The Crown Pastoral Land Bill was first introduced to Parliament on 6 April 1995 and over three years later passed into legislation on 17 June 1998. The passage straddled two terms of Parliament and two Governments, first National and then Labour13. Hansard (1995, p. 6829)
records that 800 submissions were received in response to the Minister's proposals. The Primary Production Select Committee (PPSC) had charge of the Bill’s passage which involved a substantial public consultation process, with two rounds of submissions, 368 written and 62 oral. This was the “last frontier of Crown land settlement” (Hansard, 1995, p. 6829), “the last great land carve-up in our history” (Hansard, 1998, p. 8338) and “the last major allocation of Crown land” (Office of Ministers of Agriculture; Rural Affairs; Land Information and Conservation, 2003, p. 4). It was envisaged that tenure review was a sunset provision and that by 2008 no pastoral leases would remain (Cabinet Policy Committee, 2003; Office of Ministers of Agriculture; Rural Affairs; Land Information and Conservation, 2003).
Clause 20 of the Bill (subsequently s24 of the Act), as first introduced, expressed the objects for tenure review as two bullet points.
• To promote the sustainable management of reviewable land.
• To facilitate the restoration to full Crown ownership and control of reviewable land with high inherent values, the freehold disposal of reviewable land capable of productive use, and the creation of appropriate public rights of access to and enjoyment of reviewable land.
Clause 20 “engendered the greatest number of submissions” (Hansard, 1998, p. 9370).
‘Sustainable management’ was intended to have the same meaning as s5(2) of the Resource Management Act 1991. In the Bill’s first reading the Minister of Lands said, “that promotion of an ethic of sustainable land management must be the overarching goal of this endeavour” (Hansard, 1995, p. 6829). The RMA linked definition of sustainable management as the basis for tenure review was later rejected by the PPSC who reported that, “the intent of the Government policy related to land tenure is to give priority to the promotion of ecologically sustainable land management” (Primary Production Select Committee, 1998, p. 690). The focus of the Crown Pastoral Land Bill was “not on the protection of social and economic issues in relation to people and communities”. It was to focus on “sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals)” and “safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems”. With this in mind Clause 20(a)(i) was rewritten as “to: Promote the management of reviewable land in a way that is ecologically sustainable” (Primary Production Select Committee,
13 The Labour Party was formed in 1916, deriving from the trade union movement and espousing a socialist
agenda. The National Party was formed in 1936 with membership deriving from farming and business interests and promoting private property as the basis for prosperity (King, 2003). The 4th Labour
government (1984-1990) 'radically transformed the State' when they adopted the New Right (also known as neo-liberal) ideas of smaller government, user pays and individual choice and responsibility and a rejection of interventionist government (Buhrs & Bartlett, 1993, p. 90).
1998, p. 684). In response to an email question about the change from sustainable management to ecological sustainability Jeanette Fitzsimons, a member of the PPSC, wrote:
Changing the wording to “ecologically sustainable” was my proposal and I succeeded in getting others to accept it - with some difficulty I might say. I have no idea what was going on in their heads, but my motivation was to make it clear that what we were trying to sustain was ecology. Others were talking about sustaining the economic yield from the land and there is little enough in the Act to support ecology. I certainly intended it to include indigenous biodiversity as well as other aspects of ecology. We were all concerned about soil and water values as well (Email 11/10/2005; 9:37pm).
Hansard (1998, p. 9371) records that Fitzsimons considered the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’ were “seriously degraded” as concepts, their meaning was “unclear’ and they were no longer useful words to talk about the “long-term health of the planet”. “Ecologically sustainable” makes it clear that we are tying it to the ability of productive land to remain productive in all its aspects, for ever”. The new legislation would provide flexibility for more sustainable land uses than grazing sheep and to use the land in ways that “are more appropriate to its particular nature”. Damien O’Connor, also a member of the PPSC, spoke of ecological sustainability as being a compromise; “it takes into consideration the views and wishes of the farmers and the conservation movement” (Hansard, 1998, p. 9325) and he considered the ecological perspective an academic approach (Hansard, 1998, p. 9369).
In terms of the hierarchy of objects, it would appear that sustainable management was intended to be the primary object. Farming groups are reported as wanting “to retain the promotion of sustainable management as the overriding objective”. Whereas “conservation and recreation groups want the provision amended to emphasise that the primary goal is to restore to full Crown ownership and control reviewable land which has conservation values or needs to be protected” and sustainable management moved to the next priority (Primary Production Select Committee, 1998, p. 689). Subsequently, the Minster of Lands reported to Parliament that the ‘promotion of ecologically sustainable management’ and the ‘protection of significant values’ “should be given equal standing” (Hansard, 1998, p. 8331). O’Connor, said “we determined that the land should be managed in an ecologically sustainable manner. I think what we did here was a significant shift that said the ecological values of the high country and the land were paramount” (Hansard, 1998, p. 8333). During the third and last reading of the Bill, Fitzsimons said that there were two equal primary objectives, that of ecological sustainability and protecting ‘significant inherent values’. She went on to say that Clause 20 (and 14) was not to be prescriptive, the thinking being that if the land was put into the right category that appropriate management would follow (Hansard, 1998, p. 9371).
The clause 20 objects did not include the on-going management of pastoral lease lands. Hansard (1998, p. 9384-5) records that Fitzsimons proposed an amendment to (c) of the CPLA long title:
To provide for the administration and ecological sustainability of the Crown Pastoral Land. … I believe that if we insert the words “and ecological sustainability” it will make it clear in the title what
the Act is about and that those pastoral lands that remain in leasehold tenure will be managed in a more ecologically sustainable way under this legislation than they have been previously.
Hansard reports that the proposed amendment was “negatived”. This means ecological sustainability is legislated as applying to Part Two, i.e., tenure review, not Part One. It also applies to Part Three, the review of pastoral occupation licences and unused Crown land.