Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Chair. Now this is I think going to be a reasonably long session because there is much in this piece of legislation that is abhorrent and fundamentally objectionable to members on this side of the House. So we will want to prosecute the questioning of the Minister in the chair in some detail and I am looking forward to him engaging in a positive and constructive way as we go through the various parts of this legislation and the detail of it.I might say at the outset that we on this side of the House fundamentally object to the intrusion of long-held and highly regarded property rights bestowed by the Crown to leaseholders in a way that is actually effectively throwing them in the rubbish tin and putting aside in some cases several generations of relationships with the Crown that have been effective that have been good and that have been good for not only New Zealand and New Zealanders but for our natural environment as well.I've got a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in my name and my colleagues likewise also have Supplementary Order Papers in their names. So it's my intention certainly with regard to the Supplementary Order Papers in my name to take a range of calls and go through them in detail. But at the outset and for the record it's important that members of the Government understand that at the first possible opportunity a re-elected National-led Government will repeal this legislation notwithstanding that this Government based on its ideological agenda has currently the numbers in the House to pass it. We want to flag that and make it very clear from the outset.So I come to the SOP in my name lettered H" on the table and it relates to the proposed new Schedule 1AB in Part 1 paragraph 14 page 43 of the bill. It is to effectively delete paragraph 14 as is presently numbered in the proposed Part 1 of the bill and replace it with these words: "Maintaining existing seed sowing including by way of direct drilling where direct drilling has been previously consented." Now members opposite may think that well this is a fairly detailed piece of Supplementary Order Paper—what is the purpose why am I talking about this what is the reason what is the rationale? Well the Minister will probably have a very good understanding of it because we know that he is a person who is famous for his attention to detail and his attention to matters that relate to his portfolio area.So as reported back from select committee paragraph 14 in terms of the permitted activities does not acknowledge the property rights of leaseholders for their improvements. Now this is actually quite fundamental because a lease of course is not a freehold but when a property is a lease property the leaseholder has ownership of the improvements to that property. They might not in fact own the land—in terms of our legal system—but they have a legally enforceable property right by way of lease and therefore have ownership of the improvements.Now pasture improvement on these leases of which there are 170-something of them around the countryside has for decades been a process undertaken—well actually it goes back more than 100 years—since the mid-1850s if you please; well before any kind of consenting process was even thought of. Remembering that these original Crown leases were established in good faith effectively as a treaty between individual New Zealand citizens and the Crown. And we're familiar in this Parliament because we often talk about treaties and we often talk about the relationship that the Crown has to signatories of treaties and yet in this case here is legislation that purports to just put aside at the stroke of a legislative pen the property rights of improvements to pasture that have been undertaken by leaseholders over several generations dating back to the 1850s.So the purpose of my Supplementary Order Paper "H" is to acknowledge that these improvements actually do belong to the leaseholders. They have a property right they are an asset and they have invested their time energy blood sweat and toil and not insignificant financial resource in improving the lot of the land that they are leasing. And now by requiring consent to maintain all improvements by way of seed sowing other than that which has been consented this provides a platform for the Crown to effectively alienate the improvement by denial of consent to maintain that improvement. So what I'm saying there is that if under this new regime consent is not granted for the continuation of pastoral investment and maintenance then that is effectively stealing the property ownership of the pasture that has been invested since the 1850s.So I think that the Minister needs to answer questions as to why that is not something that officials and he have taken into account because what we are dealing with in this piece of legislation amounts to property rights—property rights given and agreed in good faith between the Crown and the leaseholders. So that's the first question that I would have for the Minister: does he accept that pasture improvements belong to leaseholders? Does he accept that by this piece of legislation requiring consent to maintain all those improvements that if consent is not given then that is effectively stealing by the Crown by not granting consent to continue pastoral improvement taking away a property asset and a right from those leaseholders?"