Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Rosemary McLeod: Matt Lauer can't be faulted for exercising his rights over his leased Lake Hawea land

Bay of Plenty Times
27 Jul, 2018 04:45 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Matt Lauer. Photo/Getty Images

Matt Lauer. Photo/Getty Images

History can repeat itself in sly ways, like the uproar over selling a high country lease to an American who wants to control who goes on it and when, even if he's seldom there.

Maori carried on like this when colonists arrived. They sold tribal lands for axes, guns and blankets, then couldn't believe they'd lost them for good.

The idea of forever just didn't make sense to them, and so it appears to be with us, as if handing over $13 million shouldn't mean Matt Lauer actually has rights over his holding for as long as his lease lasts.

Read more: Rosemary McLeod: Free speech martyr? You couldn't shut them up if you tried
Rosemary McLeod: Standing up to life's challenges - with a smile
Rosemary McLeod: Chinese innocence leaves much to the vulgar Western mind

The problem is not with Lauer, though, even if losing his job as an NBC anchorman over sexual misconduct helps paint him as a villain. He's done nothing wrong here.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The quarrel is with whoever had the brilliant idea of selling off state assets in the first place, leaving us with a postal service that increasingly discourages posting, a business model for what ought rightly to be public services, and rich foreigners like Lauer looking for bolt holes buying up vast acreage for prices New Zealanders can't afford.

We have priced ourselves out of our homes, priced ourselves out of our heartland, and we have no-one to blame but ourselves.

The government still owns the 6500ha Hunter Valley Station, so it will presumably revert to us one day.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

That's not always been the case with big sales to foreigners, but it ought to be, and we of all people should know that.

Nothing Lauer can say would make you entirely sympathise with him, he's too rich for that, but he does have a point in arguing that changing the terms of his lease after it's signed, to allow more people access to the station, isn't fair.

That's why Federated Farmers is supporting him. His managers already grant access to everyone who asks for it, Lauer says, but if the Walking Access Commission wins its argument for an easement across his land, thousands could turn up.

That's not what rich foreigners look for in a bolt hole. They want a private paradise free of gawking locals.

Discover more

Don't silence Brash - be kind to elderly

10 Aug 04:45 AM

Paradise is a long way off for New Zealand families who can't afford to heat their homes, let alone pay the landlord or feed their kids.

A survey of more than 1000 Kiwis, commissioned by the Salvation Army and released this month, revealed that 45 per cent had gone without heating in the past year because of cost, 44 per cent didn't go to the doctor because they couldn't afford it, and one in four don't buy fresh meat and vegetables regularly for the same reason.

The survey's questionnaire was handed out at church services, with people invited to respond, so it was self-selected.

Sallies welfare services manager Jono Bell, says, though, the results tally with what he's told by front-line workers.

It's not just beneficiaries who are losing out. So are the working poor.

People on low incomes face never owning their own homes, let alone being able to take holidays to the South Island high country to gaze at the mega-rich.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Lauer is free from that problem at least, although he embodies the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

In the truly bottom of the heap, this country's jails, life is getting more unpleasant, with double bunking in cells becoming an accepted solution to overcrowding.

There are people, the angry virtuous, who rejoice in the illusion of vengeance this conjures up, and imagine jails are anyway like flash motels.

It's a poor analogy. You can choose who you sleep with in a motel.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

04 Jul 02:00 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

Bay of Plenty Times

'A f****** ugly mess': Gang boss' text after fatal hotbox attack on mate of 20 years

04 Jul 12:24 AM

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

04 Jul 02:00 AM

Peter was trapped under a tractor for hours on his Mangakino farm.

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

Farmer's harrowing hours crushed beneath tractor

'A f****** ugly mess': Gang boss' text after fatal hotbox attack on mate of 20 years

'A f****** ugly mess': Gang boss' text after fatal hotbox attack on mate of 20 years

04 Jul 12:24 AM
Traffic concerns grow as Tauriko roading developments advance

Traffic concerns grow as Tauriko roading developments advance

03 Jul 11:48 PM
From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP