Overseas Investment Bill

, on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Overseas Investment Bill be now read a second time. The Overseas Investment Bill balances the need for ensuring sufficient protection for New Zealand - sensitive assets with encouraging foreign investment in New Zealand. This bill does that by ensuring that the screening of foreign investment is focused on sensitive assets, encouraging foreign investment that contributes to the New Zealand economy, and reducing compliance costs. New Zealand has a welcome and open attitude towards inward foreign direct investment, and it has been the Government’s intent to maintain that attitude.

Submitters on the bill focused on a range of issues that relate to ensuring that foreign investment in New Zealand is of benefit to New Zealand, and to ensuring that the potential gains foreign investments can bring to a small country like New Zealand are realised. The Government agrees that those are indeed the critical questions New Zealand faces when determining its foreign investment regime. Some submitters were in favour of New Zealand adopting a more liberal foreign investment regime, and others favoured a more restrictive one. Other themes that emerged related to a wish for better information on foreign investment in New Zealand, and a wish to ensure that provisions in the bill and conditions placed on an investor’s consent are monitored and effectively enforced.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee did not suggest any changes to the bill that significantly affected the balance between the restrictiveness and the liberalness of the regime. The Government concurs with that assessment. As a result of the deliberations of the select committee, changes to the criteria for the assessment of potential purchases of sensitive land by overseas persons have been suggested. The vast majority of transactions covered by the overseas investment regime are land-related, so it was appropriate that the select committee examined that area of the bill in particular detail. The bill specifies a number of factors that may be relevant to the assessment of purchases of sensitive land by overseas persons. As per the first reading of the bill, those factors can be summarised as economic development, natural and historic heritage, walking access, and the offer to the Crown of any foreshore and seabed contained within the sensitive land. The select committee has recommended that the relevant Ministers explicitly consider all the factors—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The Overseas Investment Bill seeks to ensure sufficient protection for New Zealand’s sensitive assets while encouraging overseas investment in New Zealand. The Finance and Expenditure Committee has recommended that the relevant Ministers explicitly consider all the factors that are specified in the bill. The factors in the assessment of purchases of sensitive land by overseas persons may be summarised as economic development, natural and historic heritage, walking access, and the offer to the Crown of any foreshore and seabed contained within the sensitive land. The Minister must explicitly consider all the specified factors, and determine which factors are relevant and how important each is to the overseas investment in question. Having considered the relevant factors, the Minister must then determine whether the overseas investment will, or is likely to, benefit New Zealand.

The select committee has suggested also changes to the specific factors to be taken into account when assessing potential purchases of sensitive land. It has recommended to the House that the Crown have the right of first refusal to purchase any lake bed of more than 8 hectares, any riverbed with an average width of 3 metres or more, and any lake included within sensitive land. This welcome addition to the bill ensures that New Zealand has the ability to control whether riverbed and lake bed pass into overseas ownership when they are contained within sensitive land, with provisions similar to those already in the bill around foreshore and seabed.

Furthermore the select committee has recommended that a new factor be added to the bill—a factor relating to the enhancement of the habitats of recreational fisheries and wildlife, and walking access to the relevant areas. This addition to the bill is a result of submissions made to the select committee. Other changes relating to land investments are relatively minor. These include allowing potential enhancements—not solely maintenance of existing assets—to areas of historic heritage, and improvements to walking access to be taken into account when assessments of sensitive land are made. These are relatively small but important improvements to the bill.

An investor test is applied to all purchases of sensitive New Zealand assets. This will be standardised across business, land, and fishing investments, and will consist of a good character test, a financial commitment test, and a business acumen test. The good character test, which the select committee recommended be given some definition in the bill, applies to all individual overseas persons, while the financial commitment and business acumen tests apply to the collective of a company.

The bill as reported back to the House from the select committee included provision for marginal strips to be set up when sensitive land that adjoins a significant waterway is sold to an overseas person. This provision would have ensured the creation of marginal strips to guarantee that access and conservation objectives around significant waterways were met when sensitive land was being sold to overseas persons. The select committee recommended that no compensation be payable unless the marginal strip is greater than 20 metres in width. A Supplementary Order Paper will be introduced into the House to remove the compulsory acquisition of marginal strips. This will ensure a parliamentary majority for the legislation.

The bill makes provision for factors such as conservation values and walking access to be taken into account when decisions are made regarding investment in sensitive land. Access and conservation objectives will be dealt with on a case by case basis as part of the consent process, rather than as a statutory and automatic provision. The Supplementary Order Paper I mentioned previously contains also a number of technical amendments to the bill. These cover a number of relatively minor technical issues, the most important of which is amending the bill so that consent for a transaction will be required only when a property is acquired or a business is established. So it will no longer be necessary to specifically enable contracts to be entered into or given effect to conditional on consent being obtained.

The bill revises the regulator’s information and guideline functions in clauses 32 and 37 to cover overseas investment rules generally. The select committee has recommended to the House a variety of other changes. The most major of these are as follows. It is recommended that the regulator have a new function: to produce regular statistics. That will assist in ensuring that submitters’ concerns around the information on foreign investment are met. It is recommended that an interest in farmland with a term of 3 years or more must be advertised. It is currently obligatory for all sensitive farmland subject to overseas investment to have been offered and advertised on the open market to New Zealand residents. An exemption currently exists if the interest in the land has a maximum term of less than 21 years.

It is recommended that when considering a consent application the Minister should have the power to consult as he or she thinks appropriate. It is recommended that the regulator be able to charge an administrative penalty when an overseas person seeks a retrospective consent—that is, when that person did not gain a consent when he or she should have. It is recommended that the value threshold of $100 million and the area threshold—0.4 hectares for some sensitive land—be placed in legislation in the future, as opposed to being in regulation. This would mean that future changes to the coverage of the regime will have to be endorsed by Parliament.

No major changes are recommended by the select committee around the definition of “overseas persons”, the coverage of the regime, or the monitoring and enforcement of the regime. The Government proposes that the House accept the recommendations I have outlined, and other, more minor recommendations I have not listed, from the select committee. The passage of the Overseas Investment Bill is essential in ensuring that New Zealand’s overseas investment regime strikes the correct balance. I thank the select committee for its consideration of the bill, and I commend the committee’s report to the House.

I arise on behalf of the National Party in relation to the Overseas Investment Bill. It is the intention of the National Party to support the bill, provided the matter referred to by the Minister in her address, in respect of no compensation for marginal strips, is removed from the process.

I want to take a step back and define the issues as I saw them as someone who sat on the Finance and Expenditure Committee. There were a great many submissions. I have to say there were, from memory, no submissions in favour of the bill, and I do understand the reasons for that. I want to run though the dilemma, as I see it, from the National Party’s perspective.

