Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 01 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1837. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister for Primary Industries)  
on behalf of the Minister for Land Information: I move  
That the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I am particularly pleased and proud to see this bill back before Parliament tonight. I am thankful for the cooperative working relationship I have established with the Hon Maurice Williamson as Minister for Land Information.  
Tonight we see the final stage of what has been a very unfair and very unfortunate battle with a relatively small number of highly specialised South Island high country farmers. This battle was started by the former Labour Government for reasons that fail any logical explanation whatsoever. The former Labour Prime Minister Ms Helen Clark did enjoy the high country. She was known to have an affinity for the high country. She was known to go there and spend her time trekking the high country and her adventures through the high country were well publicised. But if she had an affinity for the high country she certainly had no affinity at all for the farmers and their families who try to eke out an existence in this very hostile and fragile environment.  
What drove Helen Clark’s jealousy and distaste for those high country farmers is something that we will never know for sure. There are lots of rumours around the high country as to what drove this jealousy and this hatred from the former Labour Prime Minister. One rumour was that she had trespassed with her trekking party on to private property. All she had to have done was ask for permission. But of course with somebody as arrogant as Helen Clark she did not do that. And of course the farmer aggrieved by the fact of finding somebody on private property asked her to leave. Whether that was the reason or not the point I make is that she simply had to ask and that access would certainly have been granted.  
Having come up with a dislike of and hatred for these farmers Ms Clark and her Labour Government went out to get these guys. They dramatically increased the rents for the lease that these leasehold farmers would then have to pay to the Government. She was ably assisted in this process by the Hon David Parker who I have no doubt will make some contribution shortly in this debate because he had a similar atrocious attitude to these high country farmers. Again I do not know why he hated these people. It may have been because he came into Parliament as the member for Otago representing the majority of those people and as constituents they quickly realised that he had no affinity with them so they dumped him after 3 years as their member of Parliament. I can now say they are very well served by the current member for that area Jacqui Dean who has got to know those families and to understand their issues. She has developed an affinity with those high country farmers.  
What drove the hateful attitude of Mr Parker and Ms Clark towards the farmers is unknown but what they did then was march the rents up for those properties by not doubling not tripling but in many cases increasing them by 10 times. In cases they drove the rents so high they were higher than the gross income that the farmer received from that property. Mr Parker laughs at this but that is how stupid his policy was. Mr Parker never realised that the major income for those people was an annual wool cheque. Most of their income came from merino wool. He was expecting the rent to be higher than that wool cheque absolutely disregarding the fact that it costs money to run these farms. This Government wants to see these farmers with enough money to spend on weed control wants to see these farmers with enough money to spend on pest control. But Mr Parker wanted to make sure there was no money left for those expenditures.  
So what National did in the 2008 election campaign was to campaign to fix this ridiculous policy. We said we would make sure we established rents on the basis of what a farmer can earn from his land. In times when wool prices are good farmers can afford to pay more to the Government for the rental of that land but equally in times when wool prices are not good they cannot. I want those farming families to stay on that country. I want them to be good enough and to have enough money left to sustain themselves and their families and to improve the property. If they do not improve the properties—and Mr Parker and Ms Clark drove them off the properties and it all fell back on the taxpayer and on the Department of Conservation. You ask any person who logically knows that country who will look after the high country better: a Government department or those farmers who have been there for generations. I tell Mr Parker that it will not be the Department of Conservation. That is not its skill set.  
The responsibility comes back on the Crown if these farmers are not able to physically survive on that land. We have to make sure that we deliver income-related rents and that is the policy that we have espoused tonight. We progressed the legislation as well as we could through the first term of the National Government. We did not get it passed before the last election but I gave my word to the high country farmers that we would do it as soon as possible in 2011-12. We are doing that tonight.  
The final point I want to make is that when the policy was released on 3 August 2010 the Labour Party through Damien O’Connor supported it. Mr O’Connor said on 4 August: “High country rentals based on earning capacity is a good principle on which to base lease payments to the Crown …”. He went on to say: “I am sure farmers will welcome the decision and get on with farming and protecting their leasehold properties”. I agree with Damien O’Connor. He saw the sense in this policy yet when the bill finally came back to the House for its first reading Labour opposed it. Damien O’Connor had been completely embarrassed and rolled by his caucus.  
Hon David Parker 
: Rubbish! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Mr Parker says: “Rubbish!”. Why did the Labour Party through its spokesman at the time support it when it was announced yet when the bill came into the House for its first reading the Labour Opposition opposed it? There can be only one answer Mr Parker unless you are as illogical about this as you were about your original policy. Damien O’Connor got rolled again. It is because of David Parker leading the debate in their caucus room because Mr Parker has never understood these families who farm the high country.  
In closing I want to thank the Primary Production Committee under the superb chairmanship of Shane Ardern for the work it has done in considering the bill. To all of those who made submissions to help get the bill even better I express my appreciation. There has been significant support amongst those submissions. The committee did introduce some useful amendments including the purpose clause. This bill will make the process for setting rents for pastoral leases much more transparent and much more predictable. The process will be less expensive for the Crown and less expensive for the lessees. Crown pastoral leases are a unique form of tenure under which the farmers do carry out their pastoral activities while preserving conservation ability. The Crown gets considerable ecological benefits from having pastoral leases on these unique landscapes of the South Island high country.  
Finally I want to thank officials from Land Information New Zealand and the Ministry for Primary Industries for their help and their work in what has been a complex task of developing this new rental system. The Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill will eliminate the huge amount of friction with the Crown that was developed by Mr Parker and Ms Clark. We have restored the lessees’ confidence in Government.