Social Justice
Stop Tenure Review. The South Island high country is too precious to privatise.
What is Tenure Review?
Tenure review is an unprecedented land reform scheme to carve up Crown-owned leasehold land in the South Island high country. This land runs the length of the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps, and covers 20% of the South Island, and 10% of NZ; a huge 2.4 million hectares.
- Tenure Review of the South Island high country is short-changing the public.
- It's a rip-off for the taxpayer.
- It's bad news for conservation and precious landscapes.
- Ngai Tahu is not happy with it.
- Improved recreation access is a half-truth at best.
We call for it to stop. Permanently. We want a fair deal.
Under tenure review, the Crown (on behalf of the public) buys the farmers' leasehold rights to graze the poorest Crown land at high altitude, and sells freehold title to develop the best land at lower altitude. In the deals completed so far, Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) has purchased rights to 42% of former leasehold land and farmers have bought title to 58% of land they used to rent.
In real estate terms, what the Crown buys, grazing rights to poor grazing land, is worth far less than what it sells, development rights and title to the most valuable land. Some of this land is on prime lake front and is worth millions. Yet surprisingly, the Crown has also paid farmers $18.2 million additional cash (adapted from Brower Fulbright
report 2006).
So far high country farmers have received agricultural and real estate development rights worth tens of millions of dollars from the Crown AND an average of $186,000 extra compensation per deal.
The Crown is ripping off the taxpayer.
See Campbell Live's reporting of the "Great South Island Land Rip-Off"
Ever since European settlement, 150 years ago, the South Island high country has been owned by the Crown. But we are not concerned just about land ownership, it's also about protecting a spiritual landscape and an environment which is an indelible part of our collective heritage. It's more than just our land, it's part of who we are as New Zealanders. So, while the government is handing over Crown land and taxpayers' money to a small group of high country farmers, it is also alienating our identity.
And we're losing money on the deal! This is privatisation with a cash sweetener. In selling Crown land too cheaply to farmers and paying them on top, the Crown is selling the public short.
In Tenure Review deals to date, the Crown pays on average 20 times more per hectare for rights to graze poor high altitude land than the lessee pays for rights to develop the high-value land lower down. This does not make sense.
In these deals the farmer who gets the most freehold land also gets the best price. The Crown is offering a bulk discount when privatising high country land. Supermarkets offer bulk discounts when they are desperate to sell food that is about to rot. But once this high country land is subdivided, it's selling for up to $6 million per hectare. The bulk discount does not make sense.
Take a closer look at the deals
We request economic fairness
- Protect Crown assets, don't pay to give them away.
- Subsidise those who need our help, not those who own helicopters.
- Stop subsidising subdivision, it's profitable enough without taxpayer help.
- The Crown must manage our assets with the public's interests in mind, not the lessees' interests. The farmers are looking after their interests, but no one is looking after ours.