural environment as well.

I’ve got a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in my name and my colleagues, likewise, also have Supplementary Order Papers in their names. So it’s my intention, certainly with regard to the Supplementary Order Papers in my name, to take a range of calls and go through them in detail. But at the outset, and for the record, it’s important that members of the Government understand that at the first possible opportunity, a re-elected National-led Government will repeal this legislation, notwithstanding that this Government, based on its ideological agenda, has currently the numbers in the House to pass it. We want to flag that and make it very clear from the outset.

So I come to the SOP in my name, lettered “H” on the table, and it relates to the proposed new Schedule 1AB in Part 1, paragraph 14, page 43 of the bill. It is to effectively delete paragraph 14 as is presently numbered in the proposed Part 1 of the bill and replace it with these words: “Maintaining existing seed sowing, including by way of direct drilling where direct drilling has been previously consented.” Now, members opposite may think that, well, this is a fairly detailed piece of Supplementary Order Paper—what is the purpose, why am I talking about this, what is the reason, what is the rationale? Well, the Minister will probably have a very good understanding of it because we know that he is a person who is famous for his attention to detail and his attention to matters that relate to his portfolio area.

So, as reported back from select committee, paragraph 14, in terms of the permitted activities, does not acknowledge the property rights of leaseholders for their improvements. Now, this is actually quite fundamental, because a lease, of course, is not a freehold, but when a property is a lease property the leaseholder has ownership of the improvements to that property. They might not, in fact, own the land—in terms of our legal system—but they have a legally enforceable property right by way of lease and therefore have ownership of the improvements.

Now, pasture improvement on these leases, of which there are 170-something of them around the countryside, has for decades been a process undertaken—well, actually, it goes back more than 100 years—since the mid-1850s, if you please; well before any kind of consenting process was even thought of. Remembering that these original Crown leases were established in good faith, effectively, as a treaty between individual New Zealand citizens and the Crown. And we’re familiar in this Parliament because we often talk about treaties and we often talk about the relationship that the Crown has to signatories of treaties, and yet, in this case, here is legislation that purports to just put aside, at the stroke of a legislative pen, the property rights of improvements to pasture that have been undertaken by leaseholders over several generations, dating back to the 1850s.

So the purpose of my Supplementary Order Paper “H” is to acknowledge that these improvements actually do belong to the leaseholders. They have a property right, they are an asset, and they have invested their time, energy, blood, sweat, and toil, and not insignificant financial resource in improving the lot of the land that they are leasing. And now by requiring consent to maintain all improvements by way of seed sowing, other than that which has been consented, this provides a platform for the Crown to, effectively, alienate the improvement by denial of consent to maintain that improvement. So what I’m saying there is that if under this new regime consent is not granted for the continuation of pastoral investment and maintenance, then that is, effectively, stealing the property ownership of the pasture that has been invested since the 1850s.

So I think that the Minister needs to answer questions as to why that is not something that officials and he have taken into account, because what we are dealing with in this piece of legislation amounts to property rights—property rights given and agreed in good faith between the Crown and the leaseholders. So that’s the first question that I would have for the Minister: does he accept that pasture improvements belong to leaseholders? Does he accept that by this piece of legislation requiring consent to maintain all those improvements that if consent is not given then that is, effectively, stealing by the Crown by not granting consent to continue pastoral improvement, taking away a property asset and a right from those leaseholders?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Minister, look anywhere in rural New Zealand, most people would take huge umbrage with this piece of legislation. It’s nothing more than property theft, arguably—you will probably take a different position on that. I see in here in part of the legislation, it talks about the meaning of inherent value. Well, Minister, whatever happened to inherent value of the way of life in rural New Zealand? It is inherent. It’s generationally inherent. I’m actually standing here quite sad that I’m actually looking at this piece of legislation, and I think arguably most people on this side of the House would be. There’s 150 years of inherent value.

I’ll add to that Minister, if I may, with the greatest respect to you sir, every year in rural New Zealand we have another 5 percent of the country covered in wilding pines. And we’ve got a Jobs for Nature programme that no one can seem to tell the side of the House what’s being spent on that. And you’re removing that opportunity from the very people that are mitigating this problem. I mean, 90,000 hectares Minister per year—that’s 5 percent extra every year. And these are the very people, and I maintain these words: this is a way of life for them. This is generationally inherent. So do you want to speak to the inherent value that apparently the new definition excludes?

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is astonishing—the two contributions we have just heard seem to believe that the Crown pastoral lands in the high country is owned, almost, by leaseholders. These are Crown lands. Anybody who has read any of the history of Crown pastoral lands and how there has been significant ecological loss on those Crown lands over decades will recognise that this bill is about ensuring that we have a land management regime which is much more one of partnership between the leaseholders, between the Crown, with much greater recognition of Ngāi Tahu and iwi in Te Wai Pounamu values as well in implementing the Treaty.

