Government welshes on high country lease deal

18 October 2007

High Country Accord Media Release Immediate

Government welshes on high country lease deal

High country farmers involved in the Soldiers Syndicate grazing lease say they are gutted by a government decision to welsh on an agreement to renew their lease.

Syndicate secretary Phil Smith says the decision will make his farm totally uneconomic and make it extremely difficult for any of the three families involved to stay on their farms.

"This is about as bad as it gets in New Zealand when it comes to the abuse of power. A cavalier and arbitrary decision has been made to cancel a lease which dates back to the end of the First World War and which was renewed in 2003," he says.

"Now we are told that the land is to return to the Crown * to be included, presumably, in one of the five new high country parks the government plans to announce before the next election."

The partners in the syndicate have properties at Kyeburn, near Ranfurly in Central Otago. It's harsh country with hard winters and summer droughts. The Soldiers Syndicate lease block, in the Hawdun and Ida Ranges, provides them with vital summer grazing away from their properties.

On the home farms, largescale irrigation is neither practical nor affordable. Mr Smith says they will need to greatly intensify production when they lose the Soldiers Syndicate block * something which is undesirable from an environmental point of view.

"The Crown has ignored our property rights and a May 2003 agreement to renew the lease * they even gave us a copy which we agreed to," he says.

"Since then we have operated, and the Crown has accepted our rental payments, as if the new lease was in operation. All that remained was to decide on an appropriate environmental monitoring system."

Mr Smith says he knows of no conservation reasons for the termination of the lease and says the news has left him "completely gutted".

"In the very early days the block was undoubtedly treated harshly. But in recent decades its environmental status has steadily improved.

"It is grazed for only three months each summer * with 6500 ewes on 4500 hectares; about half a ewe to the acre. We also take responsibility for removing wildling trees."

He says the sheep are droved up to the block at the end of January and are removed in April * "before Anzac Day, as a mark of respect for the old soldiers who were granted the first lease."

High Country Accord chairman Ben Todhunter says the cancelling of the lease reflects a government agenda to establish a network of high country parks "at almost any cost".

"This is one more devastating blow in a long list of actions by this government which are having the effect of destroying the high country economy and culture," he says.

"There is a certain bitter irony that the reasons used by the government to welsh on the Soldiers Syndicate are baseless. The block doesn't need protecting * its significant values are improving under low intensity stocking and access has never been an issue."

He says the public should understand that every time a new park is announced it means that more of New Zealand's high country farming heritage has been lost, along with much of its Merino flock.

"Farms which were once nurtured by farmers who lived on the land and who provided weed and pest control will become a drain on the taxpayer. At the same time, the farmers' valuable local knowledge and expertise will be lost forever," Mr Todhunter says.

"If the government was grabbing land in the high country for reasons other than ideology, I am sure we could find some basis for compromise. But the government's actions over recent years show that compromise isn't on its agenda * it wants farmers out of the high country."

MEMBERS OF THE SOLDIERS' SYNDICATE

David and Geoff Mc Atamney, "Riverside", Kyeburn (father and son) Jock Scott, Kyeburn Downs Basil and Philip Smith, Glenspec Holdings, Kyeburn (father and son)

ENDS

© Scoop Media