Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Carter David: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:839] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister for Primary Industries) 
: 
 It is a pleasure for me to take a very brief call on the Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill in its second reading and it is a particular pleasure following the contribution by the Labour member whom I have just had to listen to. He spouts what we have heard from the Labour Party with regard to this legislation throughout its progress in the House. We have heard speeches full of jealousy and envy that are not focused at all on how best to look after what is perhaps the most fragile farming environment in this country. 
The history of this goes back to the vindictiveness of a former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark who had it in for 300-odd high country families who are attempting to do their best to farm and live in the high country. She decided she would do everything she could to drive those families out of the high country because her ambition for that country was to make it a huge Department of Conservation estate. That would have meant further ecological damage to the high country and we have seen that with the likes of St James Station with Birchwood Station where the previous Labour Government paid millions. I think I am right in saying it paid $40 million for the St James Station and now it worries about how it can look after that property whereas previously it was farmed for generations by the Stevenson family who did a good job and paid a rent to the Government for the privilege of farming this country. 
What we saw immediately when we put the policy out there—and frankly it was another election promise of the National Government in the lead-up to the 2008 election—and announced we would be making a change to the rental basis for these high country leases was the Hon Damien O’Connor coming out and praising the National Government and saying that that is exactly what Labour would have done if it had been the Government from 2008 onward. We were surprised—Mr Williamson will recall the night we sat in here as we brought this bill into the House for the first reading and surprise surprise Damien O’Connor sat silently and David Parker took the first call. If any listener ever wants to see the most vindictive speech that has probably ever been delivered in this Parliament in recent decades they should look at that first reading speech by the Hon David Parker. 
That is what the Labour Party opposition to this is all about. They see these high country farming families as rich people who deserve to be got to by the Government. That is what it attempted to do by raising the rents not by 10 times but in some cases by 20 times to the extent we can quote farms today where the rents proposed by the Labour Government under its formula were higher than the gross income from the farming property. How practical would that ever have been? So it is with delight that we have had the ability to work with the Hon Maurice Williamson as Minister for Land Information to deliver back into Parliament rents that are based on what they should be based on and that is the income-earning capacity of that property. Because the income-earning capacity of the property then determines that the farmer has some money left at the end of the day to do the weed control and the pest control that is essential for the ecological protection of these properties and to make sure they actually make a profit. 
That is a dirty word on the other side of the House but I actually want to see these farmers making a profit. I know these people well and when they make money they pour it back into their property trying to raise productivity and trying to increase the amount of fine merino wool they send out of the country. We have this stupid situation developing in this country where Icebreaker which is an absolute success story is in danger of having to curtail its expansion as a company because it cannot get enough merino wool grown in the high country. So that is what happens when Helen Clark—and the current Labour Opposition—attempts to lock this country up take it out of production and make sure it is unavailable for the productive economy of this country. 
I am pleased to speak to this bill. What this is about is delivering some certainty back to those high country families who have put up with nothing but sheer hell for the 10 years that that Labour Government was in power.