Crown land release may cause problems

Press, 2 December 1982, Page 26

Crown land release may cause problems

Parliamentary reporter Measures allowing leased Crown land to be made freehold cause problems in areas such as Lake Ellesmere, a Parliamentary select committee has been told. The committee is hearing submissions on the land Amendment Bill, which will allow the occupiers of land held on lease in perpetuity to buj' the freehold of the land. The Nature Conservation Council said that the bill would give about 6000 lessees the opportunity to freehold their land, but it would cause problems in areas such as Lake Ellesmere. where leased land formed a large part of the private land round the lake. "Considering the importance of Lake Ellesmere as a wetland it is essential that some provision be made to preserve access and to maintain ecological values,” it said. One solution was to require that a strip of land along sea. lake, and river margins may be reserved from the sale of land. However, the chairman of the Lake Ellesmere Settlers' Association. iMr W. J. Thompson, said that the freeholding of leased land round Lake Ellesmere should not

restrict access for sportsmen. The present situation i regarding access would not - be changed if the land was ; made freehold. i Mr Thompson said that his ■ association supported the bill, but believed that the ; terms for freeholding land I could increase the cost to farmers. Under the terms proposed in the act. farmers would face a four-fold increase in the cost of servicing . their debts, compared with the present rental. A submission by Federated Farmers said that the cost of buying the freehold to their land could deter some farmers. The main reason for the move to allow the occupiers of land which was leased in perpetuity to freehold the land was to relieve the Lands and Survey Department from the escalating administration costs of collecting the rentals. "We are well aware that any proposal which encourages only a portion of the lease-in-perpetuity holders to freehold would mean decreased revenues from rentals with little decrease in the administrative costs." the submission said. Federated Farmers had recommended that the freeholding price of land be 10

times the annual rental. The bill set the price at the original land value at the time the lease was drawn up. which w’as about 20 times the annual rental. This would not provide enough encouragement to farmers to ensure universal freeholding. However, Federated Farmers were still prepared to accept the formula included in the bill, provided farmers were not coerced into freeholding their land and provided there would be no future move to make freeholding compulsory. A submission from Friends of the Earth said that the bill was “raw, premature and inadequately researched." Pastoral ” leasehold land was a "sour joke” at the public expense. A block at Mount Hutt, with an annual rental of $250, had sold in 1978 for $1 million. Freeholding such land at a "bargain basement sale price” would compound the folly, it said. Much environmentally valuable land was leasehold land. Although much of it had been “exploited to destruction," by the leaseholders. the public still had the right of access to the land. If the land was made freehold the public would lose any further control over it.