Western Bay of Plenty Land Grab proposal an affront to the right to property

The Taxpayers' Union is slamming the Western Bay of Plenty District Council's suggestion that the Government forcefully take ownership of private property from its residents without compensation and lease it back to them as part of a climate change managed retreat framework.

Taxpayers’ Union National Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, says:

"While coastal erosion and other climate-related risks to properties are serious issues, it is an affront to the fundamental human right to private property – especially when managed retreat can occur without the need for confiscating private property.

"The council could simply state that they will not bail out owners of land or property in at-risk areas and leave it up to private citizens to decide whether to continue living there, get insurance, or build resilience infrastructure such as sea walls.

"Under the Council's proposal, families would be stripped of their ownership of their properties, and although they would be able to lease them back, the property value would significantly deteriorate over time. This ludicrous suggestion by the Council belongs in dystopian fiction, not in modern-day New Zealand."