Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Bill

Madam Chair, thank you for the guidance on the process now in the committee, because I think that will be helpful.

My first question to the Minister, and my concern, is exactly as I’ve outlined in the speech I’ve just given in the second reading, and that is the rushed nature of the legislation and whether we’re going to get it accurate with the Minister’s wishes. Already, we have a Supplementary Order Paper. We’ve only just got it out of the select committee and here we’ve got Supplementary Order Paper 507 on the Table, suggesting to me between the time it left the select committee last week—it might have even been Monday this week—we’ve already found mistakes. The one I particularly want to refer to is in clause 6, the insertion of new clause 6(1A) after clause 6(1) “… Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3) 2020 means the Act that will result from the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3)”.

Now, that’s exactly the point the Minister will have heard me making. The officials told us, “The process was rushed. We’re not sure we’re going to get it right, but don’t worry if we don’t get it right, because we’ll fix everything up in the next bill.”, which we haven’t even—I think I’m right in saying it hasn’t even come to Parliament, and it certainly hasn’t come to a select committee. So already we’ve got a reference to that process being enshrined in this legislation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that process in the time that I’ve been here. We normally strive to get legislation right as it goes through this House.

💬 Andrew Bayly: No, not always.

Well, we try. No, we do strive to get it right. We don’t always get it right, and there’s too many times when, even as Opposition members, we remember when in Government coming back to have to change things. But this is extraordinary when you already know that in passing the legislation you’re not going to get it right. And, therefore, I want an explanation to those wordings, because I think that’s exactly what it’s saying: “Don’t worry about this. There’s another piece of legislation on. It’ll eventually come through the House. There’s not much time to do it; we’re going to be out of here shortly.”—and I’m going to be out of here shortly in a bigger way. But reference here to an Act with a bill that hasn’t come here—so an explanation from the Hon Andrew Little would have been appreciated. That’s the first point I want to raise.

I’m very pleased to respond to the member David Carter’s perfectly valid question, but also his valid expression of concern. He used the word “extraordinary”, and these are extraordinary times and extraordinary circumstances.

While it’s not desirable, and while no one would prefer it, the reality is we do have to have a regime in place now for one of the consequences of COVID-19 and the lockdown that we, like many other countries, have experienced, and that is to deal with the risk and the threat that business assets that are distressed become available and swooped on by other interests, particularly overseas interests. That is why the legislation has been somewhat rushed, but that is why it has a 90-day time frame. It’s subject to renewal every 90 days, and there is more permanent legislation being referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee that will deal with a more permanent regime. But this deals with and will lower thresholds, with more stringent tests.

The situation that we are in, in the very peculiar circumstances of today, is that we want to make sure that business assets in New Zealand do not become the prey of more powerful, wealthy overseas interests that can swoop them up and deprive New Zealand of the long-term benefits of ownership in New Zealand.

Maybe the Minister will have the opportunity to answer the question next time, but the Minister referred to stopping these foreigners swooping in and snapping up New Zealand industries. I’d be interested to know from the Minister which countries is he particularly worried about people and entities coming in and swooping up New Zealand businesses, and why Part 1 does not include some form of threshold, because what I struggle to understand is—you know, there may be a case in a crisis, such as we have in COVID-19, which has seen the values of some enterprises in New Zealand fall substantially. We could think of Air New Zealand, for example, being a company in that circumstance. There is a concern internationally about the vulnerability of such enterprises to being picked off by, perhaps, State-owned enterprises from other countries.

But what is not clear to me is how the fate of the country and our workers would be imperilled by somebody from overseas helping invest in a restaurant, for example, which is on its knees and needs some extra support from the brother-in-law or sister-in-law of a New Zealand owner who happens to be from overseas and now has to be caught up in this regulation. So what I’d like to hear from the Minister is how is that going to imperil New Zealand’s future? Secondly, from which countries is he worried about this investment coming? Thirdly, how does he think jobs and opportunities are going to be created in New Zealand businesses without investment?

