Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill

I move, that the Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill be read for a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): No. I’m sorry. I need the member to read exactly what is written on the page.

DAMIEN SMITH: I move, That the Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill.

It’s important that New Zealand is an attractive country for investment, which will in turn support greater levels of productivity, jobs, and higher incomes in the future. What this bill does is it removes barriers to foreign direct investment (FDI) from OECD countries, noting for the first time one of our largest sources of investment is not driven by a military ally. It does this by exempting OECD investors from being cleared by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) with two key exemptions of a national security test around strategic business and it exempts residential land.

How will this happen? The OECD countries will be added to a list of exemptions in the Overseas Investment Act. There are over 38 countries now in the OECD. New Zealand joined in 1973, and it would be a fitting tribute after 50 years to lead an initiative that countries can connect with New Zealand in a deeper fashion.

The current regime forces the vast majority of FDI to be cleared by the Overseas Investment Office, which places a needless barrier to investment even when there’s very little risk involved. Foreign direct investment is crucial for New Zealand’s small economy. Numerous studies have proven that high levels of FDI result in higher productivity, higher innovation, and an overall increase in the quality of life for all citizens. To grow and prosper in a competitive world, New Zealand should be a prime destination for foreign direct investment. This bill will exempt investors from democratic countries within the OECD from the need to receive OIO approval to invest here, except in respect of investments around land, residential land, and strategic businesses. These businesses and investments would still be subject to the call-in regime where national security interests are at stake. It’s important that New Zealand is an attractive destination globally and it’s interconnected for investment long term. This provision would streamline the process for investors from OECD countries to bring capital into New Zealand.

Membership of the OECD is restricted to countries committed to preserving and advancing democracy and freedom of markets. Many OECD nations are natural allies on national security issues, are the least risky source of investment for New Zealand, and have a large amount of money to bring to the country. They are, therefore, encouraged by an efficiency, allowing resources to be directed to the most valuable use, introducing new technology and management techniques that drive domestic competition and productivity growth.

Productivity is the sole driver of growing prosperity, which is always reflected in rising per capita real incomes. New Zealand has fallen behind in this area, and also it is one of the lower quartile countries for foreign direct investment anywhere in the world. Our markets need to be competitive, and foreign new capital entrants should not be put off. We already face skill and distance disadvantages, and there’s no need to compound that with bad policy. It will also improve our balance of payments and allow our interest rates to be managed in a way that makes them competitive at a wholesale level.

The latest data from the OECD shows us that one of the most restrictive regimes is New Zealand, and that’s primarily driven by our incredibly low screening thresholds by global standards. That undermines investment not just by foreigners who are banned from entry but also Kiwis who can’t be assured they’ll be able to sell their enterprises to the highest bidders and usually end up having to sell to the neighbours in Australia for a lower multiple. We attracted 80 percent less foreign investment per person in 2020 than Australia, and we’ve consistently invested less in capital per person than all but one small advanced economy, and all but one English-speaking country. Total foreign investments in New Zealand totalled $500 billion in 2020, of which FDI was $113 billion, portfolio investments $221 billion, and financial derivatives $18 billion, with other investments totalling $77 billion.

As we know, there are two categories of investment: greenfield, and mergers and acquisitions. But just to give you a simple example, where the Overseas Investment Act is a difficult and almost terrible piece of legislation is that if a New South Wales pension fund and a Victorian pension fund owns 15 percent of national interest transaction, they would have to apply separately, and this would take almost a year to complete.

Increased FDI is a feature of a modern, global, economic, integrated country. How much FDI you have indicates how much export growth and R & D targets can be sustained, and also how deep you are connected with the global trade around the world. Because of New Zealand’s shallow capital base, we need more FDI to achieve our economic and social goals. Much of this will need to come from overseas investors. We need more FDI to achieve our political and social goals, create new opportunities, maintain services in health and regional funding of economic growth and jobs, of which one in five are FDI funded.

We know there are plenty of opportunities for investors, and they’re very welcome here. We need to make them more welcome. Our highly innovative tech sector is the country’s fastest growing. There’s deep tech data, real innovation in agritech, which the Government has supported, and we’re asking for a wider base to be established. A lot of venture capital is involved in software as a service company tech, and many international firms are active here. They just don’t have the stability to invest here in a longer-term partnership. There’s a high quality food and beverage sector, plus big infrastructure builds and data centre developments, and we have a big wood-processing sector, which we continue, under the law, to allow trees to be planted.

An open investment regime helps keep New Zealand interest rates down as the risk premium associated with investing here is reduced. A move away has a negative impact on our credit ratings and attractiveness to potential trade parties, just at a time when it’s most needed. We do need an extra leg to our economy which will generate income. This is why the purpose of this bill is to fast track that.

New Zealand has been built over the last 150 years on the back of foreign direct investment. It needs to be a global player without tax exemptions to track companies. This is our best way to connect with the world and to bring capital to the country. This can be implemented fast. Exemptions to invest here by pre-approved countries will create a really durable FDI policy framework and be an additional lever for the Government and a new source of long-term revenue and taxes. Higher levels of FDI will allow New Zealand entrepreneurs access to greater levels of finance. This will mean they can invest in new technology, innovate, and take on the world. Foreign investment in New Zealand means that capital is deployed where it is needed most, and an increase in the number of valid investors in businesses and entities in New Zealand can only be a good thing. The other way in which foreign direct investment benefits New Zealand is through spill-over benefits that arguably improve everyone’s living standards. This is particularly the case with commercial direct investment.

Foreign investment can be associated with negative spill-overs too, and that’s why this bill exempts residential land and is subject to national security tests. We believe that the biggest barrier to foreign investment isn’t a threat by the capital that’s out there, because we have enough capital around the world; it is by politicians and their interests as parties, imposing more restrictions on foreign ownership rules, not working on programmes that relate to this country. In that sense, this bill is apolitical and wants to derive benefits for all of New Zealand. Thank you for the opportunity to present this bill, and I look forward to reaction from the rest of the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Sadly, we won’t be supporting this bill, for three reasons, really: first, it’s unnecessary, and it’s expensive for the taxpayer because it is unnecessary; secondly, it mucks around with our World Trade Organization obligations and our free-trade agreement (FTA) obligations, so it’s quite untidy for our trade relationships and our foreign affairs; and, thirdly, it’s actually dangerous because it doesn’t manage foreign investment risk appropriately, and that’s because it’s based on flawed assumptions about the value base of OECD—or the guarantees around that—and also the whakapapa, if you like, of legal bodies, legal organisations, that can appear to be from an OECD country but actually belong with another national State actor.

In my view, this suggestion to have a three-page bill to muck around so much with years and years of really sophisticated negotiations with our trading partners shows the transactional nature with which the ACT Party sees the world. In Labour, it’s about relationship. It’s about getting long and enduring and trusted relationships, and that takes time. It’s not something that can be done with the flick of a pen, and a three-page bill because somebody thinks it’s a good idea to try and give status to certain countries based on some poor assumptions.

So the bill is the name of Damien Smith and I congratulate him for getting it drawn, and I really enjoy sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee with him. He believes that the bill is going exempt investors and, basically, allow better foreign direct investment into our country, making it easier for investors to invest, to get stronger trade links, and to improve our quality of life. But I would say that Rt Hon Mike Moore, who was our former Prime Minister and the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 1999 to 2002, would probably turn in his grave if he thought we were even considering this. In fact, ACT has voted for those world trade agreements that we are signed up to.

So there’s no need for this legislation. We have a fit for purpose overseas investment regime. It does get updated and reviewed when it needs to. Most recently, we did that around the production forestry land-use, and back in 2018, quite high-profile changes were made around foreign investment in existing housing. So there is no need for change. Of course, that’s going to be one less burden for taxpayers.

But the Overseas Investment Act 2005, which is 207 pages long, does require overseas people to obtain consent for investments in certain New Zealand assets, and it’s taken a really balanced approach to that. It balances the need for foreign direct investment with security and with ensuring that the investments are made in the best interests of New Zealanders. So under that Act, overseas persons generally include bodies corporate that are more than 25 percent owned or controlled by non - New Zealanders.

The main feature, as I said before, is that the Act is country-neutral. It is about the transactions; it is not about the country. There are a couple of exceptions. Transactions relating to strategic assets, land transactions, and also Australia and Singaporean—certain transactions here. The Minister of Finance can consider country-specific risks when certain thresholds of investment are met, and that is where those relate to strategic assets where they could be a risk to national security.

So that regime, which has been carefully thought through and which is updated and reviewed, as I said, has a nuanced risk-management mechanism. It’s a bit of a sliding scale approach, so it has a backstop national interest test involving sensitive land and strategic assets—for example, if someone was wanting to purchase a major New Zealand media company. It has lower compliance requirements for investments in assets that are more productive and lower risk, and it has automatic exemptions for certain low-risk investments.

