Landcorp Must not become the Next Solid Energy

New Zealand First is demanding answers with rumours swirling around the future of Landcorp and its 378,000-hectare portfolio of owned, managed and sharemilked farmland.

“How many failures will it take before people realise Bill English is an inept Minister of Finance,” says Mr Peters.

“Under this Minister there have been notorious messes, including the SkyCity deal, the Rio Tinto payoff, the South Canterbury Finance debacle, the increasing frail state of KiwiRail and state-owned Solid Energy, now virtually worthless, and the taxpayer is out of pocket for about $250 million.

“Now the $1.7 billion worth of public equity in Landcorp, the ‘government’s farmer,’ could be at risk. Mr English’s management has been so disastrous that Landcorp is now on debt watch.

“It is true that Landcorp’s return on investment is pitiful but it also manages some extreme properties like Molesworth Station with the Department of Conservation.

“Yet like Solid Energy, we have a government, which talks big about knowing business, but has destroyed public equity. Even an average Minister would ask Landcorp how it can fund aggressive diversification with paper thin profits and debt at $172 million.

“This government’s financial illiteracy risks seeing vast tracts of New Zealand farmland sold off to foreigners or placed in the hands of the foreign-owned banks.

“New Zealand First has two recommendations and it starts by Landcorp sticking to its farming instead of going for global domination.

“Landcorp should open up its farms to sharemilkers and sharefarmers, since Landcorp is sharemilking for Shanghai Pengxin on the former-Crafar farms. Another is to rein in its massive plan in South Waikato to convert forests into dairy but on poor quality soils.

“Simply put, it would be economic treason to see Landcorp slip from public ownership,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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