On a relative basis, there have been very few examples when the Overseas Investment Commission has in fact declined purchases of New Zealand land or foreign purchases of New Zealand companies. It has been a relatively lightly used provision—most applications have been accepted. Secondly, there is a genuine concern—and I think a warranted concern from New Zealanders—that we do not want to become tenants in our own country. I think the long-term future of New Zealand is not that of a bunch of people running around serving lattes to foreigners who own our country. We do have a brighter and better future for ourselves than just that.

There is a relatively good argument to say that most countries have some provisions around who can and cannot purchase their land. Of course, the risk in this situation is that New Zealand needs to think about its relative economic position compared with other countries. That is to say, the average American income is of quite some magnitude above the average New Zealand income. By definition, that means New Zealand can become quite a cheap entity. We face within that a risk around times when the exchange rate is particularly low, that New Zealand becomes quite attractive solely from a currency-play perspective.

That is the dilemma New Zealand faces. We have a global world now where the Internet is playing an interesting role. A large number of people are surfing the Internet looking to buy prime pieces of land around the world, and New Zealand is one of those places that is very attractive because—as we know—it is a beautiful nation. Therefore New Zealand is highly attractive because of its price, because of the global nature of the world, and our free capital markets that allow people to come in and buy land. By definition, of course, if one thinks about New Zealand in one sense, most New Zealanders would recognise that the land that is actually attractive to foreigners—and primarily we are talking about high-country stations, and beachfront and lakefront sites—is the land that is likely to be purchased by foreigners when they come to New Zealand. The truth is that they will not come to New Zealand to buy some piece of dirt that is out in the middle of nowhere. Generally speaking, they are coming for the choice bits of a great little country.

So I think we have to consider that element and then contrast it with the reasons why, on one level, the National Party supports this bill—that is, there are issues around property rights, and owners wanting to maximise the property’s value when they sell, the fact that we do live in a global world, and, broadly speaking, a sort of acceptance that we are part of a world where we do not want to close ourselves off completely on a number of fronts.

So I will take the first of those matters concerning company investments, where the threshold for reference to the Overseas Investment Commission has gone—from memory—from something like $25 million to $100 million. That reflects the fact that it makes sense to do that for companies financed for less than that amount, whether it is foreign or domestic capital financing those businesses—in one sense I see that as being largely irrelevant under that sort of measure.

Above that threshold, I am still relatively supportive, if foreign capital wants to come to New Zealand, but clearly there are national interest reasons why we would want to refer that. But under that level, I think it is just a reflection of the growing size of businesses and of what is relevant to the international situation.

Around the issues of sensitive lands, the first important thing to note is that the bill is attempting to tighten up the current situation, but it is worth remembering that there have been very few examples where things have been declined. So we have to put it in that context and say that this bill is an example of where we are actually making it more difficult. Young Nicks Head was a great example of a sensitive piece of land. It is a very small acreage but, regardless of its cost, it is now referred to the Overseas Investment Commission for its review. In that regard, I think that should be seen as a very positive step.

I want to talk for a moment about the marginal strips issue. If we recall the reason for marginal strips, it is really an issue that relates to the Queen’s Chain, which currently applies to about three-quarters of New Zealand. Most New Zealanders do not understand that situation terribly well. They think the Queen’s Chain is either something that has gone or something that applies all around the country. The truth is that it applies to about three-quarters of the country. But my point is—and I think it was introduced by Mr Parker—that in the event of a sale overseas, if the land did not have a marginal strip to which the Queen’s Chain applied, then the Queen’s Chain would be drawn up in the agreement in that instance.

Again, on one level I have some sympathy for that, and Nick Smith from the National Party proposed having a similar kind of process in his member’s bill. That came from the situation on D’Urville Island, where property was sold to foreigners and, as I understand the case, there was no Queen’s Chain. An offshore owner of an island gave instructions to those looking after the asset, indicating—rightly or wrongly—that the owner would not allow anybody else on the island, at all. So New Zealanders were effectively stopped from pulling up their dinghy on the beach, depending on where the high tide mark was.

I think, on one level, that locking New Zealanders out of that access to be able to land their boat, alight, and walk up a lake edge or whatever, seems wrong, so in that sense National would be very supportive of protecting that access.

The issue becomes one where, if we are not prepared to require that compensation be paid for allowing for access rights to the Queen’s Chain in private property sales, then we are really taking a significant property right from those who are selling, because the purchaser will almost certainly pay a bit less. That leaves us with the vexed question of whether the Crown wants to pay for the costs required to acquire the Queen’s Chain. In that respect I take it that the current Minister of Finance potentially shares my view—as a possible Minister of Finance—that it is a cost that we do not necessarily want to pay, if I understand that correctly. But National does not think it is fair to demand that the Queen’s Chain be applied on a non-compensation basis. So, on the assumption that that provision comes out of the bill, we will be supporting it.

I will digress very slightly to go back to the reason this issue is hugely sensitive, which is that there is a feeling that too much is being sold offshore. Again, I think pastoral leases are a good example of this. It is essentially correct to say that prior to 1995, pastoral leases could not be sold offshore, but now they can be, and quite a number of high-profile pastoral leases have moved offshore. So I think that New Zealanders are right to question that trend. On one level, I think they are right to say that it is their country and they do not want to become tenants in their own country—but on another level it is also important to weigh the property rights of the owner against that view, and to reflect a little on the fact that we now live in a somewhat more global world.

The definition of what a foreigner is becomes extremely difficult also. As some people know, I have spent a considerable amount of time living overseas and, under the technical definition, I may well have been deemed to be a foreigner when I came back and bought land back in New Zealand. So that situation creates some interesting issues. There is also the argument around someone who lives offshore but who wants to come to New Zealand and does not want to remain a taxpaying resident. That person may well have good grounds to buy here. So National will be supporting the bill, assuming the provision relating to marginal strips comes out, but we recognise that this is quite a finely balanced debate.

I would like to deal with the issue of marginal strips. Because of the numbers in Parliament, we are being forced to drop the marginal strip provisions of this bill.

💬 Simon Power: It’s called democracy.

That is right; it is the effect of democracy. But I want to explain why we in the Labour Government feel that we were right to include them, and wish that we had the numbers to put those provisions through.

The underlying assertion behind Mr Key’s argument that I disagree with is the idea that a property right in land includes the right to sell it to an overseas person without restriction. That fundamental assertion underlies Mr Key’s objection to the compulsory laying off of marginal strips when one sells land to an overseas person. Of course, the position at law in New Zealand and in many overseas countries, including provinces of Canada, parts of Japan, and many other countries, is that there is not an unrestricted right to sell to an overseas person. Indeed, as Mr Key referred in his own speech, until 1995 there was a virtual prohibition on the sale of rural lands to overseas persons, under a part of the Land Settlement Promotion and Land Acquisition Act 1952, which was not repealed until 1995. So the idea that a Government has to concede that a property right in rural land includes the unrestricted right to sell it to an overseas person is wrong logically, I suggest.