Is it his assumption that the Government will provide all the money for businesses to get back on their feet and invest? I don’t know. Perhaps that’s his plan. But if it is, I’d be interested if he could show me a country where that works—better than Venezuela, for example, or another country. Perhaps he has a list of countries where the opportunity for businesses to grow will come from Government putting the extra money in. But if it isn’t, and if he still believes that private sector investment is critical, why is he so concerned about capital coming inward into New Zealand, given that that has been the case for the entire history of this country since the signing of the Treaty, if not before, and where do his concerns lie, particularly at that small end?

The situation that we face as a country is that we’ve just heard this morning from the statistics department that we lost 37,500 jobs in April. Well, that’s the figure. I believe—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Probably higher.

Probably higher in reality. Certainly, not everybody that loses their job goes on to a benefit, for example—so more than a thousand jobs a day. That is going to be really impacting the lives of many New Zealand families. What it doesn’t capture, though, is the distress and anxiety of the many thousands of small businesses. They haven’t lost their job, but they may have lost their life savings because their business is on its knees and it may be about to collapse. The best way to get back on their feet, in many cases, is additional capital to go into those businesses to help them survive.

This Government seems to be focusing entirely on more debt being the answer; well, equity is equally the answer—getting equity into those businesses. This bill makes that more difficult. So there are a number of questions there, but the third one is: why does he want to make it more difficult for those businesses to get the capital they need to survive?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to deal with the questions that the Hon Paul Goldsmith has now raised—first of all, which countries—well, there are about 203 countries, I think, in the world, so it could be any one of 202 that have wealthy investors who are looking for opportunities in this country. Of course, it’s not to stop them doing so, but it is to ensure that those who are investing in New Zealand do so from a position of good character and do so in a way that ensures that benefits accrue to New Zealand.

Now, I know members opposite may have abandoned the philosophy of their former leader, Sir John Key, as he now is, who didn’t wish to be governing a country where we are tenants in our own land. We don’t wish to be governing in a country where we are tenants in our own land. We want to have a robust capital base for our economy, and this is a means of providing the protection for that.

The member asked: why no threshold? Well, he should cast his mind back a matter of days to see that one of the most important, vital private companies in this country sold for $1—sold to a New Zealander for $1, it is true, but one of the most vitally important media companies in this country sold for $1. Now, that member might be happy for a Russian oligarch to come over here and swoop up and buy Stuff for $1 and conduct the sort of destabilising campaigns that Russian oligarchs are known for, but we wish to protect against that, and I think most New Zealanders would expect the Government and, indeed, this Parliament to protect us against that. At a time when we have businesses and, indeed, entire industries that are so vulnerable because of the current circumstances, it actually is a matter of responsibility that we put in place suitable protections.

Then, thirdly, the member asks: can we have jobs without investment? Well, of course not. But the member is wrong. This is not a piece of legislation that is a bar to foreign direct investment. This is a country that has been built on foreign direct investment, and we’ve done very well, but we’ve done so in a controlled and appropriate manner that we do want to make sure that those who have the privilege of investing in this country do so with the interests of New Zealand, at least in part, at heart and are people of good character and meet the appropriate test that New Zealanders would expect us to have. We don’t want to have vulnerable New Zealand companies, particularly those with valuable intellectual property, subject to predatory activity from offshore investors. We ought to protect ourselves against that and our private sector against that, and that’s what this bill does.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Now, I’ve got to say, that is a load of potatoes. I say that with all due respect, because I do represent the fine district of Pukekohe. I say it quite deliberately, because we are currently about to see an avalanche of potatoes that will flood into this market—2.6 million tonnes sitting in European markets that will be coming into this market, heavily subsidised and badly affecting the growers in my area of Pukekohe. That avalanche of potatoes can come in here without any problem. Yet, here we are, we’re debating this bill that has been rushed through the House. Here we’re going to do right now, when these companies often want equity, as my good colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith made the comment—they want equity.

It’s not always bad stuff that Mr Little talked about there. It can be good stuff, but the trouble with this bill is it has no differentiation between good investment and poor investment. So what you’re trying to do with this bill is put a barrier between allowing business people who have set up their business, created all that infrastructure or the value of their business over time, and then somehow the Government thinks, “Even though you’ve taken the risk,”—and when I say you, Madam Chair, I mean, the business owner; the business owner has taken all the risk. Hey presto, this Government, this paternalistic Government, is saying, “Well, you may have taken the risk. You may have put your house on the line, but right now, even if you want to do it, every transaction has got to come past only one Minister.”—one Minister—and that one Minister has got the total godlike ability to say yay or nay. It is unbelievable, the reach of this bill.

