New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill

The Greens will not be supporting this bill, which puts property rights into the same category as the right to life or the right to vote. Although title to land does indeed carry with it a range of privileges, the Greens are concerned about the attitudes that have seen too many landowners assume that because they have paid for a piece of land, they are able to do anything they wish with it, notwithstanding the fact that it may have existed and taken on its character over millennia and may have been valued by people in the community. This is not to say that individuals should be deprived of the right to occupy land, to plant it, and to have privacy, but we already have rules and laws that establish what one may or may not do as of right with one's property, and there are provisions for compensation, where appropriate, when those rights are infringed.

But are those provisions regarding property of the same order as the rights enshrined in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? Are they of the same order as the right not to be deprived of life, the right not to be subjected to cruel punishment, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to freedom of assembly? I suggest that those protections and freedoms are of a much greater magnitude that any expectation of compensation for loss of income should a Government decree that ancient trees or minerals under or on land that a person owns must stay there, in the interests of protecting the environment or our heritage. That is not to say that that person may not be entitled to compensation, but that entitlement is not up there with the right to life or the right not to be subjected to discrimination.

We ought to be a little concerned about this bill, which was last put forward by Owen Jennings. That ought to ring alarm bells. I suspect that this bill is the product of a mindset that I have experienced frequently in my time as a city councillor. It is a mindset that does put property ownership up there with life and liberty. It is a mindset that has clear-felled forests and built over iconic land forms, in the name of property rights. It is mindset that has persuaded local authorities to allow subdivision of the most fertile soils in this country, and it is a mindset that puts a property owner's belief that he or she should be able to maximise the earning potential of a property ahead of intrinsic values.

My response to those who claim that they ought to be able to do as they wish with property is to ask how they would feel about my acquiring the property next door to theirs and asserting my right to put a fish factory on it. I recall having to put right the chairperson of a planning applications committee, after she said that it was not her job to tell people what they could or could not do on their own property. I said that that was exactly her task as chair of a planning applications committee. My response to those who claim they should be able to do as they wish on their property is to ask whether it is OK for everyone else to do what they want on their property.

This bill and the very term "property rights" are indications that, for some people, property ownership has already assumed a status alongside life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Property ownership deserves no such status. It is a privilege, and it carries with it very real responsibilities. The environmental and social implications of this bill are clear, in a culture where the money-making potential of land already wields undue influence when decisions are being made and when laws are being framed to protect the environment or the health and well-being of people, and in a culture where property owners commonly have access to lawyers and expert witnesses that are unaffordable to those who act on behalf of the environment and people. The last thing we need to do is to enshrine those privileged positions in a bill of rights.

The situation might be different if there was evidence that we were indeed holding our land in trust for our children and treating it with appropriate reverence. Unfortunately, such reverence is much too rare. Perhaps what we need is a bill of responsibilities. As we look around this planet and see the violation of fragile and endangered habitats in the name of property rights, as we watch wealthy individuals and corporations accumulate vast tracts of property and use it to grow coffee or cotton while all around people go hungry for want of somewhere to grow food, as we watch old-growth forests being removed in the interest of maximising returns, and as we observe individuals acquiring property rights over natural processes and life forms, it becomes blindingly clear that in these perilous times the very last thing this planet, and all the species, communities, and generations we share it with, need is to sanctify attitudes that have brought the world to the very brink of destruction by enshrining them in a bill of rights. I just say, as a former city councillor, that every time an opportunity came up to acquire some riparian rights we did not do so, and the reason we did not do so was that we had to compensate someone. I believe that if farmers are able to go on using their land and lose nothing — except gaining a little security, perhaps, by having people occupying that land and walking over it — then maybe there is no need to compensate them. In a country like ours, sharing what we have would not be a bad start.

The Greens will not be supporting this legislation.

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