Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to my colleagues on this side of the House for having described the problem with this legislation so clearly. I just want to articulate a little bit further in relation to Part 1 of the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill what the problem is.What is the problem? Well it's an environmental problem. It's a problem where the Government and the Minister and the Minister before him have articulated that they don't trust the farmers who farm the Crown pastoral land under perpetual leases whose families have lived on the land for generations who have given up so much to live in remote rural places that people like myself from Auckland would think Crikey that's cold. How could you live there?" That very very difficult place to farm. It's inaccessible. Some of these places are only accessible by boat or by air. And yet these families have lived there for generations because they love the land they love the environment and they love New Zealand. That's where this Government this Minister and the former Minister have got this totally wrong.But I want to read to you what the aspiration is for this Crown pastoral land: "A sustainable management system for Crown Pastoral Land will be one that recognises and balances the different values this land holds for people across Aotearoa a system that fairly and efficiently allocates costs and benefits"—Minister—"and a dynamic system that recognises the constant evolution of the land and our relationships with it." That wasn't written by your officials Minister. That was not written by any other political party that's not a manifesto. That in fact is the words of the submission from Jonathan Wallis from Minaret Station a vision of a sustainable management system for Crown pastoral land. That is what the lessees are advocating for. In fact what they told the committee and what we saw with our own eyes including the chair of the committee—the Hon Eugenie Sage a former Minister who chairs the Environment Committee—and the members of the Labour Party on the committee and of course MPs from ACT and National who visited these high country farms was there'd been a progression from that time when New Zealand was first colonised and we can only imagine what that must have been like over 1000 years ago for the people who first came to New Zealand to cast their eyes on the Southern Alps.But for those who came more recently in particular during the time of European settlement of the South Island and the gold rush that is when the large-scale environmental degradation of this part of New Zealand occurred. That was when not only were areas burned in anticipation that they could be sown and then grazed but much worse. With huge pumps the hoses and the sluicing that occurred during the goldmining era when literally the hillsides were washed away with giant hoses and cascades of water. Now when you go there today and you see the photographs of that time you see the images of a devastated countryside. And in fact that's what every country has done to its environment in the early days of industrial exploitation and New Zealand's no different Minister.But what the farmers the families who live on these Crown pastoral leases—in fact who have a property right to live there in perpetuity under these Crown pastoral leases—have done is got with the new ways of farming. They've adopted farm management plans. They've taken land out of production that is steep and hard to manage. And what they have done in fact is restored the natural environment so that now their farming systems are complementary with this very unique environment. That is why they've asked the Government they've asked the Minister and they asked the Environment Committee "Please do not proceed with this bill. It's completely unnecessary. We already have all of the tools all of the latest methodology to farm and operate in this unique and special place. And by the way we have a property right and imposing and additional set of regulations and other people making decisions over how we do basic things like dig a ditch and put in a culvert on our land is completely unnecessary." That's why Minister ACT would repeal this law and that's why we're asking the Government not to proceed with it because by the time you—[Time expired]"