So we’re not suggesting that we don’t stop some unwanted investment, but the whole language that I hear from the members from the other side, from the Government side, and the language you just used, the Hon Andrew Little—and I heard also the Minister who introduced it on the first day, David Parker, a mere last Friday, use this term: triage. We’re going to triage this investment.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: That’s what they do in hospitals.

It is. Why is it so negative? Why is every foreign investment bad? Why do we even use the word “triage”? It’s not triage. We’re not in a bad situation. Not everything is bad. Not everything is bad about foreigners.

But here we are, and I like the term “We want to have a robust capital base.” Let’s throw out that byline: “We’ll be very careful. Yeah, we are supporting the vulnerable. We are going to have a robust capital base.” What is in that? What’s in this document? It’s nothing about that; it’s about controlling it, stopping it, impeding it. That’s the issue. That’s the issue I find with this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wasn’t intending to take a call on this bill, but I’ve been listening to the debate, and I felt compelled. I wanted to address some of the issues that the Minister raised. It struck me, listening to him when he was addressing the issues that Paul Goldsmith had raised, that we’re emerging from COVID-19 and this Government is fearful of what’s going to happen. They’re not confident. They’re not outward-looking. They’re driven by fear.

I found it extraordinary that we had our Minister of Justice standing up and running the conspiracy theory about the Russians when we should be, as a nation, right now, outward-looking. We should be confident. He’s completely conflicted when, on the one hand, he says that this country was built on foreign investment and foreign capital and, on the other hand, he’s putting a regime in place that’s going to make it even tougher for us, at a time when, actually, we need to be looking for good foreign investment, good foreign capital. It’s never been more important in our country’s history than in the coming months and years. To rebuild an economy that has—and the Rt Hon David Carter highlighted it in his opening comments—37,000 people unemployed. There are 37,000 people looking now—in one month, 37,000 people. That’s 37,000 people on top of all the others that are looking to a Government with confidence, with vision, and with a plan to actually attract good foreign capital.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): But, actually, we’re looking for debate on the bill before the committee.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chairperson. So my question to the Minister is simply this: could he please stand in this House and tell us why the current regime that we have in place, the Overseas Investment Office, which is full of lawyers and specialists that analyse each investment to make sure that it meets a very high threshold, that there’s going to be tangible benefits for us as a nation when this foreign investment comes into the country—can he please tell me why he’s bringing legislation to this House that is now going to put this decision making in the hands of one Minister who, I would challenge and say, hasn’t got that same background, skill, or ability to make those decisions? So one Minister will now be making those decisions. Please stand and point to us where they’ve identified the real risk of strategic assets being acquired, assets being stripped, and intellectual property disappearing overseas and why all of a sudden this is going to happen when we’ve had a very good, robust regime in place that has been delivering for this country for decades.

I see we have the Minister for Land Information in the House. She’s been running this system for the last two years. I’d like to hear her stand up and take a call and tell us why it’s not working. Tell us why, under urgency, we have to have a piece of legislation like this in the House to address what appears to be a system that’s not working. If it’s not working, she should have been in here a year ago taking a call, telling us that it’s not working. So I’d like to hear a comment from her.

But to the Minister: please stand and lay some detail out for us in terms of where the Government has identified the risk, why we need to have this legislation being passed under urgency, and why we’re putting enormous power into the hands of one Government. It’s completely consistent with a Government that, number one, is driven by fear and, number two, is driven by grabbing more and more control of the country, more and more control over the hotelier in Greymouth that actually needs a bit of foreign investment to help them stay alive and help them keep employing people and keep their business buoyant. Please, Minister, take a call and lay out for us in detail what the real threat is and why you’re so fearful. Why are you fearful of the Russians? If you take a call and answer those questions, then we might understand why you feel driven to have this legislation coming through this House under urgency. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Madam Chair?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): The honourable Andrew Bayly. I’m sorry. Andrew Little.