So that is the regime. It is fit for purpose and there is no need to change it. If we did change it in this way with this three-page bill, it would be really confusing to the most-favoured nation clauses in the trade agreements and WTO obligations. It would send a really weird signal to some of our trusted partners such as Fiji, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands, who are not in the OECD, but we’ve heard this morning, actually, from the Hon Phil Twyford, who’s the Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control, about the role that they’ve played recently in supporting and standing alongside New Zealand in negotiations around the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in New York.

So by taking all of these most favoured nations, which we would need to do under our WTO agreements, and bringing them in through the OECD mechanism, it would send a bit of a signal to our other friends and partners, either that we’re confused or, actually, that they’re excluded. That’s a difficult thing to explain to our Pacific nations, particularly if countries like Turkey then suddenly get this special status in New Zealand.

It’s also dangerous because the bill would allow investors to access the exemption by incorporating a vehicle in an OECD member country, regardless of where the ultimate ownership is. That could be a non-OECD country, or it could be a country like Russia, like China, or like many others where the value base for the assumption around the security risk of the OECD country is, therefore, flawed. Incorporation can be relatively easy; it doesn’t necessarily require material links to that country.

Under the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services and our FTAs, as I said, they would require virtually all foreign investment into New Zealand to be exempt from the Act’s screening requirements. Not only that, it would also link the OECD membership, but by linking that, it would cede some of the control of the screening regimes about high-level investments actually to the OECD, which is a further risk.

Damien Smith’s whole argument, really, is based on an assumption that the OECD trade relationships share the same rules-based values as New Zealand does in its free-trade agreements, and that simply isn’t true; it’s a flawed argument.

We are an open, outward-facing, trading nation. We’ve secured historic free-trade agreements with the United Kingdom, which sees a boost of almost $1 billion to New Zealand’s GDP in unprecedented access for our exporters. We’ve upgraded our China FTA. We have got a pretty solid FTA with the European Union, with a market of more than half a billion high-income consumers. We’ve got the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) Plus, the trade that supports New Zealand and the Pacific, which would go a bit topsy-turvy, given that they are not in those are OECD countries, should we pass this bill.

Now, those relationships and those trade agreements have taken years and years to get over the line or to upgrade. They involved very sophisticated negotiation teams, considering very many balanced and nuanced considerations around trade, but also around security, around movement of people, around climate change, and around human rights. They are relationships that take time. They are not transactional in nature, and they are, in fact, what make New Zealand attractive for investment, because it means that when New Zealand goes into these relationships, we do so with eyes wide open, carefully, and knowing that we have a trusted base to work from.

That is the basis for us being an attractive place to invest, which is counter, in many ways, to the suggestion of this bill, which seeks to very quickly and, I would almost say, flippantly—in a three-page bill—take no heed of all of that history and simply open up a special club of countries that confuses the relationships we already have and makes assumptions about the type of value base that those countries will bring to their trading.

So with those remarks, as much as I enjoy sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee with Damien Smith, and it is a shame that I don’t think we’ll be considering this bill with him—I commend him for taking the time to think about it. I know he’s passionate about finance and about our economy, but this bill is simply not the way to bring better direct foreign investment into New Zealand, and I cannot commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The only words I agree with in Ingrid Leary’s contribution, just now, was that it is a shame that the Government can’t support this bill. I rise in support of Damien Smith’s Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill and congratulate the member on the bill being drawn.

The National Party does support this bill in principle, and that’s because we do think that there are advantages to it that should have gone to select committee to be teased out. We don’t think it’s perfect in its entirety, but we certainly do think that there are some good ideas in it. And that’s primarily because, as the Labour Party has once again demonstrated, they seem to think that money grows on trees. And most New Zealanders would realise that money most certainly does not grow on trees, that we have to earn it, and it is hard work earning it. In this country, we are small island nation at the bottom of the world. We rely on trade and we rely on foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign capital coming offshore to our nation to support us.

I, as the National spokesperson for Land Information New Zealand, which oversees the Overseas Investment Office (OIO), have been increasingly concerned, actually, by the performance of the OIO. It is, unfortunately, becoming slower and slower and slower and more expensive for applicants to turn-round applications for FDI, or foreign direct investment. It takes, on average, about 126 days, or 18 weeks, not to mention the millions of dollars for overseas investors to get a response out of the office—whether it is a yes; whether it is a no.

