Rabbits rest at Rolleston

Press, 8 September 1976, Page 1

Rabbits rest at Rolleston

By

TERRY McGOVERNE

There are no nervous rabbits at Rollesto’., onetime site for a town. It is a haven for them, safe from the blast of a farmer’s shotgun fired in anger. The tenant farmers of Rolleston do not care much any more. Why should they? They can’t get a tenancy long eough to justify spending any money out there. So the boundary fences are falling down, the growing gorse is giving the rabbits all the cover they want, and the fertiliser stays in the shed if there is any at all on the place. Former owners who sold to the Government a bit more than a year ago have been known to break down and cry at the sight of their places. In the space of 12 months, neglect has turned some of the best land in the district into an agricultural disaster. About 40 properties worth about S4M — at least that is what the last Government paid for them

— are .at half-pace production or less because the occupants do not know what is in store for them. Since their leases expired, they have been allowed to stay on the places, covering a total of 3000 acres, on a month-to-month basis. Good farmers, bad farmers and indifferent farmers adhere to the view that on an occupancy agreement like that essential and fundamental farm planning is impossible. Month-to-month leases have also tied the hands of the Government. It cannot order occupants to repair fences, ciear gorse or shoot rabbits if in the next breath it can tell the occupants to go elsewhere next month. The idea of Rolleston town came tumbling down with the Labour Government last November but Mr Muldoon’s pre-election assurances that the land would be sold and the money spent recovered have amounted to nothing so far. Not one square inch of land has changed hands since November and Government departments in Christchurch are unaware of any moves to sell the land. To their credit, the current tenants have been prompt rent payers but Government officials believe that returns to the Crown’s purse for the ownership of the land could be much greater if the tenants were able to secure three to four-year leases. Some leaseholders who failed to abide by the terms of leases had to be removed from the properties mainly because they failed to pay. They have been replaced by better payers. Generally, the standard of farming in the district has slipped and maintenance has become a thing of the past. The prospect of Rolleston’s becoming one big rabbit farm gets closer to reality as the Government delays taking any de-, cisive action about its future. One farmer suggested yesterday that New Zealand servicemen “holidaying” in Singapore could be resettled on the land for nothing and the taxpayer would still be S3M better I off.