That this concept of inherent values, which the last speaker, Mark Cameron, was objecting so truculently to is all about ensuring that the indigenous and landscape values of these Crown pastoral lands are maintained. Because simply cultivating them and converting them to ryegrass and clover destroys the tussock land, destroys the matagouri, destroys those natural nitrogen fixers, and completely changes the high country into the Canterbury Plains.

The member has talked about wilding conifer control. The member seems totally unaware of the $100 million that the Crown is investing in partnership with a lot of pastoral landholders, particularly in areas like the Mackenzie Basin and the Te Manahuna Aoraki Project, where lessees are working with the Crown to ensure that those wilding conifers are controlled. What this bill is about is modernising the Crown Pastoral Land Act; stopping tenure review and the privatisation of pastoral lease lands, which the National Government was happy to see continue; and ensuring that we manage those lands sustainably now and into the future in much more of a partnership model.

So I would just ask the Minister if he could expand on the changes in his Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that the Order Paper makes to the concept of inherent values, because that is new, and also to the changes that it is making around public access. Because the Environment Committee in submissions heard from members of the public, organisations like Federated Mountain Clubs, that many pastoral leaseholders are very happy to provide public access for recreational users, particularly those on foot. Sometimes they have a problem with those on four-wheel drives. The select committee ensured that there were changes to ensure that public access was considered at the time when a lease was transferred. If the Minister could just expand on the changes that his SOP is making and how it deals with that public access issue, and if he could outline what consultation and dialogue he’s had about that with the High Country Accord and other representatives of leaseholders.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought it was important that I come down through the middle and stick to the facts on this. There’s enough misinformation outside of Parliament, and I think we should stick accurately to the information and the facts in here.

This piece of legislation—and I’ll acknowledge the good work done by the Environment Committee on this, and I acknowledge the previous Speaker, who introduced this. Tenure review was a process introduced in 1997, actually, early on, and then went through to a 1998 piece of legislation. I was actually here, which some might think is sad. I think it has some advantages, because I can recall the objectives of the tenure review legislation. But the Land Act 1948—what that did was that land that actually wasn’t wanted by many people and was being degraded, had been farmed by people who had no secure interest in the land. So the Government of the day gave perpetual rights to pasturage in the high country through these lease arrangements. They have been upheld through court challenges over the years, and I acknowledge that nothing in this legislation undermines their rights to continue to use this land for pastoral purposes, and it enables them to make changes.

We then move on to the piece of legislation that went through in 1998, actually, and it made a few changes. It allowed discussion between the lessees and the Crown to work out what land might be freeholded and secured in their hands and what should go back to the Crown by way of, for the most part, conservation land. And that process has been under way since that time, and we’ve moved through a large number of leases—in fact, I should know the number; I don’t—and that freeholding has occurred. But it has become harder and harder as the lease arrangements, or the high country leases themselves, are more complex, and there’s been more debate about how much should go into conservation and how much should be freeholded. To the point where the uncertainty hasn’t helped the farmers on the land, and many have said, “Look, we just want to get on with farming. We don’t want the uncertainty and the cost of this ongoing process. So just, you know, let us get on with it.” And some want to complete their tenure review processes, and some have, and some still will before the passage of this legislation. But, for those who remain on the land as lessees, they want certainty.

And so the piece of legislation has attempted to do that. One of the things was, in the 1998 legislation, that it firstly reinforced the fact that those lessees had rights to the land for pastoral purposes but didn’t have any rights to the soil, which seems rather strange, but that was the reality. And it gave them exclusive rights to pasturage over the land but provides no right to the soil, which made it kind of complex when it came to farming—digging a post hole, all of those things. So, at that time, the legislation passed by the then National Government made all those activities subject to a consent—subject to a consent—which meant that, actually, all of them would have had to have gone to the Commissioner of Crown Lands and asked if they wanted to dig a post hole or do other things like that.

What happened then was there was discussion between the lessees and the Department of Conversation at the time, and they agreed that, actually, they would write a letter—and this is the letter. They’d write a letter to all of the lessees and say, “Look, we’ve granted you consent for all these activities.” It was a letter. There’s nothing more. Just a letter from the Commissioner of Crown Lands. Not very secure, some might say, but robust at the time, and it remains robust. It was things like clearing of existing vehicle or stock tracks, digging in posts, anchors, piles. Indeed, it allowed some earth works, tree planting, tree felling, but within the area enclosed by the fence around the homestead located on pastoral lease—the curtilage area; that’s what it was. And I could go on and read all of the activities on farm that required a consent. And that was approved through one letter—a little insecure, you might say.

