The 1948 Land Act put in place secure tenure and ownership of improvements for lessees.
It also put in place a legal basis for an ongoing proactive and constructive relationship between lessees and the Crown's agencies, based on management of the land for pastoral farming.
Combined with improved prices for farm products and new technology in the 1950s, this led to huge improvements in the condition of the land.
This model worked well until the early 1990s, when low product prices and another explosion in rabbit numbers exerted severe financial pressure on some runs.
As well, several alternative land uses became available.
This led to the evolution of the tenure-review process to free up suitable land for alternative uses and return significant areas of land to full Crown (that is, Department of Conservation) control.
This process was cemented in place by the 1998 Crown Pastoral Land Act.
During the early 2000s, the price of pastoral lease land was driven up by wealthy people buying leases as large lifestyle blocks, and the Government paying huge prices for direct purchase of leases, such as $40 million for St James.
About 2005, the Government decided the cost of tenure review was too great and decreed that lessees be charged rental on amenity values, even though the terms of a pastoral lease specifically preclude lessees from making any commercial gain from these values.
The result was rentals that were totally unaffordable to most lessees and would have led to many lessees having to leave the high country.
The end result would have been the more desirable properties becoming lifestyle blocks, properties in less desirable areas limping on as farming properties and the Crown acquiring more land through tenure review or whole property purchase.
Almost all properties receiving a rent-review valuation appealed to the Land Valuation Tribunal, to the point where well over 100 appeals are lined up.
The Crown and lessees agreed that Minaret Station be used as a test case to test the validity of amenity rentals.
The tribunal ruled that as the land was leased only for pastoral farming, rental could be charged only on pastoral farming values.
In 2008, the Government (by now National-led) decided the process of valuing the unimproved land for rent review was too complex and subjective.
It directed its agencies to work with lessees to find a simplified and less subjective format for calculating the unimproved pastoral value of land for rental purposes.
This has been achieved and legislation is before Parliament to confirm the new basis.
The Commissioner has offered that all those who appealed their valuations will be given the opportunity to settle under the new process.
I expect that most, if not all, lessees will accept this offer.
We went through a period of dysfunctional relationship between Linz, lessees and the Government.
Since 2008, this relationship has been rebuilt and at a recent workshop involving Linz and lessees, it was great to experience the strong level of co-operation.
This can only be positive for lessees and the Government, and especially for the land.
Congratulations, particularly, to Jonathan Wallis and Andrew Simpson, of the High Country Accord.
- John Aspinall