Land sale statement blasted

A statement from two university academics, saying former lessees of South Island Crown pastoral land have done "very well" on-selling land after tenure review - receiving on average 2696 times the price the Crown charged them for freehold rights - has been described as "appallingly misleading".

Public policy researcher Dr Ann Brower, from Lincoln University, and economist Dr Philip Meguire, from the University of Canterbury, undertook a study of tenure review over the past five years.

Dr Brower is no stranger to controversy concerning high country issues. In 2006, pastoral lessees said they felt vindicated by a Victoria University report which said they were not fleecing taxpayers of millions of dollars through tenure review.

The High Country Accord lobby group commissioned the review of a report by Dr Brower which said the high country was being given away and privatised through tenure review.

In the latest report, Dr Brower and Dr Meguire said they calculated the ratio of the price per hectare a lessee was paid when selling all or part of a new freehold, to the price per hectare the Crown charged the lessee to acquire the freehold under tenure review. In a statement, they said lessees, on average, on-sold land at 2696 times the price the Crown charged them for freehold rights and half of the lessees on-sold land for more than 992 times the price they paid for freehold.

"Everyone who has gone through tenure review and then sold newly privatised land has done so for a price at the very least 80% higher than the price at which the Crown sold the freehold rights.

"At the other extreme, some land privatised under tenure review was sold for more than 27,000 times than what was paid for it," the pair said.

A summary of their work will be published in the internationally recognised scholarly journal New Zealand Economic Papers.

Ray Macleod, a land economist and general manager of Landward Management, a specialist Dunedin land management company in the rural sector, described the statement as outrageous and conveniently misleading.

"No-one should have to defend themselves against such a blatant misrepresentation of the nature of the relationship between the Crown and the lessees," Mr Macleod said.

The pair had conveniently ignored the significant improvements and property rights which were held by the lessees, including security of tenure through a perpetual right of renewal of the lease subject only to a range of conditions related to the terms of the perpetual lease.

Dr Brower and Dr Meguire either did not understand the Crown-lessee relationship, and therefore the fundamental nature of the transaction that was taking place under tenure review, or they had a social or political agenda they needed to disclose in full, Mr Macleod said.

Given the basic misrepresentation in the paper of the relationship between the Crown and lessees, Mr Macleod believed the authors owed an apology to the Crown, and felt the paper was of such doubtful quality it should be of concern papers of such standard were deemed authoritative.