Because of that, New Zealand’s reputation is becoming increasingly hostile to offshore investors. We had an economist speak to us recently and they gave the lovely analogy that if you were a hotel or a resort developer and you looked at Switzerland and you looked at Queenstown to develop a resort, you’re going to choose Switzerland every day of the week, simply because New Zealand is hostile to offshore investors. As they say, as a small, isolated economy—

Anna Lorck: What about forestry?

NICOLA GRIGG: Well, Anna Lorck mentions, “What about forestry?” This is the same Government that’s looking at shutting off the special forestry test so there won’t be any more offshore investment in forestry. Anna Lorck, well done for pointing that out!

I have to say that this bill does make a heroic attempt to address some of those issues that I’ve raised. It will exempt investors from OECD nations from having to go through that OIO approval process—except, obviously, in respect of investments in residential land. We do believe that there are safeguards in place, particularly because, by its very nature, membership into the OECD does require a country to demonstrate a commitment to advancing democracy and, God forbid, market capitalism. But we also know that many OECD nations are already our allies on, particularly, national security issues.

So those are just my short comments to make. We are disappointed on behalf of Damien Smith. We would have liked to have seen this go to the select committee. We do think there are some good ideas. We do agree that there is some stuff that could have been ironed out, particularly any potential impact on existing free-trade agreements and those most-favoured nation clauses—but with those comments, we do support this bill, but unfortunately, Damien Smith, it has already been dealt the death knell.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Overseas Investment (Exempt Investment from OECD Countries) Amendment Bill. In doing so, I rise to oppose this bill. I also want to add my voice to others and congratulate Damien Smith for his hard work in bringing this bill to the House. I think sometimes we have to acknowledge when people work hard to bring their bills to this House. We don’t have to call them names, but we don’t necessarily have to support the bill. So congratulations, Damien, again.

This bill seeks to exempt investors from OECD countries from Overseas Investment Office approval to invest in New Zealand with an exception, of course, of investing in residential areas. While this investment would still be subject to the call-in regime where national security interests are at stake, the bill still has a lot of flaws. OECD countries are not our only trading markets. We do have other important and significant markets such as China and India, and those countries are not going to be included in this, and that itself is problematic.

I’d like to list some of the things that the bill intends to do. The member in charge said the bill has an ability to reduce barriers to investment from other like-minded countries, improving the quality of enjoyment by all New Zealanders. And the second point he made is that he goes on to say that New Zealand has highly restrictive laws which put up needless barriers for foreign direct investment with the overall impact of reducing investment and making us poorer.

I think that these are really pessimistic points to make, because we actually have a very successful trading regime in New Zealand, thanks to our hard-working trade Minister, who has been overseas quite a few times. Individually, he has signed a lot of free-trade agreements (FTAs)—the European Union, the UK, and a quite few others are under way as well.

The reason why we don’t support this bill is simply it violates several FTAs that we have with several countries, and, in doing so, it neglects New Zealand’s obligation to those countries. ACT is actually a signatory to this regime and the member is, of course, a member of the ACT Party. The bill would not achieve its purpose, because non-OECD countries, such as China, would gain the same overseas investment access through the most favoured nation clauses in trade agreements and World Trade Organization obligations. So these are all the things that are going to restrict this bill. New Zealand has actually a very satisfactory system for overseas investment, which has undergone recent amendments. I think my colleague Ingrid Leary successfully has listed some of those things. So I think this bill is really a waste of taxpayers’ money.

I would like to mention some of the successful productive investment regimes that New Zealand has. The Labour Party Government is committed to maintaining New Zealand as open and outward-facing as a trading nation. We are supporting exporters in pursuing an ambitious trade policy to help New Zealand businesses succeed overseas. We are upgrading our free-trade agreement with China and secured an historic FTA with the United Kingdom, which adds $1 billion to New Zealand’s GDP and unprecedented access to its markets.

Now, as we reconnect with the world, we are delivering a programme for trade and tourism delegations into a number of priority international markets. We are also focused on concluding some free-trade agreements that are under way now. Labour will continue to negotiate modern, high-quality, free-trade agreements which promote adherence to environmental and labour markets.

Like I said in my introductory remarks, the OECD countries are not the only important trading partners. We have significant markets and there is a lot of work under way to consolidate our trading relationship with those markets. On that note, unfortunately, I oppose this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to acknowledge the kind remarks that have been made about the member who has put forward this bill, Damien Smith. Of course it’s important that every member of this House has the opportunity to put forward legislation they believe in.