💬 Deborah Coddington: It’s not unrestricted now.

I know that it is not completely unrestricted now, but it was virtually prohibited until 1995. If it was permissible virtually to prohibit the sale of land to overseas purchasers, it must be permissible and not in contravention of the private property right to have a lesser degree of restriction on the sale of overseas land. All that the provisions in the legislation did was to impose a lesser degree of restriction on the sale of rural land to overseas persons than was the case until 1995. It was not expanding upon the position before 1995; it was trying to restore rights of access to our waterways, which are sometimes placed at greater threat when land is sold to overseas persons.

What evidence did the Finance and Expenditure Committee have that there were legitimate concerns on this front? For a start, advertisements for Poronui Station were placed before us. Poronui Station was advertised for sale for US$50 million—in US currency—in airline magazines. The advertising material plainly included “private water” as a benefit to those who would acquire the property. That was emphasised in a number of places in the documentation.

I know that in my electorate I have had complaints from some of my constituents that some of the overseas purchasers of our rural land more rigidly stick to what they assert to be their private property right to exclude people from accessing waterways that pass through their properties. We have the ridiculous situation that the title of some of those properties runs under the river, and so, although the landowner does not own the water, he or she owns the riverbed. People have the right to float down the water, but they have not got the right to walk down the riverbed if they are fishing—except with the consent of the landowner.

One cannot fix all of these problems, which have grown up over time through accidents of history, I suspect. Mistakes were made in contravention of directions by earlier Governments that marginal strips should always be laid off. Sometimes those instructions were ignored by the relevant ministries, particularly in relation to pastoral land, where pastoral leases defined just the boundary, and really did not have regard to the need to lay off marginal strips alongside some of the rivers that passed through that land. So Labour reached the position that it was appropriate to actually record that a private property right to land does not include the right to sell it to an overseas person without restriction. It never has.

I would also like to point out what I see as—I am not allowed to use certain words here—absolutely irreconcilable: on the one hand, certain political parties deny that Māori should have any rights to the foreshore, because we need to protect the rights of all New Zealanders to access the foreshore, yet those same political parties, including National, oppose restrictions on the sale of land to overseas people that would see the compulsory laying off of marginal strips alongside waterways.

I am one who is sad to see those particular provisions lost from the bill, but we are reliant on United Future to pass this legislation, and those members would not have supported it with those provisions in it, so accordingly we are removing those provisions.

The balance of the legislation is good legislation. It effectively reflects the status quo in respect of business purchases that are to be permitted as of right, without Overseas Investment Commission approval being required. Purchases up to the new limit have, in recent decades, always gone through anyway, so there is no point in further regulating them. With those comments I am pleased to note my support for the bill.

In speaking to this Overseas Investment Bill, I just remind the House that I think it is quite ironic that we are seeing a bill such as this go through the House today in all its stages under urgency. This was a bit before my time, but a few members in the House will probably remember the Allan Wallbank petition to stop land sales to foreigners. It went up and down this country, and was signed by New Zealanders in provincial towns and cities all over the place. It was vigorously supported by the Labour Party, and was one of Labour’s big campaign issues at one time. Also, I think it is ironic and crazy that the National Party is supporting a bill like this. It does not surprise me that National is supporting it, because only 6 months ago we saw a policy flip-flop from the National Party, when all of a sudden it thought twice about selling State-owned enterprises, such as Kiwibank and some other strategic State-owned assets. All of a sudden it had a change of heart on that, and developed a passion to keep certain assets in the hands of New Zealanders.

I do not think that National was passionate about that, but it obviously changed its policy because of what the facts tell us, which is that New Zealanders are concerned about the issue and do not want more land or businesses to be in the hands of foreign-owned enterprises. I think it is very clear that the people of New Zealand have spoken on that issue. Labour has introduced this bill and National is supporting it, when they have a track record together of selling off $16 billion of State-owned assets between 1984 and 1996. After having a culture such as that within those parties, it does not surprise one to see this kind of legislation today. It was, indeed, asset sales such as those in the 1980s and 1990s that saw MMP evolve. One of the main reasons that people were outraged at the Labour and National Governments of the 1980s and 1990s was the fact that people did not feel that they were listened to. People felt that those Governments just railroaded over their beliefs and did what they thought was the best thing for New Zealand, without listening to people. That is actually one of the reasons we have MMP today—obviously there are a few other reasons, but that was one of the main reasons.

Another issue that I want to talk about today—and I guess I will be talking about it in a little more depth over the Committee stage—is how the threshold of ownership will be increased, as far as business investment is concerned, from $50 million to $100 million. Well, for a start, I think we should have looked at moving it in the other way—taking it from $50 million downwards, rather than pushing it up to $100 million. But I just want to highlight, and bring to the House’s attention, the fact that some businesses that were sold just in the last couple of years will miss out on this threshold, and will not be looked at now because of the higher threshold. The Sime Darby Motor Group Ltd of Malaysia paid $61 million - plus, with a potential additional consideration of up to $5 million, to acquire Truck Investments Ltd. Its businesses include trucks sales, companies, and a few other things. Skycity Entertainment Group Ltd paid $93 million for Aspinall (NZ) Ltd, which owns 40.5 percent of the Christchurch Casino. That, obviously, would miss the threshold. The AMP New Zealand Office Trust, owned 43 percent from Australia, paid $71 million for Mobil on the Park down here in Wellington, and $75 million for the BNZ Centre. Telecom New Zealand Ltd, owned 72 percent from overseas, paid $62 million for the information technology services company Gen-i Ltd.

We have a few other examples, which I will skip over, because there is such a long list. I think that illustrates my point very clearly. Vero Insurance New Zealand Ltd of Australia—the former Royal and SunAlliance New Zealand—paid $68 million for the motor vehicle and consumer goods warranty and credit insurance business of AutoSure Group Holdings. I will highlight just a couple more examples to the House. The UBS Group timber investors of USA paid $81 million for trees and forestry in the central North Island, and then there was a very interesting one that I want to finish off with. There are obviously a lot more purchases that would miss out on the new threshold. But the Brunswick Corporation paid $54 million for 70 percent of Navman New Zealand Ltd, with an option to buy the remaining 30 percent by 2005. Navman is a New Zealand - based electronics manufacturer of marine electronics and general navigation products. As I was reading about that, I took a few seconds to think about it, and it stopped me in my tracks. I remember the Minister for Industry and Regional Development trumpeting that business as one of New Zealand’s greatest successes. It was to be a new export opportunity for New Zealand, and it was going to create lots of jobs for New Zealanders and lots of profit for New Zealand. I then noted that Navman was sold to Brunswick Corporation for $54 million, which would miss out on that threshold. I think that is a very interesting thing to note and highlight to this House.

