Editorial: Benefits all round in Twain deal

Fourteen months passed between Shania Twain's first applying to buy two high-country stations near Wanaka and the deal finally gaining Government approval late last week. During that time, the Canadian singer was required to rethink her original proposition and come back with a proposal that served the interests of New Zealanders. The upshot is an agreement that could stand as a blueprint for future land sales to foreigners. Yet still it does not satisfy the Green Party. It has drafted legislation that would stop people buying prime land, and treating New Zealand "as a rich man's playground", unless they intended living in this country.

There will always be some support for the Greens' notion, based purely on nationalism. But such concern has true relevance only when a sale impinges on land that may have special value, or where the prospective purchaser shows little inclination to take account of local concerns. Such attitudes may be the domain of any buyer, whether a New Zealander or not. Attitude, particularly the acceptance of a legitimate public interest, is the issue, not identity.

Nonetheless, it is undeniable that the sale of Young Nick's Head raised some reasonable concerns about overseas investment rules, most notably the readiness with which prime New Zealand sites, especially sensitive coastal or high-country land, could be sold.

The Government answered these satisfactorily in July, when it put forward new conditions on the approval of foreign applications to buy sites of particular heritage or environmental value. In their applications, prospective overseas buyers will have to indicate how they will manage areas of historic, heritage, or conservation value, and how they will preserve public access where required.

The announcement of these conditions came too late for the bulk of the negotiations with Shania Twain. But the tenor of the transaction with her indicated the Government had learned from the widespread unease over the sale process for Young Nick's Head. Twain's high profile acted as a further spur, encouraging it to take the final decision from the hands of the Overseas Investment Commission (OIC).

What has emerged is a deal that serves the interests of all parties. The sale conditions include opening up public access and developing a 27km tramping track linking Wanaka and Arrowtown, part of a nationwide hiking network called Te Araroa. Twain will spend $220,000 developing the track, two huts and camping facilities. Additionally, she has said that she will spend $1.6 million on a three-year farm management programme.

Conservation issues have also been addressed. The $21 million deal involves retiring and fencing off about 12,000ha of farmland higher than 1100m - about half the combined area of the two stations - and makes that land subject to a covenant with the Department of Conservation. OIC monitoring is designed to ensure the conditions of the deal are met.

It can hardly be argued - even by the Greens - that this is not a first-rate outcome. The lack of public criticism confirms as much. Twain, having had time to rethink her original application, has shown awareness of public access and conservation issues, and considerable generosity. And the Government has fashioned a template for future sales of sensitive land. Indeed, it should have little hesitation in making similar public access a condition of the sale of the exclusive Poronui Station, near Lake Taupo.

The Greens, in maintaining their obdurate opposition to all such sales, fail to appreciate the significance of foreign investment to an economy as small as New Zealand's.

Twain's plans for improving the two stations offer a considerable economic plus. The public interest is also served. There can be little cause to remonstrate if future sales are equally well balanced.