The Green Party’s view, and longstanding view, is that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. We have limited natural resources. Land, in particular, is limited. We need to use that in a way that is sustainable and equitable. In order to achieve that, we need to reverse some of the trends from the 1980s and 1990s, which were all about enabling certain people to get enormously wealthy off exploitative types of activities, which include ownership. You know, foreign ownership is not good for New Zealand. So the Green Party is not going to support this bill. We’d like to see more restrictions on foreign ownership of strategic assets in New Zealand.

The Green Party absolutely supports an inclusive approach to migration and to relationships with other people in our country—you know, we want to be part of the global community. But enabling foreign ownership of strategic assets in New Zealand does not help New Zealanders. Foreign investors often are rent seeking; they are exploiting and extracting profits, not creating wealth, and there’s a really important distinction about that.

The economy is just one part of how humans interact with one another and how we achieve support for our societies. There’s a whole lot of work that people do that is not paid, that does not pay off. The idea that, somehow, private foreign ownership of things is helping New Zealanders is, unfortunately, wrong. I think most New Zealanders inherently understand that. Of course, the Green Party has long advocated for a much more sustainable approach to trade and a fairer approach to trade. We want our trade agreements to prioritise fair pay and a sustainable use of natural resources because, right now, the way that global trade is set up, it enables certain people who already have most of the wealth to extract even more of that. What we end up doing is exporting pollution, exporting, you know, poor labour relations—to the detriment of people and the environment in New Zealand and around the world.

So, unfortunately, this bill is not a bill that the Green Party can support. We will continue to advocate for a sustainable and inclusive approach to the economy, which recognises that money is just a symbol—it is a symbol. No, it doesn’t grow on trees; it’s created by banks. What we need to recognise is what creates true value for our people. Without clean water, without clean air, without healthy soil, we have nothing. Without sustainable forestry products that are available to people here in New Zealand, we’re not able to build houses. We saw what happened when there are global supply chain shortages. Even though we are growing wood here in New Zealand, it was difficult to get processed timber for builders here in New Zealand. Some of that is the legacy of the 1980s and 1990s, taking this neo-liberal approach, opening up New Zealand, selling off assets that had been built up by generations of citizens and residents. We don’t want to see that trend continue, so the Green Party will continue to advocate for a different approach, one that will protect our climate and protect people, and get fairer outcomes, not simply enrich those who already have the most wealth and who have no stake in New Zealand.

Thank you for this opportunity to take a call. First of all, to Damien Smith, congratulations for getting your bill drawn. I think that you deserve the respect of knowing why we’re not going to support it and why I’m not going to support it, so I’m going to just go through that now for you.

This is an issue about a regime which has been set up for good reason. As the Hon Julie Anne Genter has said, land is of particular significance. You can’t take back land that you sell elsewhere. So while I appreciate that it is often good to have investment in our country, and I don’t want to stop that entirely, I do want to take it really seriously before that land is alienated from New Zealanders. So, for me, at the moment the Act actually is really doing a good job of striking that balance. It looks at that land and it looks at the sensitivity of it. It recognises that it is taonga and actually then it sets up a different threshold for people coming in from overseas.

The problem with this bill that I see is that it lists a whole lot of countries as if it’s suddenly somehow a good thing that they come in, when, in fact, the focus of the test is not that. It’s not about which country. It’s about: is it a good thing that this land will be owned or alienated in these circumstances? So I think we’ve got the test right. I don’t want it opened to a whole raft of countries in the OECD.

But, further, I became concerned when I looked at the bill that it didn’t actually restrict in the way it suggested it was going to anyway, because there were so many ways around it. A company could set up in the OECD, and suddenly there they would be from a different place. All sorts of people could structure around this, and our land would be sold without the kind of actual thought and thought process that we have set up. I just cannot see that as being a good idea. So I don’t accept that there are safeguards in this bill that stop that.

I do think that what we have in place at the present time is not a broken system; I think it’s a good system. I think it’s a very sound way of approaching a problem but also an opportunity. I don’t think it stops investment; it just simply makes people pause and think and re-evaluate, and evaluate in the circumstances of that potential investment.

There’s obviously an issue with the free-trade agreement arrangements. There’s also an issue with most favoured nation status. So those are the things that back up that. But, basically, it comes back to something really fundamental. This is sensitive land. This is important. It’s interesting that even the member excludes residential land. There has been a lesson learnt there. But this is a situation where there’s a lot more to it than that, and I don’t want to see farmers alienated in the way that they have been in the past. I don’t want to see those kinds of things.

