O'Connor DamienHon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Land Information): Thank you very much and indeed it is a pleasure to have this bill back in the Chamber. It has been hanging around for a while. I couldn't quite remember the last question the member asked from so long ago but anyway I'll try to go through and answer a few of the things. A little bit of background just at the fact that the bill's come back in I guess. We go back to the reality: this is Crown-owned land. There was the tragedy of the commons going way back prior to 70 years and of course the Crown realised that actually the land wasn't being looked after because there wasn't some vested interest. So they set up these Crown leases which didn't give ownership of the land—that remained with the Crown—but gave the lessees the right to pasturage. It didn't give them the right to soil but pasturage in perpetual renewal which gave them certainty and quiet enjoyment—those were quaint kinds of things when you look back at them now. But none the less we recognise the questions around the purpose; we recognise and respect those legal rights and we're not trying to take them away. It was the National Government in 1997 actually which set up the tenure review process which was new. The view was that there were areas that could be freeholded and some would go back to the Crown for conservation purposes and indeed that proceeded and most of the easy ones were done whether there was clear delineation between high conservation values and commercial opportunities. For the last probably 10 years it's got really hard and really messy and really sticky and it's consumed huge amounts of time and effort from both the Crown as the owner of the land and the lessees who have considered whether they should go through a tenure review process—half of them have gone halfway through and pulled out; it's got really messy. So this bill tries to clarify the rights and in fact many of the lease holders that I have spoken to are quite comfortable—they want to get on and have the security to farm the land. They won't own the land because we'll end the tenure review and indeed they just want to be able to farm it and enjoy the rights and the benefits of it.So without going into the technical details of it there will be conditions that will be laid down through closer engagement between the Crown and the lessees—that's what they asked of us. They want more regular visits they want to be able to talk to the landlord—Barbara Kuriger: No they don't.Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR: Yes they do and indeed the cheap politicking that we see from the other side fails to address what is an opportunity to give some certainty to those high-country lessees and many are in the process now; some will be concluded and others won't. In fact I've been on many many properties myself as well and they are all different and we're trying to accommodate that through the new provisions around normal farming practices just being accepted and they can get on and do those things.In theory under the National Government's legislation because they changed it every one of those activities required a consent—every one of them. What the commissioner did is he said Well I'll write over; I'll delegate that and they won't have to apply every time they need a consent to dig a post hole or do other things." but it was actually in the National Government legislation. What we're attempting to do here is to clarify what were really petty things and petty requirements into normal farm practice and when there are some practices on-farm that might need to be considered by the landowner on behalf of all New Zealanders then they'll work through that process. I've committed to the lessees and to all the high country farmers that we'll work through that with the proper resources and the connection that we need to have with those lease holders and there are some things that should not occur in those sensitive areas. So that's what we're putting in place. Yes there'll always be some controversy but I think we've pretty much worked through all the issues. We had a last-minute submission from the High Country Accord asking for a few changes that they thought might add to the bill. Look I've looked at them really carefully but in the end most of them have been covered through the process of consideration and at this stage we won't be making any changes to the legislation. I think we had a really good attempt to sit down and talk right up to the last minute to agree with both the principles with the certain provisions and the conditions that we'll require consents for and ultimately the process of engagement and I think we got it about right."