Landcorp may be sold

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 3

Landcorp may be sold

By

JANE ENGLAND

The Government might be considering selling Landcorp, it was revealed yesterday at a Waitangi Tribunal hearing in Christchurch. During a Ngai Tahu claim hearing, Mr Kit Mouat, a legal adviser for Landcorp, was asked by counsel for the tribe, Mr David Palmer, if he was aware of a proposal to sell Landcorp “as a whole?”

Mr Mouat asked if he could reply without being reported. After some deliberation the tribunal decided the request could not be granted at a public hearing. “You might like to think about that before you decide whether to answer or not,” said the deputy chief judge on the tribunal, Judge Ashley McHugh. Mr Mouat: “I would have to say that when I said Landcorp would like to assist Ngai Tahu that that is if we are still around.” Mr Palmer: “Are you saying that there is a proposal for Landcorp to be sold?”

The tribunal objected to the ques-

tion and it was not answered. However, another source during an adjournment said that the Government was considering selling the corporation “lock, stock and barrel.”

The source rejected suggestions that the corporation might be sold to Japan. The Government had not yet developed a firm strategy for the sale, but that could be available by March, 1989.

The pressure to sell the corporation had been coming from the Treasury, the source said. All State-owned enterprises are subject to sale by the Government. Landcorp had already been publicly directed to sell security instruments — the leases, licences and mortgages not subject to resumption through the Waitangi Tribunal. It is believed that job losses would be caused by that action. Landcorp has also been asked to prepare a strategy for the sale of farms and property owned and managed through the corporation.

Landcorp farms 177 properties which earned a profit of $900,000, an average of $5OOO from each farm.

The corporation had objected to the “sale strategy.” The Waitangi Tribunal was left with little doubt yesterday that such issues were of primary concern to Maori claimant tribes. Mr Palmer asked Mr Mouat whether the Government was trying to “get around” the Court of Appeal’s decision relating to the Stateowned Enterprise Act. The court decision prevented the Government from transferring land ■ which could be the subject of tribunal recommendations on Maori land claims.

Mr Palmer suggested that the Crown was allocating lands to the Department of Lands in a bid to escape the court decision. “We just might have a court case on that issue,” said Mr Mouat.

Further reports, page 9