Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:670;Page:16795] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 Of all the contributions I have heard in the House the previous speech from David Parker was the most full of jealousy and spite. It summed up Labour members’ attitude to the farmers of New Zealand. The Government wants to protect property rights but Mr Parker calls the farmers filthy rich millionaires and says he will deal to them. 
Labour has rolled Damien O’Connor. Here is what Damien O’Connor said on 4 August: “High country rentals based on earning capacity is a good principle 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 but David Parker and Mr Hodgson have obviously rolled Damien because they have changed tack. It sounds to me—though Mr Parker was not prepared to say so—that Labour is now going to oppose the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill.  
I am proud to be part of this debate because it gives some finality and surety to a small group of people who were treated in a despicable manner by Mr Parker and Helen Clark and the previous Labour Government. Mr Parker does not realise that the high country farmers of New Zealand are a very special breed of people. They live in the harshest environment in New Zealand. They live and farm there over a long period of time in order to bring up their families. On the whole they do a superb job for the environment. They certainly do a substantially better job than any Wellington-based Government department could ever do with the area but Helen Clark never believed so. For some reason she had a real snitcher against the high country farmers. I thought it was just Helen Clark who had that attitude but we have seen tonight that so does David Parker. Every National member in the caucus should send David Parker’s speech to every farmer they know. We now know the respect that David Parker has for property rights.  
Over the 9 long years of the previous Labour Government Helen Clark’s Government ran a concerted campaign to run high country farmers off the land. The first tactic was effectively to stop tenure review by demanding that the Department of Conservation become totally obstructive grabbing more and more good pastoral land for the Department of Conservation estate. When that failed Helen Clark and David Parker then announced they would automatically exclude a good number of the properties from tenure review because they might have a water view. That is what David Parker did and that approach did not kick the farmers off the land so the previous Labour Government came up with the final strike and raised the rent by hundreds sometimes thousands of percent. I tell Mr Parker that I know of farms where the rent he proposed for the high country station was actually higher than the gross income of the farm property. How was that ever going to work? It was not. 
We are finally giving some security back to the farming families. We are going to leave them with a rent that is based on income-earning capacity. It is a rent that is affordable. It is a rent that will leave those farmers with some money to spend on things to address weeds and pests so that they can maintain the environment. I ask Mr Parker to think how unsettling his and Helen Clark’s vendetta on these people was for the 9 years that Labour was in Government. Mr Parker laughs but he should have got to know these people. He came from the area. It is no wonder they kicked him out as the member of Parliament for Otago. If he had any empathy with these people at all he would know what his and the previous Labour Government’s policy did for them. 
I am very proud to support this legislation. It finally brings resolution to what has been a very difficult issue for our high country community. It gives a clear demonstration that the National Government actually respects the property rights of the high country farmers. They had a lease in perpetuity which Mr Parker was inclined to completely ignore and then come up with all these other very devious ways of trying to drive them off the land. The bill provides an equitable settlement for all parties. It will be simpler to administrate. It will be more transparent. It provides a fair rent. It allows the guys who live in that environment to get on with the job of farming and to look after the high country. I will guarantee to Mr Parker that those guys will do a substantially better job than any Government bureaucracy could ever do.