Huo Raymond: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Huo Raymond: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1907. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call at the third reading of the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill. It is particularly so following the member for Waitaki Miss Jacqui Dean although she decided not to continue. Listening to the contributions from the Minister for Primary Industries and some of the National backbenchers it is fair for me to suggest that Miss Dean’s speech was one of the best because apart from the usual anger and accusations she gave at least some reasons why she believes that it is important for her to pass this bill into law. I like the way she said she had been approached by her constituents because Labour supports the high country farmers and Labour supports farmers at large.  
But I come back to this bill. As the Hon Damien O’Connor said the National Government solution is to offer those farmers lollipops but when they run out of sugar everything will be back to square one. So that is not the real solution.  
The Government has the numbers to pass this bill into law so there is no need and it is totally unnecessary for those members to resort to personal attacks. They attacked Helen Clark David Parker Damien O’Connor and me although I am not that important—not important at all. They will do the National Government a great favour if they focus just a little bit on the rationale behind the bill rather than resorting to personal attacks. While the bill has been progressed the attacks from some of the National backbenchers have escalated from accusing Labour or anyone who is opposed to this bill of being anti-farmers or using the politics of envy to now labelling Labour as farmer haters. Following that logic the Greens New Zealand First and even Mr Peter Dunne’s United Future party are all anti-farmers or farmer haters.  
One National backbencher confirmed that the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand is anti-farmers too because of its review on lower rentals as provided under this bill. The society has supported a number of initiatives under this bill but it does have a problem with lower rentals due to tenure review negotiations and the missed opportunity to put in place economic pricing instruments that could benefit conservation values. 
 Following that logic the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment would also be anti-farmers because her 2009 report entitled  
Change in the high country: Environmental stewardship and tenure review 
 questioned the methodology of the current tenure review process and made a number of recommendations. The report also proposed the setting up of a high country commission to provide more oversight of the high country. Of course neither of those recommendations have been taken up by the Government.  
The bill seeks to change the rules for setting rents for Crown pastoral leases from the land valuation basis to stock-carrying capacity or income-related basis. So it basically means that properties in Remuera and properties in Papatoetoe should be treated equally. I use that analogy because the National Government’s policy in that regard is consistent. For instance its policy to sell our assets to pay the debt is pretty much like selling its house in order to pay the mortgage and then renting it for a higher price. It does not make any economic sense.  
But it does make some sense if National MPs focus on the reasons behind this bill because I together with many others have remained unconvinced and will unless they give me some reasons. Firstly the Clayton report. The Clayton report produced in the 1980s found that if one gives a discount to lessees of below the market rent they capitalise an increase in value to the lessee’s side of the ledger so that the relative division of value between lessor and lessee becomes even more weighted towards the lessee. That means that this small number of farmers will be in a better position to freehold the properties. They are in a better position to onsell a part or all of the farmland and make windfall profits.  
Secondly I come to the Maori Reserved Land Amendment Act 1997. The previous National Government amended the legislation and good on it in order to address the injustices for Maori. As owners of the land Maori were until that amendment was made forced to accept lower than market rents for the land through leases based on unimproved land value with similar perpetual rights of tenure for lessees as exist for pastoral leases. So this bill is actually challenging that legal precedent and compromising the basic property rights of the Crown and New Zealand taxpayers. Therefore Labour cannot support inconsistencies in law.  
Further there is tenure review. Much has been said about tenure review and I do not intend to repeat it here but I do want to repeat one comment made by experts scholars and concerned parties and that is that increasingly these Crown-owned properties are being purchased not for their pastoral values but for their non-pastoral values which relate to exclusive occupation of land. As pointed out by the Hon David Parker not all lessees are enthusiastic about tenure review. They want to enforce their contractual rights under the leases and they want to commit to the dairy business. In the Labour Party all we did was to enforce the legal terms of the lease. The rent of 2 percent of land value excluding improvements is affordable by some but not all tenants. We accept that some lessees—and Mr Shane Ardern made this point very clearly in his contribution in the bill’s second reading—are long-term holders. They do not want to sell. They only want to extract pastoral values from the land. They have not purchased it for tens of millions of dollars and they cannot afford the rent that is based on what they might sell it for. They need a rent that is lower than that. The law already allows for that. We do not need this change in the law to achieve that outcome.  
These decreases in rent are unprincipled. Bear in mind that this is a Government that is running a $12 billion deficit. According to the information released by Statistics New Zealand on 21 March 2012 net international liabilities were $147 billion or 71.9 percent of GDP as at 31 December 2011.  
Parliament has the role of passing legislation that is fair. We do not want to see people speculate and make windfall profits at the cost of New Zealand taxpayers. The genuine farming families have not been easy with that process at all because they want to remain on the land farm it properly and protect the environmental values. We absolutely respect their management practices and what they have done over many years. We should provide the right incentives for farmers who are managing the land properly and ensure that they have affordable rents. But the establishment of the base value of the land and the base rental has to be consistent with most other commercial entities across the country.  
Labour supports our farmers and it supports our farming sector at large. Thank you.