King Colin: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
King Colin: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:848] 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak on this Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill. It is a bill whose time has come because it confronts an issue that is really at the heart of what New Zealand stands for. It is about partnership and that is the one comment that I have not heard in this debate apart from by members on this side of the House. It is about partnership. It is partnering the custodial aspects of the land between the Crown and those families who through history have been able to eke out an existence whether through trying times or good times. They have had to live in isolation. I just want to stress that point—that it is very much about partnership. This Government is very aware that there needs to be a balance around how this is approached. We have the Minaret case before the Land Valuation Tribunal and such things to base that on. 
I just want to take exception with the Labour speaker who spoke first about arbitrary figures. There is nothing arbitrary about the Economic Service team of Beef and Lamb New Zealand run by Rob Davison and the science that it applies to that system of working out what classes of land can produce and what stock values are worth. I would just like it put on record that Rob Davison is an authority with his team within the Economic Service of Beef and Lamb and I am quite confident that they will be able to give the Director-General of Lands some very good accurate information on what the carrying capacity should be on those properties and what the opportunity of economic generation will be. 
I would also like to just touch on the point of just how damaged that partnership became under the Labour Government. It was completely destroyed. I just want to point to one particular case. When we talk about these pastoral leases we are talking about a bundle of rights that the landowner or the lessee holds and the ownership of the Crown. At St James Station—you know if you have a willing seller and a willing buyer you have a good balanced market—the Labour Government drove the price up to $43 million to purchase a lessee right of residence and dwelling on a property that ran under the lease agreement only some 8000 stock units. That just highlights the hypocrisy that is surrounding this debate. What we are confronted with in St James is a property with great iconic values but which is becoming weed infested which will actually cost the taxpayer far more than we are hearing about from members on the other side of the House about transfer of wealth. We saw the same thing happening at Birchwood—stratospheric prices for a farm that was running a smaller number of stock units. Really what has happened here is ideology gone mad and we really do need to do our utmost to partner these families in these rural communities. We talk about high country. They have been surrendering the high country in these properties for years upon years until a stage now where it would be nearly an exaggeration to call these leases high country leases because they have had to surrender them. 
This is a bill that addresses a very emotional subject. In my area of Marlborough it is pretty hard to see any particular outstanding vistas. You have got rabbits you have got  
Hieracium 
 you have got remoteness and you have got access to and from your property at a very very substandard rate and here we are having a conversation about transferring wealth. 
 These people need to be congratulated. They are the backbone of a country that at present has got a fair amount of muscle. I am delighted to see that this Government has had the courage to address this situation; otherwise we would be bogged down with tribunal upon tribunal hearing the claims for rents that are set in relation to the income of the property. I am delighted to support this bill and I look forward to seeing those farmers being there for another 150 years. Thank you very much.