Govt crackdown on farm leases
A planned high country farm lease overhaul will crack down on privitisation and put greater emphasis on environmental protection.
It comes after the axing of the controversial tenure review scheme, which saw more than 350,000 hectares of Crown farmland privatised while costing the taxpayer about $65 million, following a scathing report highlighting several failures with the process.
The changes announced by the Government yesterday would allow considerations such as environmental issues to be taken into account when issuing consents. Leaseholders would also have to publicly lay out what they wanted to achieve in managing the land.
Specific criteria for monitoring of the impacts of any changes made to the land will be introduced, looking at the environmental, cultural and economic impacts of the decision.
Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage said the Government would stop the privitisation of iconic landscapes that belong to New Zealanders and secure them for future generations.
‘‘We want to ensure that farmers can farm sustainably while protecting natural values, landscape values, because these dryland ecosystems are really important for our tourism industry, in terms of landscapes, and for all New Zealanders, in terms of their plants and wildlife.’’
She said ending tenure review and changing the way Crown high country land was regulated was about thinking long term and working with leaseholders to achieve sustainable land and water management.
The Crown still holds on to 171 pastoral properties, mostly in the high country of the South Island. It adds up to nearly 5 per cent of New Zealand. They are leased out to farmers, some of which have held the same lease for generations.
Sage said there were no proposed changes to the system of setting rentals on pastoral leases.
Sage said there was still an ability, under the Land Act, to buy part of a property or the whole property on a willing buyer, willing seller basis.
Environmental Defence Society chief executive Gary Taylor was surprised the Government had decided to abandon tenure review rather than consulting on the proposition.
He said tenure review could be a useful tool if run properly but he problem had been its implementation. Past errors and processes could have been addressed while retaining tenure reviews ability to full control of highly valued land to the Crown.
‘‘Instead, the only remaining tool to achieve that outcome is buying out a leaseholder’s interests. But there is no commitment to funding that.’’
About 30 properties are going through the tenure review process, of which about a half dozen were close to reaching an agreement. These will be considered on a case by case basis.
Critics of the reforms have said the resulting privatisation of land handed some of New Zealand’s most valuable land to wealthy property developers, often at a cost to the Crown.
It also allowed more intensified land use, such as irrigated farming, in ecologically sensitive areas such as the Mackenzie Basin.
Some of those who bought land that was formerly Crown leases include Peter Thiel, Graham Hart, and Sir John Key. Some of the most expensive properties advertised for sale in New Zealand are on former pastoral
leases. In numerous cases, land that was privatised by the Crown for significantly less than market value was quickly on-sold for enormous profits.
Supporters of the process, however, say the nature of the Crown lease meant the leaseholders had significant rights over the land, and were thus entitled to most of the benefits of privatisation.
National’s Land Information spokesperson David Bennett said Sage was disregarding ‘‘generations of good stewardship’’ of Crown pastoral land.
‘‘I feel for those caught up in the middle of this process – they need certainty but the only thing certain is that costs are going to rise through the proposed charging for discretionary consent applications for leaseholders. At least the current process doesn’t include rent reviews,’’ he said.
The scheme was reviewed by Land Information New Zealand (Linz), who found the system focused too strongly on the process without a clear sense of what it should be achieving. It did not consider the results of previous decisions or its effects on other areas of the high country. Following public consultation on its proposed changes to how the land is managed, the Government will make changes to the Land Act 1949 and Pastoral Act 1998.