Another issue I want to raise in this House is the definition of “good character”. The test of “good character” is used in a number of places, but the term is not defined in the bill. I believe that there needs to be a tightening up of that definition. Actually, it is not defined at all. The bill just states “good character”; that is what is there. The Overseas Investment Commission will think that it is all right as long as either a solicitor, or even the individuals themselves, write a letter to say that they have “good character”. I would think that most people, or most corporations, would say that they had great character. It should be up to the Overseas Investment Commission in New Zealand to make that decision, rather than to just take their word for it. I also think that the Minister should take more responsibility in that decision-making process, and I will elaborate more on that in the Committee stage.

While we are on the definition of “good character”, I point out that the Overseas Investment Commission, in its 1998 report, even stated itself that the term was mentioned numerous times in New Zealand legislation, but was not once defined. The law is very ambiguous on that issue, which leads to extremely weak enforcement in the present situation. That is added to by the Overseas Investment Commission’s ineffective methods or criteria. The regime is simply ambiguous and needs to be changed. I shall read a recommendation by one of the submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. It is a very interesting recommendation, and reads: “The term ‘good character’ should be defined in the bill. Its definition should reflect court interpretation, but should be wider than criminal convictions, including adherence to common ethical standards and absence of acts that would be illegal in New Zealand, or which have given rise to adverse civil court findings.”

That was an example of why people should take another take on this election. Could the two old parties please consider going into coalition together instead of with New Zealand First, because if either of them do, heaven help us!

I am going to be very unpopular. It is easy to take the populist stand on legislation like this and say that we support it. There is a lot of emotion around foreign investment in this country, and a lot of that emotional talk is absolutely not founded on reason at all. We have just had an example of it. This country was founded on foreign investment—our insurance companies and our banks. Our banks are still mostly owned by foreigners. If New Zealanders do not like that, they do not have to use them. They do not have to use the bank, they do not have to use their mobile phones, and they do not have to patronise foreign companies. Foreign investment, overwhelmingly, has been very good for this country. We would not survive without it.

Interestingly enough, those who follow Australian politics might remember Prime Minister Paul Keating saying a while back that the foreign ownership of the Gold Coast must be stopped. He wanted to stop Japanese people from buying up property on the Gold Coast. The reason he came out with that—because in Australia they are a lot more robust than us—was that they did not want those slanty-eyed people buying the Gold Coast. Someone else answered him in the debate by saying that no, they were buying it all off New Zealanders.

That is the problem. There are already restrictions on foreigners buying land in New Zealand, and I contend that those restrictions are stringent enough. But if we start to restrict them even further we have to be consistent and consider what that does to New Zealanders who want to buy overseas.

But I come to the basic principle of this bill, which is the issue of private property rights. I strongly believe that people who own property have the right to sell it to somebody who will pay them the highest price. It comes back to emotion again. A lot of people think that they do not want foreigners owning all our prime pieces of land. But if those people owned that prime piece of land they would want to get the best price for it when they sell it. They might want to sell their high-country station and use the money to fund their grandchildren’s tertiary education or put it into a retirement fund. We already have restrictions.

Mr Parker, on the opposite side of the House, seemed to imply that parties who opposed this bill want unrestricted access. We are not saying that. We are saying that the restrictions that are already there are stringent. The National member John Key cited D’urville Island. He said that it was sold completely to foreign ownership. He disagreed with that because, he said, ordinary Kiwis could not pull up their dinghies on the beach. A lot of ordinary Kiwis would like to have a swim in his Parnell swimming pool, but they are not allowed to. Why? Because it is his private property, and that is respected. People respect that he owns it, that he worked hard for the money that went into building and purchasing it, and that he has the right to restrict access to any common Kiwi who wants to have a swim in his pool. One cannot equivocate with property rights.

Mr Key talked about New Zealanders not wanting to be tenants in their own land, or not wanting to serve lattes to foreign owners who come to places like Central Otago or Northland. I was one of those waitresses serving lattes to foreigners several years ago, and it is a great way for ordinary Kiwis to recapitalise and get some money in their bank balances. Those people bring money to this country—[Interruption] He is up there, hiding behind the yellow boxes.

It is a good way to increase ordinary people’s wealth. Is there not something of the drawbridge mentality in this attitude? “I’m here, pull up the drawbridge and don’t let anybody else come in.” If we were consistent about this we would say that no white people could buy land in this country. We are all foreigners if we take the tangata whenua attitude and philosophy that Māori were the first people to occupy this land so they are the true tangata whenua. Then all of us could go the whole Fiji way, could we not? I am not advocating that; I am just pointing out the inconsistencies in some of those arguments, and the fact that it is very dangerous to start going down that road and saying what is good or not good.

The issue of Young Nicks Head came up. Sure, that was something that people felt very strongly about, there were protests, and it was on television every night, but we cannot pass legislation every time some minority group decides it does not want a piece of land sold. There was nothing to stop those people who were protesting about the sale of that land forming a company or a cooperative, getting a loan, and purchasing the land themselves. They were not barred from owning it.

We have to look at the issue of the marginal strip, which we will obviously deal with further in the Committee stage. If one is a foreigner and buying a piece of land for squillions of dollars, it will be a condition of consent that the Minister might say: “Well, you give us that marginal strip and you can buy it.”—as I understand it, that is how it will be if the Supplementary Order Paper goes through—and if the purchaser is paying a lot of money for it, then he or she will probably agree. Why is a foreigner paying a lot of money for that land and protecting that marginal strip any different from a New Zealander paying a lot of money for it? As I understand it, a New Zealander will not have to go through that same process. A New Zealander could actually buy it lock, stock, and barrel.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: There’s no consent process for New Zealanders at all.

There is no consent process at all.

If the marginal strip is so valuable and is such an asset, surely it is an asset regardless of who the purchaser is or what he or she is paying. That is something I do not understand, and I hope that someone else can throw some light on that, because if we are to have that for a foreign person buying it, then surely we have to have it for a New Zealander buying it as well.

I will get back to the issue of foreign ownership. Someone—I cannot remember who the speaker was—raised the issue of New Zealanders being very opposed to a number of overseas people who are not citizens of this country coming over here and buying our prime real estate. Before I came to the House I read through a number of the submissions. Some of them were extreme, like those from the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa, which, I suppose, one has to admire. It has been around for a long time. But we have to look at the ethnicity of some of the people who started it; it goes back to the drawbridge mentality.

