Huo Raymond: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Huo Raymond: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:838] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Oh no! Not 6 minutes. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: Thank you Minister. I say to the Minister responsible for this bill that New Zealand taxpayers will be short-changed and a select few farmers will benefit from a rent reduction even though they do not need it. This is just another Government bill that favours the 1 percent at the cost of the 99 percent. 
The Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill seeks to change the rules for setting rents for pastoral leases. If this bill passes then rents will be determined purely on the stock-carrying capacity— 
Jacqui Dean 
: And that’s a good thing. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: —and not on the value of the property or the non-pastoral values I say to Ms Jacqui Dean which these Crown-owned properties are increasingly purchased for. This means that farmers would be given a discount for their rent and the Crown’s rights will be given away to a few select farmers— 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh stop it! That’s silly. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: —who purchased their leases knowing the rules—probably advised correctly by that member. Another serious consequence arises from the fact that many of these farms are going through a tenure review. 
Jacqui Dean 
: What is a tenure review? 
RAYMOND HUO 
: OK let me explain to Ms Jacqui Dean. Tenure review splits the land between the Crown as landlord and the farmers as lessees or tenants meaning that part of the land is converted into a freehold ownership and part of it is converted into public conservation land. After tenure review to gain freehold titles some of the properties are onsold for big profits by those tenants-turned-owners. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Name one. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: OK. If the past is anything to go by of the 77 runs that have completed their tenure review from 1992 to 2008 at least 28 new landholders have onsold 176 parcels of newly freehold land. Combined this land in which the tenant previously had the leasehold interests plus improvements with freehold property from the Crown for $6.9 million was onsold for $134 million. So I say to Ms Jacqui Dean and to the Minister responsible for this bill that the two figures are very vivid—$6.9 million paid to the Crown and onsold for $134 million. 
The current rent is already set at a low 2 percent of the land value. In addition to this there is a mechanism to reduce rents in cases of hardship. My good friend and Labour member for Palmerston North Iain Lees-Galloway asked a very good question in his first reading contribution. The question was: does any member know how many such tenants applied for the discount? The answer was and probably still is “zero”. So that mechanism does not apply to those tenants. So the land information Minister—my favourite Minister—Maurice Williamson knows or must have known that the low rent will be capitalised by the farmers in their sale price when they sell their interest and I think that has been covered quite thoroughly and comprehensively in the Clayton report produced in the 1980s. 
So I say to the Minister that all New Zealanders own the land and it is not right for his Government to just give away part of the Crown’s interest to a select group many of whom do not need it. This is really a case of the National Government ruling in the interests of the privileged few the 1 percent at the cost of the ordinary many the 99 percent of ordinary Kiwis.