All the evidence suggests that the decision yesterday to withdraw the proposal to sell Department of Conservation land was a last-minute decision led by the Prime Minister.
And what that suggests is the level of nervousness inside National about the upcoming election.
The announcement of the withdrawal came after Conservation Minister Tama Potaka’s press secretary, last Friday afternoon, set up interviews for this week to talk about the controversial sale provisions.
POLITIK was granted one of those interviews and spoke to the Minister at the National Party conference on Saturday.
On Monday, he checked back with POLITIK seeking an assurance that the story would be running.
It did, on Tuesday and reported his defence of the proposal to sell the land.
Then on Wednesday, things changed with the Environmental Defence Society conference taking place in Auckland.
Both the Prime Minister and Potaka were expected at a function in Parliament on Wednesday night, but the Prime Minister advised on Wednesday (changed from “yesterday”) afternoon that he would not be able to make it because he would be in Auckland.
Potaka did not appear as he too had gone to Auckland.
We now know that both were holding hastily convened talks with Forest and Bird and the Environmental Defence Society about the Bill.
Consequently, yesterday Potaka announced the withdrawal of the changes relating to the sale of land and his intention to have the Environment Select Committee revisit the equally controversial purposes of the Bill, which emphasise the need for DOC to support economic activity.
The Bill was introduced in May.
But it had been worked on within the bureaucracy since the beginning of last year.
Forest and Bird launched a potent campaign against it only a week ago when it published maps showing how much land could be up for sale if the Bill went through.
It raises real questions about political management within the Government if provisions in a Bill could exist within the system for nearly 18 months and then, only yesterday, seven days after a lobby group launched an attack, they are suddenly cancelled.
The argument for selling DOC land was set out in a Regulatory Impact Statement prepared by DOC in June last year.
It revealed that in October 2024, DOC had launched a widespread consultation on whether it should sell the land.
It received over 5000 submissions, the majority of which opposed the proposals.
The Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) summed up the opposition.
“The general concern among submitters was that the proposal is too broad and provides an opportunity to more easily exchange Public Conservation Land to enable development or mining operations that would significantly impact important conservation values,” it said.
“Some also raised that land exchanges could be undertaken to respond to budget, lobbying and commercial interests.”
Despite the overwhelming opposition, it went ahead with the proposal in 2025.
The RIS set out the case to sell the land.
“There is currently a high bar for exchanges and disposals of public conservation land; only public conservation land of no or very low value can be exchanged or disposed of,” it said.
“This means that the conservation estate cannot be optimally maintained, with DOC retaining land that is no longer needed for conservation and having limited ability to exchange such land for new sites that have higher biodiversity that warrants DOC protection and management.”
Potaka has been making it clear in the interviews he has been doing about the proposal that the management of biodiversity was central.
And central to that has been a lack of funding.
The Regulatory Impact Statement said: “There is an increasing focus on biodiversity management on species and ecosystems where it is needed to conserve the most threatened or vulnerable species and places. The majority of PCL is not actively managed for biodiversity outcomes, as there is insufficient funding to enable that, and because some DOCs do not possess the tools to manage the pressures from predators at scale.”
But yesterday, Potaka had to announce that the sale provisions would be withdrawn and he would look to simply “really improve on what we currently have, the status quo.”
And it was the Forest and Bird maps and the reaction they got which has forced the backdown.
It took only seven days.
“There have been some maps that have been circulated that don’t represent our intentions, and we don’t believe they represent what we have said in the legislation; however, that’s caused a bit of uncertainty; that’s caused concern, and to be fair, a lot of ambiguity,” Potaka told the media yesterday.
“So, we’ve heard New Zealanders. We’ve listened to New Zealanders. And as a result, we’ve taken action.”
But there was more.
The current Conservation Act, which was introduced in 1987, bizarrely does not have a purpose for the Department of Conservation.
The Regulatory Impact Statement says that the purpose is implicitly reflected through a range of its provisions.
“These include the long title, definitions of conservation, preservation and protection, functions of the Department, and the purposes for which different categories of land are held,” it says.
There is a hierarchy of functions for DOC.
“The management, for conservation purposes, of land and natural and historic resources is the primary function.
“Recreation use is to be fostered where it is not inconsistent with conservation.
“Tourism use is to be allowed where it is not inconsistent with conservation.”
At the heart of using DOC land is the tourism industry.
However, lurking in the background is the hope of the part of the mining industry that it might get more access to DOC land.
The Bill redefines DOC’s as first to foster the use of land and other natural resources and historic resources managed by the Department for recreation to the extent consistent with their conservation:
And (more controversially) “to recognise the economic opportunities that arise from the use and development of land and other natural resources and historic resources managed by the Department, and to enable this use and development to the greatest extent practicable under this Act and other enactments.”
Potaka said that conservation was still DOC’s overarching purpose.
“But it is not binary or exclusive of other things taking place, which is what we have right now,” he said.
“Whether or not you go to Milford Sound or the Hermitage up in Aoraki, or indeed even the Rangitoto huts over on Rangitoto, just as you go off the boat and you go past what looks like an ice cream shop, there is economic activity that takes place.
“We want to enable that, and we also want to generate more international visitors to come and pay to access some of the land.
“A provision that leans into economic opportunity actually better enables that.”
And so Potaka will now reword those clauses and submit them to the Select Committee, which begins its deliberations next month.
What is extraordinary about this whole situation is that a process that began nearly two years ago has suddenly, after a week-long protest, been radically changed.
What that may confirm is that the Government is getting private polling very similar to the public polls, which are beginning to show the Opposition parties getting into a position to form the next Government.
The sudden flight of the Prime Minister to Auckland on Wednesday sugegsts that though this was not quite a panic; it was close.