In general, the people who want to come here and buy land, and who put a lot of money into it, are people who are attracted to this country because of those Kiwi assets, if you like—the wild open spaces, the rivers, the lakes, and the seabed. They are escaping what they came from. There is no evidence that foreign owners are in any way, general or otherwise, any worse owners of the land. They cannot put it on a ship and take it away with them. They can only keep investing in it. So ACT members are opposed to this bill. I think we are the only party in the House that is opposed to it, but none the less we will stand on our strong principle of property rights and we will vote against it.

It will not surprise anyone in this House, least of all Dr Michael Cullen, that the Green Party is opposed to this bill.

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Thank goodness! That’s a relief.

I am glad it is a relief. Dr Cullen was worried I was going to turn round on this one. We were tempted to do so at one point, actually, because we are very keen on the marginal strips provisions that are contained in the bill. We disagree with the ACT party, in that we do think it is appropriate for foreign investors to recognise how we do things down here—the fact that we value and treasure access to the outdoors—and that it is appropriate, if a foreign investor is allowed to buy a significant piece of sensitive land beside a lake, by the beach, or adjoining a river, to provide a marginal strip giving Kiwis access to that public open space. So at the Finance and Expenditure Committee we were very keen to support the amendments initiated by the Labour member for Otago, David Parker.

Therefore, when United Future pulled the plug on those amendments by threatening to withdraw support for the bill if it did not provide for compensation for foreign landowners, we gave serious consideration to supporting it, at least at the second reading stage, just because we think the provision of marginal strips is a positive element. But at the end of the day we decided that the bill is so bad in so many other respects that we could not bring ourselves to back it. We are extremely disappointed that United Future - Outdoor Recreation NZ has put compensation for foreign investors ahead of access to the great outdoors for Kiwi recreationalists. I think there is an inherent contradiction within United Future when it claims to be the sensible environmental party, then pulls the rug out from under the very people it claims to represent.

I turn to the bill in its broadest sense. It is a giant con job. There is no doubt about that. When Dr Cullen announced in November 2003 that he was conducting a first principles review of the Overseas Investment Act, everyone knew what lay behind that smokescreen. He said that he wanted to provide greater protection from foreign ownership for iconic sites of historical, cultural, or environmental interest, but it was clear that he would use the facade of providing that protection to sell off the buildings and businesses associated with such iconic pieces of land. That has come to pass with this piece of legislation. It is remarkably cheeky to put in the purpose clause the comment that the legislation is all about acknowledging that it is a privilege for overseas persons to own or control sensitive New Zealand assets, then proceed to make it even easier for foreign investors to gobble up more of our economy, and to allow not just more of our land but also more of our businesses and central business district buildings to be taken over by foreign investors.

I would like to spend a couple of minutes pointing out that there are some good provisions in this bill, and that the Green Party is grateful for them. We hope we will not see the arrival of a Supplementary Order Paper to remove these good provisions after I highlight them to the Minister. It is good to see a tightening of the monitoring regime, in addition to what was already in the bill. That is a positive step. It is good to see an expansion of clause 18 to incorporate introduced wildlife, alongside the provisions that are already there for indigenous wildlife. It was good to hear Government members of the select committee recognise that Treasury officials are very much on the side of foreign investors and international organisations like the World Trade Organization, rather than batting for Kiwi battlers when it comes to placing appropriate controls on foreign investors.

But this bill falls way short of the recommendations the Finance and Expenditure Committee came up with back in 2001, when we comprehensively reviewed the Overseas Investment Commission. We looked particularly at the activities of the commission in relation to the Southland Plantation Forest Co. investment, and we found that the commission had fallen down badly. At best, the commission claimed there would be a net marginal gain in employment as a result of the approvals it gave that led to a lot of farmland in Southland being taken over by a Japanese forestry company. But at worst we have seen a community torn apart, which is why Labour members and I recommended jointly that an additional commissioner be appointed to represent the wider community, and that the application of the national interest criteria be extended to all proposals, not just land proposals. We can see the merit of that when we look at clause 18 of the bill. While that clause is appropriate for land, it is even more appropriate for business propositions, yet businesses have to pass only a good character test. So it would be sensible to extend the bill to cover all sensitive assets, not just land. That will be dealt with in one of a number of amendments that we will put forward.

We will put forward also an amendment on another issue that was highlighted by the Labour and Green select committee members back in 2001, when we agreed that the current $50 million threshold should be revised downwards. I would like to acknowledge my New Zealand First colleagues at the time for supporting the Green position that the threshold should be reduced to $10 million. That was the threshold just before the 1999 election. Mr Bolger lifted it to $50 million by sleight of hand, and this Labour Government has enshrined that in the closer economic partnership agreement with Singapore. The threshold is going in the wrong direction with this bill, which lifts it to $100 million. We want to take it back to $10 million.

We—the Labour and Green select committee members—wanted the Overseas Investment Commission to consider the impact on social well-being, environmental sustainability, and economic sovereignty when considering an investment in New Zealand, and I do not think this bill provides for that. Also, we wanted a code of corporate responsibility to be introduced. I concede that the bill does now contain a definition of “good character”, which is a step forward, but it does not go as far as a code of corporate responsibility. The national interest test should be expanded to ensure that any investment is compatible with Treaty of Waitangi obligations, a consideration that is completely absent from this bill. So instead of going forward and adopting in legislation the recommendations of the 2001 review, this bill has gone backwards. It has ignored the petition of over 7,000 New Zealanders calling for tighter controls on foreign investment.

I would like to make it clear—particularly to the ACT member who perhaps tried to imply that some of us who oppose this bill are against foreigners—that the Greens are not against foreigners. We are more than happy for people of foreign descent to make New Zealand their home, but if they want a slice of heaven they should have to make a commitment to this country. Almost half of our candidates in this year’s election were born overseas, so we are not anti-foreigner; what we are is very pro - New Zealand.

So we say no to land sales to foreign investors, whether they are corporate or individual, and we say that business investments must be greenfield investments. They must add value to our economy, not subtract value from it. That has been the problem. Foreigners have taken over Tranz Rail, Telecom, Air New Zealand, and Powerco. Many former central and local government assets have fallen into foreign hands. We have all seen the results of those takeovers, yet this bill is appallingly weak when it comes to scrutinising such investments.

I will put forward some amendments to strengthen the bill so that it genuinely allows only foreign investments that are in the best interests of New Zealand—because that is what we need. We do not want our net national debt to grow any larger than the $123 billion that it is at the moment. We do not want to be paying any more interest or dividends on foreign investment. For the year to December, $8.9 billion was the balance on income, because of the high level of foreign investment. We need to make our economy more self-reliant and sustainable.