It’s all right.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Oh, very good. I’ve got to say: that might have been an improvement.

I think the honourable Andrew was a good start before “Mr Bayly”. Can I just acknowledge the contribution by Mr Bayly too and what I thought was the start of a case for import controls to be reintroduced. But there we go. We’re not proposing to reintroduce import controls. If other private citizens want to import potatoes, then there’s not a great deal we can do about it, subject to biosecurity interests or needs being met.

To the Hon Mark Mitchell, this is not a Government driven by fear; it’s a Government driven by the practicality of the circumstances that we’re in at the moment. There are two things at the moment that foreign direct investment, when it comes to being scrutinised, is not subject to, and that is a national interest test or a national security test. The reality is, as we see around the rest of the world, like most economies, there are vulnerabilities in respect of both. So we want to make sure that as a consequence of this extraordinary worldwide pandemic that has placed just about every economy in a very vulnerable position, we have the means and the tools to provide adequate scrutiny to protect good New Zealand businesses and, where they have it, the intellectual property that goes with it from being preyed upon by much more wealthy and powerful investors from overseas. We owe it to the long-term future of New Zealand to ensure that that happens.

It’s quite fortuitous that the Hon David Parker has come back into the Chamber as the Minister, but it is disappointing that he’s missed the last contributions. But I wish to come back to the issue that previous speakers have raised for the Minister to address.

We on this side of the House worry about the overreach that this legislation allows. If you go across New Zealand, as I have been, in my own electorate, in the last week—if I walk up and down the main street of my electorate, the stress I see in the businesses is not with the employees, actually; it’s with the business owners. The employees in many cases, Minister, have been sheltered by the wage subsidy and other things, which I applaud. But the businesses are the ones that are worried about what happens next. I know there’s an extension of the wage subsidy if you can prove you’ve lost 50 percent of your turnover, but when you’ve lost 50 percent of your turnover, things are pretty grave. So those business owners are really stressed.

Many of those businesses are actually migrants to New Zealand or people from other nations that have made New Zealand their home. Many of them are leveraged to the max, they have very little income and very little clientele, and it would be very useful for them if a family member from their home country or a relative gave them some money or invested in their company. As I read this bill, any of that requires approval through this process, and, when you have 37,000 people losing their jobs in the last month—in April—and you have main streets emptied out and a whole lot of businesses really struggling, why do we add on a compliance issue that means you have to go through this process for that investment?

Because this was done in urgency, there was no thought given, in my view, to having a threshold of investment or a number of employees involved, or a way of minimising the regulatory requirements of these people to make the investment. I raise that, Minister, because we do not have time. This law is being rushed through today.

It’ll make some changes. We’re doing that on the basis that we’re worrying about a threat from foreign investors—I get that. But the threat that the businesses in my community have is immediate and right now, and, when the wage subsidy runs out, they’ll have two choices—many of them. They’ll either shut down or sell. If they’re selling in the New Zealand market, that’s probably quite difficult, but if they could bring some capital from overseas countries from friends and family, that would be very helpful.

Minister, I’m challenging you as to why in this legislation there is not an appropriate form of carve-out or legislation to deal with those small businesses in New Zealand, by their thousands, who are about to go to the wall. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I’m happy to respond to some of the points that Lawrence Yule has just made. Firstly, this bill actually does carve out loans. Until this bill passes, loans are covered; after, the loans aren’t. So in terms of loan finance and the example that—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: That’s not right—that’s not right.

Well, that is correct.

In respect of the $1 threshold issue, we have given thought to that. The difficulty around the world, including in Australia and New Zealand, is how do you set the threshold at this time? The normal threshold is $100 million in respect of business transactions. The Stuff group was just sold for $1. It’s a large enterprise. It’s got large assets; it’s got large liabilities. Its net value is $1. I would have thought that most members would agree that depending on who was the purchaser of that group—and it’s been a management buy-out—they could envisage examples where they would have thought that the Government should have a right to screen that transaction. At the moment, under current law, we don’t. We do need that right.

