Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is—I wouldn't say a pleasure but I am speaking on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill. I'd like to begin by actually acknowledging the people in my electorate who are on Crown pastoral lease properties who at the moment up in the Awatere are actually stuck. So the road to the Awatere from the heavy rain has been closed from slips and those slips may take weeks or longer to clear and with the snow that we've had recently they can no longer get out via Hanmer Springs. They're stuck in there at the moment but they will be watching perhaps not live but they will either be recording it because they'll probably be out in the snow raking and doing things like that or they'll watch it online later. So they will be watching. They have a pretty good idea where this has gone and is going but they're very interested in it.Like the previous speakers and in fact the previous speaker Rachel Brooking I would like to acknowledge the effort that the clerk of the committee went to to arrange that trip. It was quite a lot of work to do. Rebecca who's now left the committee did a fantastic job and I think it was pretty frustrating not that she ever let us know that but she had one go at it and then it all fell through and she had to go back and do it all again. So I'd like to acknowledge that. The select committee's loss I think is the Cabinet Office's gain.But that said the bill itself—I don't agree with it. I don't like it. I think it's been very well explored by my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson but I'd like to put my personal view on it from the experience of going to Branch Creek Station as we did as a committee down at Cardrona in the Cardrona Valley and I'm sorry the lady's name and their daughters that we met their names escape me at the moment but what an impassioned presentation we got from those two ladies. We were right adjacent to the Cardrona ski field where we were looking at that property and what I think members of the public and the other members of the House have to understand is the differences we had starkly pointed out to us and observed. At Branch Creek Station if they stop farming it it reverts to bracken and will become a fire risk a massive—Nicola Grigg: Wilding pines rabbits deer. STUART SMITH: Yeah wilding pines all of those things. In contrast Minaret Station which we went to later in the day if they stop farming that it reverts to fern—goes straight back to native. So I think there's a view particularly from some of the submitters against the bill that the farming practices are adversely affecting iconic high country. I would argue actually the reverse—they are preserving it—and in Branch Creep Station it was very evident from their management how they were controlling that bracken. That family are putting a heck of a lot of work into that. It's a tough grind. They're up for it they're not looking for sympathy but they put their heart and soul into that property and you can see and it was really something to behold the passion from both of those ladies about the land itself not just the farm and not their personal financial reward they get out of the property. That wasn't it; it was their connection to the land their connection to that environment and how they were working as hard as they could to preserve that and what's more to preserve that way of life. That I think speaks volumes to the passion of those people.As I said we then drove up to The Neck" which is between Lake Hāwea and Lake Wānaka and we were met by Jonathan Wallis from Minaret Station who transported us across the lake to Minaret. Minaret is completely cut off—it's landlocked. There is a road there and there are vehicles but they only operate on the property. The only way in or out is by boat or by air. So we saw a completely different environment: higher rainfall and an almost 100 percent deer farm and large parts of the higher part of the property shut off. But the lower part—and some of it irrigated—where the fawns are weened those paddocks start to get fern coming up through the grass the sown pastures just before they start to graze it off because that's what happens. It would completely be overtaken by fern if they stop farming it—so completely different from the other property. It will revert to native if they stop farming and I thought that was a very stark—and I know all of the members of the committee were quite taken by that day and the contrast between the two properties. Jonathan and his passion for rural New Zealand the land and they were also raising their lamb feeding them on chicory and so on—Headwaters is the brand that they're selling it under. I thought that was very interesting for us all because of course you were there Madam Speaker but it was a fascinating day. And I thought when we all got off and we had a long boat trip back into Wānaka and then a drive back to Queenstown I don't think I struck anyone. Everyone was very taken by it. We all had a very similar experience. It's just a pity we see the bill in a quite different light. But I'll leave that there and you can work that out yourself.Further to that I took a drive up through the Awatere Valley after that to go and have another look at something completely different which is in the Awatere Valley pastoral leases and how they are going to be impacted by this bill and I was told I wasn't allowed to take my four-wheel drive car I had to take a ute and I took a four-wheel drive ute for a legitimate use. We drove up the valley and what really became obvious in the Molesworth property next door to Muller Station and the way that they are being managed is the wilding pine issue and this is where we have a problem. So the Department Of Conservation manages a large part of that upper valley and we've got a significant wilding pine issue. Grazing merino wethers on those blocks that are exposed to the wilding pines—when those small little seedlings coming through the merino wethers will eat that—they'll eat that; cattle won't. So they'll eat that they control them and any that get away that are missed by the stock—because once they get a little bit too big they won't eat it—they come in with a helicopter and spot-spray them. It's such a vast area to cover; it's the only way they can deal with it.So we saw private enterprise pastoral lease farmers managing and doing a fantastic job of managing noxious weeds and that's what a wilding pine is it's a noxious weed. I can tell you Madam Speaker—I know you've seen it for yourself—I could not believe once we got close to Hanmer Springs the absolute area overtaken by wilding pines was unbelievable and it is on its way. It's heading up—we could see on the next ridge over trees just getting to the top of it. Once they get to the top that seed rain will go a long way in the wind. They're not quite there yet; they will get there in the next year or so and they won't stop till they get to Kaikōura. It is an environmental disaster. That is why I think this bill is so short-sighted. Leave the farmers to continue to do it.What we're imposing on them with this regime of rules is pernicious. If central planning worked the Soviet empire would not have had a massive drop in agricultural production when the communists took over and that's exactly what happened. I'm not saying this is communist but I'm drawing a parallel. It's very close to it. Central planning does not work and it's absolutely the case and that is what will happen. We'll have all this rules regime there'll be reporting to some bureaucrat somewhere in Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) about how you're going to be farming your property and they'll say "Oh no no no you can't do that." It may well be the best practice for that particular property and each one is different like Branch Creek Station and like Minaret Station. Trying to impose what Minaret do on Branch Creek would not work just as it wouldn't the other way around. We also went to the Lakes Station in Canterbury and Lake Taylor—quite different again. More akin to I think Branch Creek than the other properties that we went to but again a different form of management is needed on that property and I just don't think LINZ will get that. I do not think they will get the nuances in between managing those different environments. It is a beautiful part of New Zealand it is something that is engrained in our culture and we all identify with it. Some of us have never been there; many of us have. I condemn this to the House."