I rise to speak on the second reading of the Overseas Investment Bill, which I think is a good bill. Probably, it strikes a fair balance between New Zealand’s need for overseas capital on the one hand, and the protection of sensitive land sales to people who have no intention of becoming New Zealand residents on the other hand. However, as is well known in the House, a degree of controversy arose around the amendments proposed to the original bill by David Parker, the member for Otago and a member of the Labour Party. Those amendments aimed to introduce marginal strips alongside rivers and lakes when land is sold to people who are not New Zealanders and who have no plans to become New Zealand residents—in other words to people who are merely part-time or visiting landowners.

I want to make it clear that United Future supports the creation of marginal strips in those circumstances, and I thank David Parker for raising the issue. Unfortunately, however, there was a fly in the ointment—quite a small fly, but a very, very important and significant one—and that was the specific provision in the bill that no compensation is payable to any person in exchange for the marginal strips. That is a very, very serious departure, and, from our point of view, an unacceptable departure, from the common law tradition going right back to Magna Carta that has always held there should be no confiscation without compensation. United Future was not prepared to live with a precedent of that sort in any New Zealand legislation.

The timing of this bill was extremely interesting, because while the Finance and Expenditure Committee was debating the question of no compensation, my member’s bill—a bill amending the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 to provide for property rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and specifically stating that no one was to be deprived of the use and enjoyment of his or her own property without just compensation—was drawn from the ballot. That was one factor. But there is another factor as well, of course, and that is that the Government has announced its intention to proceed down the road not only of requiring marginal strips when sensitive land is sold to overseas persons, but, indeed, of requiring marginal strips from other New Zealand owners, as well, regardless of whether they intend to sell their property to a New Zealander or to an overseas person, and regardless of whether they intend to sell their property at all.

I think the whole nation is aware that this is an enormously controversial matter—so controversial that we have farmers in this country pledging to go to jail if land is to be removed from them without compensation. I have had delegations from Federated Farmers in Marlborough on that issue, and they were good enough to read out a statement I sent to their recent regional conference. A huge group of landowners in Waitakere City have approached me, and literally hundreds of farmers in the King Country and in the Waikato have all raised this issue with me. So the timing of legislation that has come to the House with a bland statement that no compensation is payable, really could not have been worse.

But in one sense, perhaps it is good that it did coincide with those other events that I mentioned, because it did—certainly for United Future—give us pause to really consider whether we wanted to support this legislation. I will probably talk a bit more about that in the Committee stage.

Quite apart from the issue I mentioned, on reflection I believe that it was actually unwise and unnecessary for the Government to try to force the issue of no compensation. I think that the situation that has now arisen, whereby the Government has signified that it will introduce a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee to take out the provisions about marginal strips from the bill and, rather, deal with that matter during the consents process, is probably the right answer. I say that, because I think that during negotiations on a case by case basis, it is likely that many New Zealand landowners selling sensitive land to overseas residents will actually be quite willing to allow the marginal strip to be created, because they will be getting a price from the overseas purchaser higher than they can get from a New Zealand purchaser.

In that situation, therefore, they have every financial incentive to agree to a marginal strip, and so we neatly avoid, entirely, the question of taking that strip without compensation. It can be done by mutual agreement. United Future believes that that is the preferred way forward, so we are very, very pleased that the bill has been amended to take into account our considerations in that regard. We will, therefore, be supporting this bill.

I am pleased to take a short call in this debate to support my colleague the Hon Judith Tizard, who moved the second reading of the bill. I wish to speak on it at just a philosophical level rather than a detailed one, and light upon one small matter.

It seems quite clear to me that we need balance in these matters, particularly in relation to sensitive lands. There are concerns about excessive amounts of sensitive land passing into foreign ownership, but as soon as one tries to legislate that pretty well all land cannot be taken into foreign ownership, or requires some enormously complicated process in order to approve it, then we make it almost impossible for a very wide range of economic development to occur within New Zealand.

This country has always relied upon substantial amounts of foreign capital for its development. Until we lift our savings rates to a very, very, very much higher level than at present, that will remain the case. Certainly, I suggest gently to my Green colleagues that if they want to be so much in favour of New Zealand ownership and of the lifting of savings rates, then they should at least begin by supporting the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, instead of opposing that part of a long-term sustainable policy based upon savings that accumulated from New Zealanders.

The second point I would make in that respect is that land does not go away, simply because somebody has bought it. In fact, it is far easier to buy a factory and remove it from New Zealand than it is to buy a high-country sheep farm and remove it from New Zealand. It is very difficult to move a high-country sheep farm to some foreign country. The land does endure, in a way that other economic assets do not endure. So it is important that in this bill we provide mechanisms to consider quite specifically issues around access and so on, as part of the consideration of approval for foreign purchase of New Zealand land.

I might say in that regard that the purchase of Young Nick’s Head, for example, turned out to be better than if the previous absentee New Zealand owner had remained there. It was a deteriorating farm, with no access for New Zealanders, no Government ownership of the most sensitive part of the land, and a very unclear relationship in terms of the rights of local Māori to look after certain parts of that land. The new owner, Mr Griffin, has provided a much more satisfactory relationship. The land purchase by Shania Twain caused a great deal of interest in Otago, and we were able to gain some important concessions in terms of completing a track through the South Island.

💬 Peter Brown: She’s going to sing at the Labour Party conference.

Of course Mr Brown, speaking with that perfect North London accent as he does, will stand up for the rights of native New Zealanders in these respects, without a single conscious thought that this might involve an “h” word that we are not allowed to say within this Chamber.

I welcome the fact that the National Party will support this bill, after the amendment is moved to remove the marginal strips provisions. [Interruption] But I would gently say to Ms Wong, before she goes much further, that it was her own colleague Dr Nick Smith, not to be confused with Young Nick’s Head, who introduced a member’s bill to provide for the compulsory acquisition of marginal strips without compensation, which the National Party voted for and sent to a select committee. Now, the National Party says in this bill that to act in that manner fails to recognise the foundation of our society. It is not something relatively minor; it is the foundation of our society! Ms Wong is telling us that Dr Nick Smith ignores the foundation of our society, in terms of his—

💬 Pansy Wong: He does.

He does, does he?

💬 Pansy Wong: Who put that in the bill?

I think he put that in the bill. Dr Nick Smith is the person who I think put that in the bill, without any doubt at all, because it was a bill in his name. The bill states “Dr Nick Smith” at the top of it, which is usually a subtle hint for the careful reader that that is the person who put that in the bill.