I agree that we have to be careful that we don’t over-regulate this space, and that’s why we’ve got a two-stage process proposed. Normally, decisions under the Overseas Investment Act are delegated by the Minister of Finance to the Minister for Land Information and an Associate Minister of Finance. The exception will be, in future, in respect of national interest test transactions, where you don’t want that discretion to be exercised against approval—turning down a transaction—very often, and it’s a serious thing to do when a Minister does it. So that’s been kept higher in the hierarchy, as it is in Australia. It may well be that the Minister of Finance doesn’t delegate that at all or delegates it to a different senior Minister than the normal delegations.

In respect of this period now where we’ve taken the threshold, which will normally be $100 million or, depending on the free-trade agreement, can be $200 million with Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership countries or $500 million with Australia, pursuant to free-trade agreement thresholds for investment—normally it will be at that higher threshold, but in this post-COVID period, we really didn’t know how things were going to roll, and so we’ve put it at a lower figure.

In order to stop the system being clogged up, there will be a triage process. Now, I apologise to Andrew Bayly in respect of that, because I do actually accept it sounds like there’s a medical emergency and that that’s a bad thing. I don’t mean it in that context. I mean a preparatory step to make sure that approvals that are uncontroversial, which most of them—the vast majority—will be, are ticked off quickly. That’s going to sit with me in the meantime so that we just can keep this moving. We have a review every 90 days as to whether that limit should be pushed back up to $100 million or some other intermediate step, and I think we have an initial 45-day review just to see whether it’s practical. But that’s the reasoning as to why it is that we’ve set the threshold immediately at zero.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to make a further point that some members may have overlooked, this whole concept of a national interest test has been developed through quite extensive consultation that Minister Parker, Treasury, and the Overseas Investment Office undertook in terms of phase two of the reforms to the Overseas Investment Act—phase one being around residential properties and the ban on overseas buyers of those. But this phase two consultation: there is wide support for the concept of a national interest test, recognising that we have strategic infrastructure in New Zealand—airports, ports, irrigation—and the support for ensuring that there was an ability by Government to ensure that overseas purchases of any of that strategic infrastructure was in the national interest. So this is not just something that has been dreamt up in the last few weeks; it is the bringing forward of that aspect of phase two of the reforms around the national interest test and providing for this notification regime.

The point that the Minister made in terms of the assessment that the Overseas Investment Office will do of applications that are notified to it will mean that a relatively small number, I imagine, of applications will then go forward to be considered by the Minister of Finance to determine whether or not they breach the national interest test. It is not saying that every application by an overseas investor to take a shareholding in a New Zealand company will have to go through the normal processes of the Act to determine whether they are of substantial and identifiable benefit to New Zealand. It is just whether they are of such substance that they trigger the national interest test. So it comes out of these phase two reforms, which were well consulted on and well developed, and it’s been bringing forward that aspect of the national interest test. Thank you.

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to just ask two further questions of the Minister. The first one is, effectively, a repeat of the first question I asked when the Hon Andrew Little was in the chair, and I don’t feel it was answered—but I don’t say that in a derogatory way to Mr Little; it’s not his bill. It is the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister’s now brought into the House at the 11th hour: clause 6 around reference to the Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3). There is no Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3), and my fear is, as the officials told us, the process is so rushed with this legislation, the officials themselves are acknowledging they will not get it right and will take the opportunity to change it in some subsequent legislation.

But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen legislation being passed today under urgency that makes reference to an Act that doesn’t exist. There is talk of a No. 3 bill, and the No. 3 bill, to the best of my knowledge, is still sitting on the Hon David Parker’s desk. It hasn’t even come into this House. So how logical is it to be now introducing legislation on the urgent measures bill, referring to the Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3) 2020, when there isn’t one? So that’s a very simple question for the Hon David Parker to answer.

The second question I have is regarding Part 1, clause 13, “In section 16A(9), definition of special land, replace “foreshore or seabed” with “marine and coastal area”. Now, we teased this out in the select committee. I understand why there’s the intent on replacing “foreshore or seabed” and the “marine and coastal area”. I understand that completely. My fear now is this reference to, and the definition of, special land, because I’d argue to the Minister, as a person who’s actually very much in favour of foreign direct investment—it’s made the country what it is today—that every hectare in New Zealand is special. Every hectare in New Zealand is special. We’re lucky we live in this lovely country. So what is meant by this definition? It certainly was not one that we had the opportunity in the rushed select committee process to tease out. What does the Minister think is termed “special land” in this wonderful country of New Zealand, because I would argue strongly to the Minister that all land in this country is special?