Well, moving forward with the new piece of legislation that the previous speaker had put into the House, there was a view that the certainty was important. So clearly, all these minor activities that require the consent under the National Government’s legislation in 1998 shouldn’t remain like that. So indeed, we’ve moved to have some permitted activities. It covers most of those things which most people would say are sensible. Then there are some other activities, and technology has allowed us—with better bulldozers and with diggers and actually with things like centre pivot irrigators and things—to get on and develop that land. So there’s a view that in some places that’s appropriate, but others it’s not. So people should be required to apply to the Commissioner of Crown Lands for those permitted activities, but still subject to a consent.

Then there are some activities that are prohibited, and those might have major impacts, they might affect the landscape values, or, indeed, be intensive farming in a very sensitive area that is deemed inappropriate. Most of those things are listed in the Schedules. Actually, most people think it’s a pretty fair balance.

So the things that will be permitted—that is, don’t require consent, which is progress for the high country lessees—gives certainty for them. That’s what we’re doing in this piece of legislation. All the rhetoric and the ranting from over there about stepping backwards—actually, this is progress. The lessees did have some issues. They raised them and I have to say we listened and made adjustments to the legislation.

Then at the last minute—and we’ve tabled a Supplementary Order Paper—we dealt with one of the remaining issues that was around access. These are sensitive pieces of land. They’re also beautiful, and a lot of the public want access to get out there, and I don’t blame them. I like that myself. As was stated, most of those lessees provide access for the public, subject to sensible behaviour, which is absolutely what they should expect. There have been a couple of cases—not that many—where access has been unreasonably withheld. So after some discussion between the High Country Accord and ourselves, we worked through to what was a fair balance between land that is owned by the taxpayer, owned by the Crown, leased in perpetuity for pastoral purposes by the lessees, how we could find the right balance to ensure that unreasonable access was not withheld. So we said at the time of the transfer of a lease if someone decides to sell it—and, indeed, I hope we don’t ever have another National Government, because I’m suspecting that they will open the door. They will open the door once again to wholesale overseas purchase of farmland and most likely, because these are quite expensive properties, we will see what we had seen in under previous National Governments, a lot of these iconic properties went into foreigners’ hands.

Now, a lot of them are managed really well. I’m not saying that all foreign owners are bad owners. Some of them have invested huge amounts of money. But the issue of their values when it comes to privacy and access are sometimes different to those of Kiwis. In fact, we go back to Tommy Suharto, I think it was, and a property up at the top of Lake Tekapō, where he just blocked access quite unreasonably. That sparked, I guess, some of the tension that still remains today between recreational users, people who enjoy the high country, and those who own the property. That was an unfortunate incident. The vast majority, and I say almost all New Zealand owners of these properties provide reasonable access. But if someone chooses not to, then we should have some leverage. We said at the point of transfer so as not to undermine the value or the property rights of the lessee, but to say to the new one coming in, “There was an issue with access here. We haven’t been able to force access”—[Time expired]

Order! I’m sure the Minister will have ample time later on, but I had already extended. So I’ll come back to you. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I thank the Minister for his comments and explanations. But the one point that the Minister didn’t touch on was the points raised by my colleague Scott Simpson that this is a binding contractual arrangement—some might call it a treaty—that the Crown is prepared to renege on. So I would like to refer to the Environment Committee’s report back and the National Party’s differing view, because we would say that we would oppose this bill in its entirety.

I would like to ask the Minister why end tenure review? It is a treaty that was entered into willingly by two different parties that recognised the rights for strategic pastoral farmland and the rights for strategic land to go into the conservation estate. So therefore, the major opposition to this bill has been the one-size-fits-all approach, the hammer to crack a nut. How, Minister, do you design a system to manage 1.2 million hectares of very diverse, at times very rugged, with diverse ecology, environments, weather systems, topographies. What, therefore Minister, is the review mechanism to address failures that will undoubtedly occur as a result of this legislation? How will you resolve inequities in this one-size-fits-all approach?

We believe, and I would imagine 99 percent of the leaseholders would agree, the cumulative impact of this piece of legislation will work in direct opposition to the bill’s objective. It will be a detriment to the high country’s inherent values. Again, I refer to the National Party’s minority view—and I would expect the Minister’s read it because it is very sensible. We agree with concerns raised by leaseholders that this will add layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy. It will largely duplicate regulation that has been foreshadowed in the likes of the national policy statement (NPS) on indigenous biodiversity and the NPS on freshwater. So, to the Minister, what work have you done to cross-reference? What work have you done, or have your officials done, to identify these double-ups and these crossovers? And what efforts, Minister, will you put in as the Minister of Agriculture to alleviate this burden on the sector that you represent?

It is time for me to report progress on this bill.

House resumed.