Friday, March 29, 2024

Concern over proposed land reform changes

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Changes proposed in the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill threaten the viability of high country farming for pastoral lessees.
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Kate Cocks & Emily Murray | March 23, 2021 from GlobalHQ on Vimeo.

The Bill proposes to amend the Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and the Land Act 1948, to end tenure review and redesign the regulatory system to deliver improved Crown pastoral outcomes.

But farmers say the Bill is poorly drafted, placing unreasonable limitations on day-to-day farming activities for pastoral leaseholders.

Farmers will be bogged down in red tape and environmental outcomes would go backwards.

The Bill was introduced and passed its first reading in Parliament in July last year and is now before the Select Committee.

It will both end tenure review and redesign the regulatory system regarding leases.

The right to freehold the land will be lost as the tenure review process is dropped.

“It’s a pretty heavy one this one, it’s just unworkable,” Federated Farmers high country chair Rob Stokes said.

The proposed changes will effectively take away the rights of high country farmers, negatively impacting farmers’ ability to farm environmentally, economically and sustainably.

“The approach taken adds an unnecessary level of controls and associated red tape,” he said.

“It duplicates and potentially contradicts consenting requirements under district and regional planning requirements, reduces the independence of the commissioner for Crown Lands, and reduces the certainty around future rentals for these perpetual leases.

Stokes says when the tenure review was dropped there should have been a plan in place to pick up from there.

“There was no plan and now we have this; we just hope we (farmers) will get more liaison with the Government to get a workable outcome from here,” he said.

He says while there are many areas of concern in the Bill, key ones include the definition of inherent value now including landscape and characteristic of a natural resource, which is very broadly phrased and encompasses nearly everything.

“What is extremely concerning is the new subsection that states any inherent value does not include any value that relates to or is associated with farming activity,” he said.

“This one addition undermines the entire history, culture and working landscape of high country farming.”

The new section 4 states the outcomes that decision-makers must adhere to, thereby significantly reducing any flexibility the commissioner has.

All inherent values must be maintained or enhanced, keeping in mind that these cannot relate to farming.  

“Pastoral farming is basically a second-tier consideration,” he said.

The new section 4 also opens the possibility of rent increases by enabling the Crown to get a fair return on its ownership interest in pastoral land.

It states that fair return relates to rents, easements and recreational permits.

The Bill supports the Crown-Maori partnership as required under the Treaty of Waitangi.

There is a new section on Maori interests stating the Crown must recognise and provide for the relationship of Maori and their cultures and tradition with their ancestral lands, water, Mahinga kai and wahi tapu. 

This inclusion will impact on discretionary consent applications, recreational permit or stock limitation exemptions.

With the new discretionary test (new section 12), minimal activities will be able to get a discretionary consent.

Consents must be declined if more than minor adverse effects, or there is a reasonable alternative to the activity that has lesser adverse effects on inherent values.

Of crucial importance in the discretionary test process is section 12(6), which prevents the financial viability of farming under the lease, or the economic sustainability of the farming enterprise or any economic benefits being considered.

Of extreme concern, thrown in at the very end of the Bill, is a provision that states that there will be no compensation payable by the Crown should this Bill come into effect, and that it will overrule any other rule of law.

The Bill is now with the Environment Select Committee and open for public submissions. 

Feds High Country is making a submission, as is the High Country Accord, and encourages all other lessees to do the same.

Submissions close on February 22.

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