Sage EugenieCROWN PASTORAL LAND REFORM BILLFirst ReadingHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister for Land Information): I move That the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill. This bill changes the Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and the Land Act 1948 to end tenure review and ensure Crown pastoral land is administered in a way that maintains or enhances its ecological landscape cultural heritage and scientific values for present and future generations. Crown pastoral lands extend over approximately 1.2 million hectares largely in the South Island high country making up almost 5 percent of Aotearoa New Zealand's total land area. Most of this land is leased by the Crown for pastoral farming in 169 pastoral leases. It encompasses some of Aotearoa's most dramatic landscapes from the developed grassy river flats to low tussock and matagouri shrublands to scree slopes. Some leases are in big braided river valleys such as the Rākaia and the Rangitata being farmed beneath big skies and against the backdrop of Kā Tiritiri o te Moana the Southern Alps. These landscapes and this land are important to New Zealanders and to the leaseholders who farm and also operate other businesses on it especially leaseholders who live there. Crown pastoral land is important to Māori in particular Ngāi Tahu as the majority of Crown pastoral land lies inside their takiwā. Traditionally associated with merino farming large high country stations now support a mix of sheep beef and deer farming producing high-quality food and fibre products while others also host commercial recreation activities such as walking and guided hunting. And it's the wetlands drylands tussock lands and beach forests on Crown pastoral land and their inherent values which are also important. They are home to distinctive native plants and wildlife: gentian celmisia daisies tussocks moths grasshoppers and other invertebrates skinks and birds such as harrier and kakī. There's been a longstanding public interest in the management of Crown pastoral land particularly in the large-scale land-use change that resulted from tenure review. Tenure review has involved freeholding thousands of hectares of former Crown pastoral land often without adequate recognition of its significant inherent values and once in private ownership this land has often been developed for more intensive farming or onsold and subdivided. Other former Crown pastoral land has been restored to full Crown ownership as conservation land resulting in the creation of new high country parks. So in 2018 there was a review of the Crown pastoral land regulatory system which found that the system is overly focused on operational considerations and transactions without a clear sense of the outcomes it seeks to achieve and that it has a limited understanding of accumulative impacts of decisions by the Commissioner of Crown Lands over time. The review recommended that Government more clearly articulate the outcomes it wants from Crown pastoral land so this bill amends the Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and the Land Act 1948 to introduce a new outcomes-based approach. It seeks to ensure that Land Information New Zealand or LINZ and the Commissioner of Crown Lands administer this land in a way that maintains and enhances its ecological landscape cultural heritage and scientific values for both present and future generations while providing for ongoing pastoral farming. The changes are intended to better manage and control any further development or intensification of pastoral farming and to encourage sustainable use of land for pastoral farming and activities such as commercial recreation. The single most important change in the bill is that it ends tenure review once the bill becomes law. Then only those applications that have received a substandard proposal from the Commissioner of Crown Lands will continue to be implemented. All other tenure review applications will cease. With the ending of tenure review and this privatisation process we also need to change the regulatory system to deliver these improved outcomes for the Crown's ownership interest and to support leaseholders in the stewardship of the land. So the bill makes the following changes to the way that Crown pastoral land is administered to do this. Firstly it includes Schedule 1AB which classifies pastoral activities based on their likely impact on the land's inherent values. Pastoral farming activities such as controlling exotic plant pests will be classified as permitted while other activities such as burning or clearing indigenous vegetation are classified as discretionary and the commissioner can either decline or agree to them. Some activities such as draining or cultivating wetlands are proposed to be prohibited. This schedule is intended to improve the timeliness and efficiency of the decision-making process for discretionary pastoral activities. It will enable LINZ and the commissioner to focus their resources on applications with a higher risk of impacts while allowing leaseholders to undertake activities which are part of normal farming practice and which only have very minor impacts such as fencing within existing cultivated paddocks without need for a consent. This schedule will be regularly reviewed in consultation with leaseholders and the broader public.Secondly the bill introduces a new statutory decision-making process that the Commissioner of Crown Lands must follow when making decisions on applications for discretionary pastoral activities. That process includes assessments about whether the effects are minor whether the activity is necessary to enable a leaseholder to exercise their rights and obligations under the lease.Thirdly the bill provides for clearer more transparent decision-making stronger accountability and more opportunity for public and leaseholder involvement. This includes new reporting obligations which strengthen the accountability on LINZ and the Commissioner of Crown Lands requiring the publication of decisions on applications for discretionary pastoral activities and introducing new enforcement tools with the focus on promoting the achievement of the outcomes.The bill also aims to support the Crown in its relationships with Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi. It does this by requiring the Crown to recognise and provide for the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands water mahinga kai wāhi tapu and other taonga when considering applications for discretionary pastoral activities and when considering any protection mechanisms over Crown pastoral land. The bill also requires the Crown to consult with iwi in developing a strategic intentions document any regulatory instruments and the monitoring framework for Crown pastoral land. Let me be very clear. None of the proposed changes in the bill are intended to prevent pastoral farming on Crown pastoral land. There are no changes to leaseholders' tenure their right to pasturage the quiet enjoyment of leasehold properties their rights of renewal or their responsibilities for pest and weed control. Rather the changes in this bill are intended to encourage leaseholders to manage the land in a way that reduces impacts or better still actively enhances the inherent values of the land that they lease from the Crown. Can I acknowledge the valuable impact in the development of the bill from iwi particularly Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu stakeholders such as the High Country Accord trust Forest & Bird Federated Farmers the Environmental Defence Society and the wider public. Their involvement has helped ensure that the changes in the bill are practical. I'm also grateful to those who took the time to submit on the public discussion document Enduring stewardship of Crown pastoral land which was released last year. There were some 3248 submissions on that document and the issues that were raised in those submissions helped shape the bill. So I look forward to the further public submissions and comment and analysis through the Environment Committee process. This Government will take a pragmatic approach to developing any improvements to the bill as it's introduced to ensure that we have a very effective regulatory system for Crown pastoral land. The changes in the bill are significant. They're being done to ensure that LINZ the Commissioner of Crown Lands leaseholders in their responsibilities for managing these important lands do that well and so the public can have confidence in our regulatory system. I commend this bill to the House.