New Thinking

EDITORIAL

Reform Bill will come at a significant cost

THERE is much more at stake in the debate over the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill than its innocuous name suggests.

At the core is the future of 170 pastoral lessees and management of 5% of NZ’s total land area, but of more significance is the politics surrounding the Bill which has farmers justifiably nervous.

The Bill ends tenure review and subjects pastoral lessees to additional scrutiny by Land Information NZ, along with tough new controls about what they can do to their leases.

Its architect is former Forest and Bird field officer, tenure review critic, Green Party MP and former lands minister Eugenie Sage.

Given her background, it should not surprise anyone that Sage’s Bill tilts the playing field in favour of conservation.

In doing so, lessees claim the new rules are so far reaching it makes it impossible to farm the properties as originally intended, threatens their viability and effectively invalidates their agreement with the Crown.

Lessees are understandably angry at the cavalier dismissal of their stewardship of the land, especially given the weed-infested state of much conservation land.

We should all be concerned at the threat to the heritage and majesty of a landscape that has been used to promote NZ and NZ agricultural production.

This small group of farmers have garnered some powerful allies, including Victoria University legal academics, who have warned the Bill threatens the viability of lessees by lumping them with the cost of conservation.

There are legitimate questions about the legislative process.

The Bill is being heard by Parliament’s Environment Select Committee, even though it has far reaching consequences for farming families, and it is chaired by Sage who lost her ministerial position at the last election.

There are no farmers on the committee, although wine grower Stuart Smith has a farming background.

The Bill as it stands is so far reaching, leases will either have to be renegotiated or parties will head to court

Sage may think she is achieving a long held conservation wish, but it will come at a significant social and financial cost.

Neal Wallace

LETTERS $3.5 million won’t save wool

I WAS intrigued by chief executive Andy Caughey’s statement in the March 29 issue of Farmers Weekly that “with a budget of $3.5 million … and strong government support … funding is not a hurdle” for SWAG in their effort to rescue the wool industry.

The state of the wool industry is dire. The benefits of wool as a natural renewable, non-polluting and biodegradable resource are immense.

The environmental damage done by plastic substitutes is horrific. Natural fibres should replace oil-based synthetics. Three-point-five million dollars and strong government support – whatever that means – is a pittance compared to what could and should be put into resuscitating the wool industry

Our government has spent $50m on the Pike River coal mine, $30m returning dead soldiers from South-East Asia, $75m on the thoroughbred industry to bolster NZ First’s chances in last year’s election, $136m on the America’s Cup, including almost $1m for Rod Stewart to sing to us from London, and a billion each to Auckland and Wellington for new roads to carry bigger and better traffic jams. Plus budgeted a billion or more in subsidies for the film industry over the next decade.

You can argue till the cows come home over whether or not all that expenditure is desirable or necessary, but what it does tells us is that $3.5m is nothing when it comes to trying to rescue one of our main export industries, an industry that effectively built and sustained the New Zealand economy from the 1880s until the 1970s.

Action speaks louder than words and budgets.

The Government has declared a climate emergency; in an emergency people act. Changing from plastic and synthetics to hemp cotton, mohair and wool is surely part of a rapid response to that emergency.

The current level of funding is an acknowledgement that our political influence is zero and indicates that the Government’s climate emergency declaration is hollow.

I support SWAG and their efforts, but I remain sceptical of their chances if they think a few million dollars will save us, and the “strong government support” is only represented by a tiny fraction of the encouragement dished out to aging rocker Rod, the America’s Cup and an eternity of remakes of Avatar and Lord of the Rings.

Tim Gilbertson

Hawke’s Bay

Time to stand up

YOUR editorial of March 29 bemoans the farming industry’s lack of political influence. Lobbying for change is all very well as far as it goes, but most farmers will say it doesn’t go far enough. Confrontation, when all else has failed, conveys a very important political message, which is that “we” in opposing “your” policies/ actions have the ability to organise concerted resistance. Otherwise the politicians practice the strategy of divide and rule.

It is the demonstrated ability to organise that politicians fear and respect. A good place for farmers in Canterbury to start might be to refuse to pay the fee of $230 that ECan proposes to levy consent holders for receiving and storing water-use data.

Bill Wrigley Dunsandel

Farmers Weekly is published by GlobalHQ, PO Box 529, Feilding 4740. New Zealand Phone: 0800 85 25 80 Website: www.farmersweekly.co.nz EDITOR Bryan Gibson 06 323 1519

bryan.gibson@globalhq.co.nz EDITORIAL Carmelita Mentor-Fredericks 06 323 0769 editorial@globalhq.co.nz Neal Wallace 03 474 9240 neal.wallace@globalhq.co.nz Colin Williscroft 027 298 6127 colin.williscroft@globalhq.co.nz Annette Scott 021 908 400 annette.scott@globalhq.co.nz Hugh Stringleman 09 432 8594 hugh.stringleman@globalhq.co.nz Gerald Piddock 027 486 8346 gerald.piddock@globalhq.co.nz Richard Rennie 07 552 6176 richard.rennie@globalhq.co.nz Nigel Stirling 021 136 5570 nigel.g.stirling@gmail.com PUBLISHER Dean Williamson 027 323 9407 dean.williamson@globalhq.co.nz ADVERTISING Andy Whitson 027 626 2269 New Media & Business Development Lead andy.whitson@globalhq.co.nz Steve McLaren 027 205 1456 Auckland/Northland advertising steve.mclaren@globalhq.co.nz Jody Anderson 027 474 6094 Waikato/Bay of Plenty advertising jody.anderson@globalhq.co.nz Donna Hirst 027 474 6095 Lower North Island/international advertising donna.hirst@globalhq.co.nz Ernest Nieuwoudt 027 474 6091 South Island advertising ernest.nieuwoudt@globalhq.co.nz Clint Dunstan 027 474 6004 Real Estate & Farm Machinery advertising clint.dunstan@globalhq.co.nz ISSN 2463-6002 (Print) ISSN 2463-6010 (Online) Ella Holland 06 323 0761 Livestock advertising 027 602 4925 livestock@globalhq.co.nz Debbie Brown 06 323 0765 Classifi eds/Employment advertising classifi eds@globalhq.co.nz Grant Marshall 027 887 5568 AgriHQ Partnership Manager grant.marshall@globalhq.co.nz Andrea Mansfi eld 027 446 6002 Salesforce director andrea.mansfi eld@globalhq.co.nz Steph Holloway 06 323 0142 AgriHQ Commercial Leader steph.holloway@globalhq.co.nz PRODUCTION Lana Kieselbach 027 739 4295 production@globalhq.co.nz Advertising material adcopy@globalhq.co.nz SUBSCRIPTIONS 0800 85 25 80 subs@globalhq.co.nz Printed by Ovato NZ Ltd Delivered by Reach Media Ltd