Hipkins Chris: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to take a short and slightly unexpected call on this bill the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill. I am very happy to fill the void while Mr Damien O’Connor makes his way down to the Chamber.  
I listened quite carefully to the second reading speeches on this bill and I listened to the justifications put forward by the Government for this piece of legislation. According to subclause (1) of clause 23A “Purpose of this Part” which is set out in the new Part 1A to be inserted in the Crown Pastoral Land Act by clause 6 the legislation establishes “a framework for specifying an efficient predictable and objective process to set rents for pastoral leases based on—(a) the productive capacity of the land when used for pastoral farming; and (b) the earnings available from that productive capacity.” I sat there listening to the Ministers putting forward the case that it should be based on the income that could be generated from the land and that that therefore is what the rent should be based on. I thought: “Well where have we heard that before and where might there be some similarities?” and then I thought: “This is actually income-related rentals for sheep.”  
What this bill effectively amounts to is an income-related rental for the sheep. I thought: “Well this is kind of an interesting approach for the National Government to take”—income-related rents for sheep—“when it is so opposed to income-related rents for human beings.” The more I went through it the more I thought that that was quite rich coming from National members. They are saying that the rent that the owner of the sheep has to pay should be based on the potential income but that when it comes to human beings the rent that they have to pay should not be based at all on their income and that they should be paying market-related rents. So if market-related rents according to the National Government are good enough for human beings why are market-related rents not good enough for the sheep?  
I think that sort of sums up why Labour is opposing this legislation. We are opposing this bill because it severely compromises the Crown’s right to negotiate fair rents for the high country land that it owns and it instead offers a select few farmers special privileges. I guess we should not be surprised about that coming from this National Government because it is all about offering the advantages of the State to a select few rather than to the many. 
Andrew Little 
: It’s called cronyism. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It is called cronyism as my colleague and friend Andrew Little has pointed out but that is what this Government is all about. It is income-related rents for sheep but not income-related rents for human beings.  
By sacrificing the right of the Crown to extract fair value from its property this bill short-changes the New Zealand taxpayer in order to offer a sweetheart deal to the select few wealthy farmers. Once again this is a pattern of behaviour that we are seeing from this National Government which is interested in supporting its mates and supporting a select few rather than the many; although it is supporting the many sheep that will be on these high country farms I have to say. It is not supporting the many people who live in the houses that it thinks they should be paying market rents for but it is willing to offer income-related rentals for the sheep on high country land.  
Rent for these properties is already set at a very low 2 percent excluding improvements. By cutting this further the Government will be forgoing potential revenue that it could put towards much-needed protection for our fragile high country environment. I think everyone around the Chamber would agree that we have some amazing high country environment in New Zealand. I can see Shane Ardern nodding over there. I think he would agree that it needs to be protected. So why is the Government compromising its ability to generate revenue that could be put to that purpose by effectively introducing these income-related rents for sheep? That is what this bill of course does. 
 Farmers will be able to capitalise on these new low rentals in the sale price of their leases so they will basically get a windfall gain from this. Farmers who have current leases whose leases are going to go down will get a windfall gain when they onsell that lease to somebody else. Once again we see the Government legislating—legislating—through the House to benefit a select new group of people but that once again fits the pattern of its behaviour.  
Where genuine hardship can be established the Labour Party does support the principle of income-related rents. We support it for human beings so we would support income-related rentals for sheep where genuine hardship can be established but many of these farmers are multimillionaires. They are very very wealthy people. Their properties can be worth up to $10 million. They do not need any more special privilege from this Government which is all about advantaging privileged people.  
Why is it good enough for multimillion-dollar farmers to have income-related rents for their sheep but the Government is not willing to stand by income-related rents for very constrained low-income New Zealand human beings? It does not agree with that. It is here today championing income-related rents for the sheep but it is not willing to stand up and put quite so much gusto into supporting the very same for human beings and that is something that the Labour Party is very passionate about.