In responding to those two points—and, actually, I’ll respond to a third one that I heard the honourable member interject on—in respect of the definition of “Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3) 2020 means the Act that will result from the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3)”. The member was here for the first reading of that bill, and that’s the one that—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: It hasn’t been passed.

No, it hasn’t. That’s why you need this definition.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: That’s my point.

Well, that’s exactly what the clause says.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: So are we going to be fixing mistakes? That’s the point. Is the Minister acknowledging we’re going to be fixing mistakes?

No, I’m not.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Maybe it’s easier if I take—is the Minister—

No, I’m not. There is no mistake.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): He hasn’t yielded.

For clarity, this is making it clear that the Overseas Investment Amendment Act (No 3) 2020 means the Act that will result from the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3). That’s necessary because of the interlinking of these two Acts—or bills: one’s soon to be an Act; the other will be enacted after the first bill becomes an Act.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: What a shambles! What a shambles!

No, it’s not a shambles at all. It’s necessary as a consequence of COVID to spit this into two bills, as the member knows. He would have complained more if we’d pushed it all through under urgency. We thought it was appropriate to have the lengthy select committee in respect of part of it.

The other question he had is: what is “special land”? As the member knows from the descriptions that were at the select committee that he was part of, special land is land adjacent to foreshore and seabed.

The third point I would make is there was an interjection to say that loans are not excluded by the legislation. They are at clause 6(11), new section 6(9), which says “acquisition[s] of property do not include the making of a loan or subscription for an interest or right that is solely an interest in or right to be paid money” etc., except if it’s convertible into a security.

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: There’s a threshold, Minister.

No, there are no loans caught by this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to leave the Rt Hon David Carter to respond to all that, but it is—I was going to use the word “perverse”. You’ve rushed through a bill, and then you think “It doesn’t matter. We’ll rush it through because we’ll deal with it later. Don’t worry; the other one’s going to go through a full select committee process. We’ll have an election in between time, and, by the time it all comes back, it’ll be a new committee and all that sort of stuff. We’ll have to re-bone up, and then somehow it’ll get passed before the end of the year.” What do you think, Mr Carter?

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Not likely.

Not likely. Anyway—

💬 Rt Hon David Carter: Winston won’t be here anyway, and it might not be necessary.

Of course. It might have different arrangements. I am looking for the contribution from Mr Mark Patterson, who is very rowdy, talking and interjecting, but hasn’t chosen to speak up. We would like to hear from the member from New Zealand First, because they are rather uncomfortable on matters dealing with foreign ownership. So do you support it or don’t you? That’s what it would be nice to hear from Mr Patterson.

I’m going to move on to something entirely different. This whole thing about this urgency—you know, this bill came in last Friday. Here we are on Thursday, and it’s going to be rammed through today, and we’ve put everyone through this massive change. The reason why this bill can get through is that it relies extensively on the use of regulations. Now, I know the Minister, the Hon David, because—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Parker.

—the Hon David Parker—he and I sat on the Regulations Review Committee. In fact, he chaired it, and I was the deputy, and we spent three years writing letters to every committee of the House, talking about the overuse of regulations. You used—and when I say “you”, I’m looking at Mr Parker. Mr Parker used to sign the letters on behalf of the committee, saying “We, the Regulations Review Committee, wish to draw your attention to this matter of the regulations that you propose in this bill of X, Y, Z.” And how many letters did you sign like that, Mr Parker? Over the course of three years, maybe what—50, 100? We were always reminding every committee, and we took our jobs very seriously. I know that you did, Mr Parker, as the chair of that committee.

What happens when you look at this bill? What happens? We have got regulation power and, actually, a Regulations Review Committee did come back to us on clause 25. We see in new section 82 the same regulation power. We see it in clause 6 too. We see it in clause 52. Should I go on? The only way that this bill can get through this House in such short order is that you have circumvented the proper process of putting what is required in primary legislation.

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to report progress. The committee will resume after oral questions.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported progress on the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Bill.

Report adopted.

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