I’m kind of surprised to see Nicola Grigg supporting the bill when, in fact, I know that she comes from a background with a long history in farming in New Zealand. I think those cultural things are really important. They’re not just important to Māori; they’re incredibly important to people who’ve been here and they’ve had a connection with the land and they don’t want to lose it.

So I’m not as severe in terms of the position as my friend Julie Anne Genter has been. I don’t need to accuse anyone of rent seeking. I would question sometimes the value of that economic input, because I don’t think it’s always as strong as it’s made out by an ideological position that the ACT Party takes—I just don’t think it is—but I do think what is very, very important here is that we don’t undermine a regime that has been set up for good reason. Lessons have been learnt and now they’re consolidated in an Act, and I don’t want to see that actually alienate land from New Zealand. Thank you.

Todd Moller.

“Mull-er”, Mr Speaker, but despite that inaccuracy, Mr Greg O’Connor, I do want to acknowledge your elevation. I think that’s a great appointment. You’re a fine man with a few years on the clock, and, as I get closer to your years, I remember that that comes with wisdom, and it’s good to see someone wise in the Chair.

Look, I just want to acknowledge Damien. It’s pretty clear that this lot are going to boot this out at its first hurdle, but thank you for providing an opportunity to shed a light again on the Government’s irrational fear of foreign investment. Because what we’ve heard today over the last five or six speeches is just framing up their concern that somehow if you have capital that isn’t grown in this country, then that somehow is going to be a challenge to our sovereignty. They don’t understand New Zealand’s place in the global world. Their view is a constrained one, a hermit kingdom one: we’ll drag our feet at opening up to the rest of the world. Access to capital and the nature of capital in terms of global flows are something that they simply don’t understand, are not attracted to, and they would rather not have New Zealand participate in a global economy.

It’s a shame that it appears that your bill is not going to get the rigour and discussion that would occur in a select committee. But thank you again for allowing not only this House but those that watch these proceedings to get an insight in terms of their vision for the country, which is pretty unattractive. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would also like to acknowledge Damien Smith for having his member’s bill drawn. I find it difficult, though, to fathom how as a country we don’t see a reason to put foreign investment into land through the investment office.

Part of this conversation seems to be that we are not open for business or open for foreign investment. As someone who comes from the region of Hawke’s Bay, where we have seen jobs grown and foreign investment into business activity that meets the special-benefit test for New Zealand, I see a positive environment and messages out to the world that where there is a strength and opportunity to grow jobs, to see the best of our primary sector doing well through foreign investment, we embrace it, and we have done so, and history shows that.

But I find is absolutely ironic to hear from the National Party that they seem to think that it’s OK to have foreign investors come in and buy up our rolling hill country land with no sniff test—and it is a sniff test—no sniff test. When I look at the amazing information that we’re able to get, we get the information coming through the Overseas Investment Act, and through that we can have a look at the investments, we can see whether this will benefit our country, we can see how much it is important to work in those areas. But, no, the National Party seems to think back in the time when they sold off thousands of hectares of beautiful rolling hill country to foreign investors.

But we can also see, through the Labour Party, that this Government—this Government—embraces foreign investment where it matters for New Zealand. That’s how we grow our economy. We’ve made sure, through calls from farmers, actually, to tighten up the investment around making sure we plant the right tree in the right place for the right reason.

Actually, when I sat on that committee, when we talked through that on the Finance and Expenditure Committee, we heard many reasons around why it’s important to have these extra tests. New Zealanders do not want our land sold off without there being scrutiny. Scrutiny is what we do as a Government; it’s our responsibility to do so.

That’s why we can’t support this bill. That’s why I don’t see there being any reason to change what we are doing now, where we are making sure that we do look at it and we make sure that those have a special interest, a benefit to New Zealand. We’ll make sure that we grow the right jobs, we work with foreign investment, we attract business, and we show that we are open for business.

That’s why we can’t support this member’s bill, but, in doing so, as we go forward today in speaking about this, somebody else’s member’s bill, through a voting process, as we go through this first reading, may get the opportunity to be pulled out at the end.

But as we go through—and I think we’re about to agree on this side—we cannot support this. We cannot support New Zealand’s land being sold off without scrutiny. That’s the job of the Overseas Investment Office. They’ve got a job; they need to be given it. New Zealanders respect the fact that land needs to go through this scrutiny. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I cannot support this bill.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today.

The House adjourned at 12.59 p.m. (Thursday)