Right to own v right to roam
Matt Lauer makes an appealing villain. In an interview with RNZ, the disgraced American broadcaster gave his side of the emerging furore over access to his lease at Hunter Valley. He labelled himself an easy target, pounced upon at the bottom of his fall from grace; the beautiful farm by the lake was like a dream car, having its wheels taken after he’d bought it.
While he is a deeply unsympathetic victim, Lauer has a point. In buying land and controlling who goes onto it, he’s simply complied with the ethos of the country he loves. The Kiwi affinity for landscapes and a selfproclaimed egalitarian spirit is often overridden by the fierce protection of property rights and, particularly, the right to exclude others.
There have been many changes in the high country, but that ethos remains firm. And Lauer has become its face.
Despite inheriting much of our dominant culture from England, our views about access are polar opposites. In England and Scotland, the ‘‘right to roam’’ in the countryside is standard, and generally non-controversial. Most New Zealanders, on the other hand, probably only know our rural landscape through the view from a car window.
Attempts to gain even a fraction of that access in New Zealand have been deeply fraught, and have made only gradual progress.
Some may remember the last time this issue blew up. In the mid-2000s, the Labour Government proposed a law that would allow public access along significant waterways, including those passing through private land. The common response from farming leaders at the time was that more public access would unleash a bevy of problems.
A petition with 25,000 signatures was delivered to Parliament in two orange coffins, protesting against the proposal. Many farmers closed their gates in protest. A sign at Erewhon station, according to the Listener, had the following words: ‘‘Forgive those that trespass? Not me. I shoot the bastards.’’
The quality of public debate around access, fortunately, has improved. But the issues remain a problem, and one without a consensus answer. In broad strokes, it’s easy to forget the issue at Hunter Valley is not specifically about access to Lauer’s farm but to the conservation land behind it.
No-one is proposing a picnic at Lauer’s farmstead; they simply want to get to public land they’re entitled to enjoy. Without easy access, Hunter Valley station becomes the end point of a cul-de-sac, leaving entry to our national heritage at the whims of a foreign millionaire who can afford to become the gatekeeper.
A look at the Walking Access Commission’s interactive map shows the problem is not isolated. In many areas, conservation land is effectively gated by private land.
You can see it around Lake Tekapo; along the entire eastern shore of the lake, there are just two access points to the lake, tucked among what is otherwise a long stretch of empty private land. Getting to one rugged section of Aoraki-Mount Cook National Park requires a fair amount of planning – one has to drive an extra hour around Lake Pukaki, find a boat or a helicopter across the Tasman River, and then hike up into the park. A road that already exists on a nearby farm would make an all-day trip last a couple of hours, but the gate is locked.
All of these farms are New Zealand-owned. In his defence, Lauer told RNZ people simply had to ring the station to arrange access beforehand, as is longstanding Kiwi tradition.
The problem is those traditions are from a different era; instead of ringing the local cocky to duck through some paddocks, we have long lines of people, many of them tourists, wanting permission to pass through a farm that may be owned by a Russian oligarch, a UK hedge fund manager, or an American broadcaster.
The Hunter Valley debate has highlighted how these broader questions of access and ownership remain unresolved. What is public land if there is no easy public access, and how do we secure it?
Matt Lauer has become the face for this question, which he rightly says is unfair. He’s just doing it the New Zealand way.