A new method of setting rents on Crown-owned pastoral lease farms, based on their earning capacity, would honour existing property rights and existing contracts with lessees, high country farmers were told yesterday.
Details of the new process were being kept under wraps until considered by the Cabinet, but farmers attending the annual conference of the South Island high country committee of Federated Farmers at Mt Cook yesterday were told the new formula did not include a charge for amenity values.
Instead, it sought to reach agreement in perpetuity the livestock-carrying capacity of each lease exclusive of improvements, the root cause of most disagreements between lessees and their lessor and the starting point in determining rent.
High Country Accord chairman Jonathan Wallis told farmers the Government was honouring its policy that rents would be linked to the earning capacity of the pastoral lease and would not include an amenity-value charge or a change to property rights.
"The premise of earning-capacity rents is that property rights shouldn't shift because we are not setting out to change the contract."
The issue came to a head when the previous government ruled a charge for amenity values of a pastoral lease according to its proximity to lakes, rivers and views should be included in the rent.
Farmers took a test case based on the new rents proposed for Minaret Station to the Land Valuation Tribunal and won.
High Country Accord lawyer Kit Mouat said the aim of the new legislation was to enshrine in law the Minaret decision and an earlier ruling on Forest Range Station, especially with regard to the issue of determining carrying capacity on land exclusive of improvements so that could be recorded against each lease.
"It is looking very promising," he said.
Land Information New Zealand's policy and regulatory manager, David Crawford, said the principles behind discussions with farmers was that the new policy had to be fair to lessees and the lessor.
It also should preserve the balance of property rights and allow for simpler rent reviews and easier dispute resolution.
The new system was not a grazing fee for each animal, as used in the United States, he said, and it would allow lessees to be rewarded through rent levels which compensated for conservation protection.
The Cabinet was still to consider the Bill, which Mr Crawford hoped would be before Parliament by the end of the year.
Details should be released in the next few months and the public still had an opportunity to comment on the proposal, he said.