Dean Jacqui: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dean Jacqui: Crown Pastoral Land (Rent for Pastoral Leases) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:678;Page:1273] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I am happy to follow on from that well-known farmer-hater Raymond Huo demonstrating once again— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at that. People in a debate have a bit of a jocular back and forth but characterising people on this side of the House as people who hate farmers when it is patently untrue will lead to disorder. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I have tolerated the term in the general sense and I think to direct it to an individual is further than I am prepared to tolerate so I just ask the member to desist. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: I want to follow on from that Labour member’s contribution that Labour member who represents a party that clearly hates farmers by its members’ comments not only in this debate but also in other aspects of when they were in Government and what they promised to do should God forbid they ever take the Treasury benches again which I sincerely hope they do not.  
But I want to pick up the point that the previous speaker made about Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright’s report into stewardship of the high country which actually I was reading just this afternoon. I want to pick up on her recommendations. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: What section is that? What part? What part is that? Whereabouts in the bill? 
JACQUI DEAN 
: I think it was—well I am talking about another report. There is yet another Labour member who does not bother to follow the debate. I am referring at the moment and I will say this fairly slowly to the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment into stewardship of the high country where she made a number of recommendations which were referred to by the previous speaker Mr Huo.  
The point that the previous speaker made was that one of the recommendations that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment made was that the Government set up a high country commission. I see value in that. I see a high country commission as being able to look at the high country as a whole because there are a number of aspects to high country farming that are critical to New Zealand; we know that. We know that high country farmers are good stewards of the land. We know that high country farmers have been farming sustainably for 120 years in the same family in some circumstances. Those high country farmers are inordinately proud of the fact that they have taken rabbit-infested unwanted Crown land and turned it into a productive unit. So we understand the productive value of the high country.  
Those farmers also understand the environmental aspects of what they do. In fact they have a very close association with and interest in maintaining the sustainability of their farming operations. Ask any farmer in New Zealand—if only those members were aware of that and they are clearly not—what sustainable farming means. That means improving the environment. I think that high country farmers have an incredibly clear focus on doing that. I can think of a number of initiatives by high country farmers where they are very keen— 
Hon Member 
: Name them. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: On Balmoral Station. They are very keen on establishing Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust covenants to protect biodiversity elements. That is something that the Greens also have failed to recognise.  
So yes the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment made a number of recommendations in her report on sustainable use of the high country. One of those was interestingly that tenure review should continue. I do not think the member perhaps got to that part of the report but it is important to remember that.