Martin Tracey: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Martin Tracey: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:846] 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the second reading of the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First opposes this bill but we bring a fresh perspective. We oppose this bill for a number of reasons. 
Firstly I want to reiterate what New Zealand First campaigned on and what was in my maiden speech—that we seek to be a positive and constructive Opposition. We provide informed commentary and useful suggestions. We will support good policy and good law regardless of who is its author. Unfortunately we cannot find any of that inside this bill. We believe that this bill is a dreadful piece of legislation which like far too much of this Government’s policy agenda is completely unnecessary. By attempting to address another problem that does not actually exist this bill will have the effect of making this situation worse rather than better. 
Due to our unplanned absence from this House through the term of the 49th Parliament New Zealand First has not had prior opportunity to comment on this particular bill. If we had we would have highlighted to the Government the farming community and the wider public the fundamental shortcoming of this bill’s approach to the setting of rentals for Crown leasehold land and the shortcomings of the ideology behind that approach. 
The present system bases rent on value of land excluding improvements. This is set at around 1.5 to 2 percent and it has worked well for more than a century. It could have worked far better for a good two-thirds of that time if the Crown had proved to be a better and more responsible landlord and if the Crown had invested in improvements that farmers were unable to fund for themselves because banks would not lend against leases that had no guaranteed right of renewal. 
In 1948 the Government sought to remedy this problem by granting leaseholders the right of renewal in perpetuity. Since then farming in the precarious and marginal environment of the high country has been able to continue with the reassurance that at least one vagary has been removed. However now that those leases which were first renewed in 1948 are coming due for their third renewal this Government appears to have decided that a new method for determining the rents is needed. It appears to be partly in response to the unsatisfactory situation created as a result of the previous administration’s high country 10-year review process and partly as an exercise in finding an excuse to put those rents up. 
 The Government’s reasoning and methodology for engineering this increase in rent differs from that of the Labour Opposition but its intent and the end results will be the same. The high country tenure review process came about because of a desire to create a national park of sorts across the roof of New Zealand stretching the length of the South Island. 
The previous Government regarded this environment as special and iconic and rightly so. That Government proclaimed a desire to remove this land from the care of the farmers who had nurtured and preserved it for well over 100 years and to make it available as a playground for the public at large. Although this stated intention may well have been honourable if somewhat idyllic it remains a reality in application if not in theory that such a wilderness would come to be the preserve of only a very few with the time and wherewithal by which to access it. 
It is the view of New Zealand First that that plan was an elitist one driven by ideology and created without regard to the realities of the environment in question. There was no adequate recognition of the input made by farmers and the control of plant and animal pests and no corresponding increase in resourcing for the Department of Conservation to allow the department to take over these duties where the leaseholders would be leaving off. 
There appeared to be little appreciation amongst some of the proponents of the high country tenure review process—those who wanted to take the land in question away from the farming estate in order to preserve its iconic appearance. There appeared to be a lack of appreciation that this very iconic appearance had itself been created and preserved by the actions of 150 years of farming. Gorse rabbits wilding pines deer goats and thistle were kept at bay only by the constant efforts of thousands of farmers shepherds musterers hunters spraying contractors and all those who worked the land and in doing so preserved its natural appeal. 
The unintended consequence of allowing farmers to freehold higher value lowland country in exchange for higher tracts of high country leasehold land was that some farmers found themselves in possession of prime lakefront and other very aesthetic property that was ripe for development. Naturally of course the elitists did not want them to have that either. They wanted to have their idealistic cake and to eat it too. 
As far as setting new rents is concerned if Labour’s desire to change farmers’ rent based on the amenity value of pleasing vistas—which they the farmers themselves had helped to mould—was not bad enough New Zealand First believes that the National Government’s proposal to charge them based on the value of the farming operation is actually even worse. The former proposal could be likened to letting a tenant redecorate his house at his own expense and then putting up the rent to reflect the fact that the house was now nicer to live in. The latter however is more like making a random assessment of how much turnover a business should be able to make and charging the owner a rent based on that. Whether his operation is capable of achieving it or sustaining it is not in play. 
The proposals in this bill do not constitute a formula for setting rent on marginal high country land. They are a tax on the operations of farming businesses plain and simple. New Zealand First does not believe that rents on high country leasehold land need to be increased at all. Indeed we agree in part with the findings of the 2005 Armstrong committee which found that in many cases they were actually too high already. 
If the farming value of land is to be used to determine the rent payable on it then in times of downturn farmers will reduce their maintenance of more marginal country allowing it to deteriorate and thus reducing the value further knowing that such will be reflected in the following annual review. If neither the farmers nor the Department of Conservation is looking after such land it will indeed cease to be iconic in very short order. 
New Zealand First believes that the farmers of the high country have proven themselves to be the best guardians over the past six generations and that the results of their efforts are to the benefit of the nation as a whole. We believe the tenure review process was and is a mistake in its entirety and that rentals should be returned to the formula that has been proven to work over a century and a half and which reflects the otherwise unpaid service that the farmers of the high country provide to the nation in preserving our national image and all the benefits that that brings. 
New Zealand First supports the farmers of this country and we oppose this unnecessary and undesirable bill and the unjustifiable regime of taxation that it imposes. Thank you.