I am pleased that the National Party has done a U-turn on this. I predicted it would, when Dr Smith’s bill was sent to a select committee. I am grateful for the support of United Future. I recognise that there has been an issue of principle for them in this bill, which is why we have removed those provisions. I am grateful for the support of the National Party. I am baffled, I have to say, by the ACT party’s position on this, which seems to be totally open slather, but when a party is sitting on a proud 2 percent and going downwards, it can be very free and easy with its principles. When one is a retiring member of a party that is sitting on 2 percent and going downwards, that member can be even freer and easier with his or her principles, because there is not really a lot to lose at that stage in life.

I look forward to the Committee stage. The Government will be voting against all the amendments moved by Mr Rod Donald, and we hope for support from both the National Party and United Future in that respect.

I will take up just two points made by Dr Michael Cullen, the Minister of Finance of New Zealand. Firstly, if Dr Cullen is so concerned about New Zealanders not saving, I challenge him to give them a generous tax cut to enable them to save. A tax cut of 67c per week in 3 years’ time will not help most New Zealanders save up to buy even a piece of brick in Auckland—if they live in Auckland. Secondly, I fail to see how Dr Nick Smith can be connected to this Overseas Investment Bill, which is labelled as a Government bill and into which Labour member David Parker introduced the creation of compulsory marginal strips without compensation. I hope Labour takes some responsibility for that. After all, this is a Government bill.

National supported the Overseas Investment Bill at its first reading and its referral to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, because we also believe in striking a balance between the benefits derived from overseas investment, and the public’s desire to maintain the long-established New Zealand practice of providing public access for outdoor recreational activities.

But the vast majority of submissions, including the 8,000-signature petition, that we received and heard during the select committee process were against the bill. This reflects the public perception, after a number of high-profile cases, of the failure of the Overseas Investment Commission in following up and enforcing the obligations of overseas investors to fulfil their conditions of purchase. This perception of lack of enforcement led to calls from many submitters and signatories to restrict or ban overseas investment. But we should distinguish enforcement and undesirable conduct from banning overseas investment per se.

The main enforcement agency, which has been the Overseas Investment Commission, argued that it lacked the tools to take effective enforcement action when some overseas investors failed to meet the purchase conditions. One has to wonder why it has taken this agency so long to seek additional tools to carry out its work effectively. During the select committee process, all the members of the committee from all sides of the House shared the sentiment that we are more in touch with the public. All the members of the select committee urged the agencies to be more proactive in monitoring purchase conditions and enforcing the law when those conditions are breached. I imagine that unless a more proactive approach is taken by enforcement agencies to improving negative public perceptions, antagonism towards overseas investment will not be lessened.

National supports the tougher enforcement provisions contained in the bill, and we will keep a very watchful eye on the new enforcement agency to ensure that it does enforce the law. The administration of the overseas investment portfolio was undertaken by the Reserve Bank in the past, and has now shifted to Land Information New Zealand. We certainly would like to see that as a signal that more proactive enforcement action will be taken.

We realised that it must be election year when suddenly the largely cooperative atmosphere in the select committee took a new turn. Suddenly we had to take a lot more time, because David Parker brought in a change. He must have thought it would be an election year winner for him. His action must have had the endorsement of his Labour colleagues. Mr David Parker insisted that marginal strips must be created on sensitive land adjacent to rivers, lakes, and the foreshore.

💬 Brian Connell: You could pay compensation for that.

No, it gets worse. The select committee spent a lot of time investigating whether this late addition was within the scope of the bill, whether it was in contravention of New Zealand’s international agreements, and whether it was workable. Ten pages were added to this bill. It became worse when we realised that Mr David Parker wanted the marginal strips to be created for no compensation. I do not know where he studied economics or finance. He argued that that provision would not affect the price obtained by the seller.

💬 Gordon Copeland: He’s a lawyer.

Ah, lawyers! That explains it. Taking land away to create marginal strips would affect the price that sellers could obtain for their land. Any person of sense could tell us that the sale price must be affected. So at that point National changed its stance. Even though we supported the bill at its first reading, we could not support it at the deliberation stage of the select committee, because the expropriation of property without compensation is a fundamental infringement.

How could the bill contain such an unacceptable provision but still pass through the select committee and return to the House for a second reading? I think another party has woken up to the fact that this is election year. United Future registered a small protest during the select committee stage, to the effect that it found the provision to create marginal strips without compensation bad—but it was not bad enough to make United Future say it would not support the bill. If United Future had decided to oppose it at that stage, those provisions would not be contained in the bill we are now debating.

National gave United Future a hard time. We asked how that party could say it has principles, and how it could put up a weak protest but support the bill—and then we suddenly realised that it must be because this is election year. We understood that a closed-door negotiation had been conducted. United Future is the only party that supported Labour in getting the bill through the select committee stage. We can tell it is election year.

We have a lot of questions to ask David Parker. Will he abstain from voting on the bill? Will he vote against it when the Supplementary Order Paper we have been told about is introduced to remove the marginal strip provision? So I am looking forward to examining this bill in detail, to learn what the Otago MP will do. He is facing a stiff challenge from our brilliant Otago candidate. She will give David Parker a hard time.

💬 Brian Connell: He’s gone.

His provision is gone, and the next thing left is for him to go, unless he can show his constituents that he will stand up for their interests. I presume that is why he introduced that provision. He has to explain to them why he is backing off from his amendments to the bill. National is looking forward to that part of the debate, and to examining the Supplementary Order Paper that will remove the compulsory acquisition of marginal strips without compensation.

The National whips have played three extraordinarily cruel hoaxes on Pansy Wong. The first is that they forgot to tell her she is voting for the bill. The second is that they forgot to tell her that the tax cuts National is promising will not really be tax cuts. The third escapes me for now. I think it had something to do with whether there is lunch in the box. They were cruel hoaxes indeed, and I felt sorry for the member being so badly treated in that respect.

The Overseas Investment Bill is quite an important bill, because it seeks to do a couple of very important things. First of all, it seeks to protect the interests of New Zealanders in terms of their access to waterways and their enjoyment of what we see as our birthright, the Queen’s Chain. But at the same time it seeks to encourage overseas investment. One of the reasons it does that is that we rely on overseas investment for our economic prosperity. Pansy Wong and others who have expressed such moral outrage in this debate have forgotten that until we get ourselves, as a nation, into a situation of being good savers, we will rely on overseas investment for much of our prosperity. It is as simple as that. For Pansy Wong and others to stand in this House and say that giving people a tax cut will encourage savings is just so much cant. It simply is not true.

💬 Darren Hughes: It’s baloney!

As the honourable member for Otaki says, it is baloney. It just will not happen. Indeed, as everybody in this House knows, any signalling of major tax cuts will be met by the response of the Governor of the Reserve Bank putting interest rates up in order to dampen down demand so that inflation remains under control. Anybody with a skerrick of economic understanding knows that. Even John Key knows it. He was the one who said to Don Brash that he cannot introduce tax cuts in a mini-Budget after Christmas; it will take 9 years. National has ramped up the expectations of the public that there will be huge tax cuts, when we know, irrespective of the issues—

💬 Deborah Coddington: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I thought we were debating the Overseas Investment Bill.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Yes, that is a good point. Would the member please stick to the bill.

