Conservation Minister Tama Potaka won’t rule out selling or swapping public land, but has promised “vast swathes” aren’t on the block.
At a boisterous Scrutiny Week hearing before Parliament’s environment committee, Potaka was pressed by Green and Labour Party MPs to outline how much of the conservation estate would be sold or swapped if his new Conservation Amendment Bill became law.
The minister insisted he was only interested in getting rid of “bits and bobs” of low-value land like carparks and buildings. However, he would not commit to retaining all land with conservation value, leading to questions about public land eyed by hopeful fast-track developers.
Potaka refused to give Green Party co-leader Chloë Swarbrick a straight answer to her question about a map released the morning of his appearance. The Forest & Bird analysis suggested up to 60 percent of the Department of Conservation estate would be eligible for development or trade if Potaka’s bill passed.
He would not say if the map was an accurate depiction of the bill, and doubted the Green representatives had even read his legislation.
The rhetoric around the map had been “scandalous and mischievous”, he said, alleging close ties between the environment lobby and his opposition. Potaka accused the Greens of “fiscal terrorism” during their time in government, leading Swarbrick and co-leader Marama Davidson to repeatedly call him a liar and forcing committee chair Catherine Webb to intervene.
Labour’s Rachel Brooking (the only opposition member Potaka believed read the bill) tried to step through the minister’s logic, and pressed him for a promise of comfort.
She took him at his word that “bits and bobs” of the conservation estate – a phrase used upwards of two dozen times in this hearing – were all he had in mind for sale or swap. This made sense to Brooking, who agreed low- or no-value conservation land had been lumped into the estate decades earlier.
Her question for the minister was why he was changing broad rules about which public land could be swapped or developed, rather than specifically recording in legislation the “bits and bobs” he had identified.
Potaka couldn’t make this promise. Instead, he said there might be some sections of the estate – not “vast swathes”, which he said was a “scandalous and mischievous” suggestion – that could be swapped in a land deal, so long as the result was a net benefit to the conservation estate.
The budget for reclassification work was cut in this year’s Budget, and Potaka confirmed there would be no more reclassifications following work completed this year on the West Coast.
Several hundred parcels of stewardship land on the coast were reclassified, outlining Potaka’s priorities: he followed advice to create a large historic reserve, but did not follow advice to expand national parks and protect the Denniston Plateau from mining.
With this in mind, Brooking wanted reassurance that a development-first mindset wouldn’t spill over into the rest of the estate as a result of Potaka’s widened provisions in the legislation.
Following the meeting, the Labour MP told Newsroom she didn’t get what she was looking for.
“He could’ve just said ‘It’s my intention that the only land to be disposed of will be the bits and bobs that have no or extremely low conservation value.’ He could’ve just said that, but he didn’t,” said Brooking.
Brooking said this had implications for projects with fast-track aspirations on conservation land, like the Tukituki water supply project (formerly known as Ruataniwha dam).
The fast-track currently includes conservation permissions and land swaps, but within the requirements of the current Conservation Act, meaning widened development provisions under the amendment bill could influence the fast-track’s power to develop public land.
It wasn’t just about Potaka or the National Party, which viewed the land swap as a trade-off that would deliver a net benefit for the environment (even without considering the impact of any development that results).
“You have to read that with Shane Jones in mind, and what he wants to do on the conservation estate, which is, you know, ‘drill baby drill, mine baby mine’,” said Brooking.
Earlier that morning, the New Zealand First MP faced the Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee in his Minister for Resources hat.
Green Party MP Steve Abel presented him with the same map Swarbrick brought out later that afternoon, and asked about Jones’ aspirations for critical minerals mining on the conservation estate.
Unlike Potaka, Jones wanted to get moving on development as soon as possible, with no mention of a land swap. In the past, he’s recognised Kiwis cherish these spaces and has admitted he won’t get all of what he wants, but still said the conservation estate was too big.
“I do accept that it’s heresy for some members of Parliament, but I just look at the state of our economy, and I think it’s time that we exploit part of that,” Jones said.