I think I have made my point about the economic contribution of overseas investment, but I do wish to raise another point about the need to do something through this bill to protect the interests of New Zealanders. At the same time as we are doing that, we see the orange ribbon campaign going on. I find that quite fascinating. I am getting the wind-up from the whip; I think he wants me to do a better job of this. Those who have raised that issue cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that we cannot provide access over land to the marginal strips, and at the same time say that we need overseas investment as well. There are some fascinating issues in this debate, but I will take the whip’s advice and let others who wish to contribute to it do so.

I think Labour played a bit of a cruel hoax on that member. It did not advise him which bill was on the Order Paper. New Zealand is a low-wage economy, on a worldwide scale.

💬 Mark Peck: I blame the poms for that.

The member makes a joke of it. I know the Government thinks it will have addressed the situation by 2008, when it will give low-paid people 67c a week extra, but I can tell the member that that is not enough.

💬 Craig McNair: A stick of gum.

That is about all it is worth. New Zealand is a low-wage economy. The ACT members and some of the other members who have spoken want to put New Zealand up for sale, with a line at the bottom of the advertisement saying: “Going cheaply.”

💬 Craig McNair: Flog it off.

They want to flog it off to everybody. I know that Deborah Coddington and the Hon Michael Cullen stated that land sold to overseas investors does not go away—cannot be taken away. I tell honourable members that as far as the average New Zealander is concerned, it most certainly can be. It might as well be at the other end of the world, because they cannot afford it. If we open this country to buyers worldwide and say that anything and everything is for sale, so they should come here with their money, then the average New Zealander will never get anywhere. If the members on the Government benches do not understand how difficult it is for people to buy their first home, then they should go out and talk to some of the average New Zealanders who are trying to do that. Or if they do not understand how hard it is for a young farmer to get a farm, then they should go and talk to some of those guys who are suffering. John Key is a multimillionaire, Sunday told us.

💬 John Key: Don’t believe everything you saw on that programme.

The member has a big, flash house in Parnell and a beach house that most of us here would die for. He would not have those assets had he not gone overseas to work for them. He would not have attained them on the pay scales in this country, no matter how good he is at his job. Just for the record, Mr Key is nodding in total agreement. I cannot think of one profession or one trade in which a person would not be better off working overseas—not one. [Interruption] Is the member giving me one?

💬 John Key: Graeme Hart—he’s worth about $1.5 billion.

Where is he living?

💬 John Key: He lives in St Heliers.

That is the one exception.

💬 Brian Connell: Douglas Myers is another one.

Madam Speaker, this is difficult enough without these fellows—

💬 Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it is difficult enough. Could we please stick to the bill.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I appreciate that we are in urgency and that things move along in a reasonably convivial way, but if the New Zealand First member personalises the debate in a way that involves Mr Key’s non-parliamentary life, then he can expect some interjection from those in Mr Key’s party who sit around him.

💬 Madam SPEAKER: I take the member’s point. I thought there was an element of camaraderie there—obviously I was mistaken. It was getting out of control. Let us get back to the purpose of the bill. No humour is required at this stage—members should just address the bill.

As I recall, Mr Key made reference to his own circumstances in his own speech, and I think he took what I said with good humour. If we open the door for anybody to come here to buy anything, then we encourage young New Zealanders to go overseas to earn the big bikkies needed to come back and buy the country.

New Zealand First unashamedly believes that there should be some restrictions on overseas investment in this country. We will not get mixed up like ACT members and confuse that with people who come here with their money on a permanent basis, determined to settle here, invest here, and play a positive part in the economic and social well-being of the country. We are not confusing overseas investors with immigrants who come here and make a commitment to this country. The ACT member seemed to get quite confused when illustrating that point.

The Greens have produced a Supplementary Order Paper much of which, on the surface, New Zealand First supports. We have not had a chance to examine it in detail or to discuss it in caucus, but the Greens make some points that sit comfortably with New Zealand First, particularly in respect of the purpose clause. The Supplementary Order Paper enlarges the purpose clause, basically by adding clause 3(b): “Any ownership or control must be in the national interest for the long term benefit of New Zealanders.” We think that that is a fairly level-headed approach. The Supplementary Order Paper further adds clause 3(c): “Public participation in decisions about overseas investment will be encouraged.” I tell Mr Donald that New Zealand First will support that also.

I regret to say that we have not had a chance to examine the rest of the Supplementary Order Paper in detail, and therefore have been unable to discuss it as a caucus. I notice that the amendment to insert clause 18(2)(g)(i) relates to: “provisions made for settlements to claims made under the Treaty of Waitangi, including return of land;”, and that part of that clause refers to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. That puts us on our guard. But we will support the amendment to the purpose clause, because we think that the Greens have enlarged it to reflect what most New Zealanders feel about overseas investment.

I conclude by drawing the House’s attention to the fact that very recently a football club in the UK, namely Manchester United, was sold in large part to some Americans. There was just about uproar in Manchester. Manchester United is still going. The team is still playing soccer, as far as I know. It has not been moved out of the country—it is still there. The players still play in red and white. It still has Wayne Rooney and all the stars. But the Manchester United fans created uproar. The Government wants to do something like that to this country. It wants to do to New Zealand what has been done to the Manchester United Football Club. It is saying that it will do that to New Zealand—so does it not expect some passion and concern out there? I say to the Government that it is wrong. Can Government members tell me what gain was obtained for the country and for the average New Zealander by the sale of $16 billion worth of assets under Labour and National in the 1980s and 1990s? They should tell me that.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: What have the Romans done for us?

The member thinks it is a joke. He did not think it was a joke when he had to buy back Air New Zealand a couple of years ago. He did not think it was a joke when the Government had to buy back Tranz Rail after the average New Zealander had been promised a first-class railway system. If the Government has not learnt the lesson of selling things cheaply, then it should have done so by now.

New Zealand First is a political party founded on the principle that, first and foremost, it will look after New Zealanders and this country. [Interruption] The member over there makes a noise, but if he thought a little more deeply about what the people in Otaki think about this, he might have a different view. Maybe he should go out and ask them whether they want overseas investment. Oh no, that would be getting too close to the coalface. The Minister is shaking his head.

This bill will get through, because the good old boys of politics in this country, National and Labour, will combine. They will put up a sign saying that this country is for sale and going cheaply, and that buyers should come and talk to Michael Cullen and John Key. New Zealand First opposes this bill.