Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”.

Thank you, Madam Chair, I will start. In terms of the title and commencement, I want to start by talking about the commencement date. I want to start by asking the Minister—and I’ll come back to the title a little bit later on—in the chair, the Hon Andrew Hoggard, what the rationale is behind keeping this on a single day set by Order in Council, as opposed to having a specific date. I mean, noting that clause 2(2) does say that “If the Act has not come into force …”—so let’s say late March—“it comes into effect on the first day of the next calendar month.”, which I’m assuming is 1 April. But I’m interested know: what needs to be set up for it to be brought in earlier in terms of Order in Council? That’s what I’m assuming the flexibility is allowing, so I want to check with the Minister first, before asking other questions.

I wanted to take the opportunity during this part of the debate to talk about three things. The first is the commencement date, as my colleague Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan also already alluded to, so I do hope the Associate Minister of Agriculture will answer his question. But I do think that the Government is demonstrating their naivety—or is it naivety or their just overall bad intent—because what is contained in this bill are changes that make it significantly easier for environmental integrity, the integrity of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the future of our country to be overridden in the interests of foreign ownership. I think it is incredibly naive—or ill intent—to believe that New Zealand and the future of New Zealand will be better off with more foreign ownership and less New Zealand ownership. When people can control our strategic assets, our water, our land—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Can I ask the member to come back to title and commencement, please.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yes. Well, I was going to propose some better titles in clause 1. The Act could be called—and I think it’d be much more appropriate—“Overseas Investment (Selling Off Aotearoa New Zealand) Amendment Act 2025”. It could be called the “Overseas Investment (This Coalition Represents the Atlas Network) Amendment Act 2025” or the “Overseas Investment (This Government Actually Believes Foreign Ownership Is More Important Than the Future of Our Climate and Our Water) Amendment Act 2025”.

Look, the people who stand to gain from this are the people who sell off the assets and then the owners who can extract super-profits over time. We’ve seen that over and over again over the last few decades. It is very rare—it’s not impossible—that we actually benefit from foreign ownership. I’ve already listed in this debate multiple times when there have been examples of foreign ownership resulting in worse outcomes for our people, for our environment—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Please connect it to title and commencement.

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —and for the future of the country. Another possible title: “Overseas Investment (National is Selling Out Our Country) Amendment Act 2025”.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to also check with you, Madam Chair, because despite the fact that, yes, technically we can use the title as an opportunity to also sum up on the debate and what has happened in the committee stage, at the same time we do expect a certain level of engagement from the Minister as well. We haven’t heard from the Associate Minister of Agriculture regarding either my question, a general question, on the commencement date, or my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s question, or any variety of amendments to the titles.

But moving on to the title, I do think that there is a missed opportunity when it comes to the title. I’m just summing up on some of the things that we discussed in here. National interests and other matters—I think from the Minister’s and from the Government’s perspective, it’s very factual. However, at the same time, what we’ve seen earlier in terms of the Electoral Amendment Bill is that the Minister in those instances is like, “This bill, the name itself, is perfectly clear.”, despite the fact that we made other suggestions that include what we see here in the title. We suggested things like “Disqualification of Voting, etc., and Other Potential Matters”. But like you said, the Minister at that stage said that it is perfectly clear. My amendment to this title—and it’s one of the tabled amendments—is simply just keep it as “Overseas Investment Amendment Act”. Why include all of these other things in there? It seems to be very contradictory to some of the Government bills that have been introduced earlier today.

Other ones that I can think of are—if we’re going to be doing something like this, I really understand that it’s very factual when you’re looking at a national interest test; it is an element in this particular bill. In terms of “Other Matters”, it is something that is very factual. But the example that I mentioned earlier in terms of one of the other bills that we saw, the immigration fiscal sustainability, fiscal sustainability technically wasn’t a subset; it was an outcome of what that bill is hoping to achieve. All jokes aside, I do think that there is a missed opportunity, if the Government does care about economic growth and economic opportunities or providing jobs, that this isn’t going to be something that they might as well include and just throw that in there and just be like “Economic Growth and Other Matters”. But it’s not, so it is something that is very factual.

However, just to kind of bring everything all together and sum things up, we do have genuine concerns around this bill in terms of how we engage. I think that needs to be reflected within the title of this bill. I think most importantly for us is the Minister’s unwillingness to acknowledge the influence that Five Eyes will potentially have, and what we see in the regulatory impact statement when it comes to determining overseas investment, because we have seen throughout this bill this new inclusion. Now, whether it is done as something that’s always been done—but regardless of that, now it is in legislation and explicitly mentioned as national security, as what is considered national interest. This is very new in some of the newest legislation we’re seeing.

I do think that the Minister should consider simply just “Overseas Investment (This Government Is in the Pocket of Five Eyes and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”, because that’s what we’re going to be seeing here. I do think that there is a potentially chilling effect it will have for people who want to invest in Aotearoa New Zealand, who may actually invest with the best intentions, doing things that are both good for the climate and also good for the environment but may be from countries that our Five Eyes partners simply do not like, in which case, we are going to consider that as a national risk or a national security issue. I think that is something that the Minister hasn’t really fleshed out.

The other thing that I think the Hon Damien O’Connor has been raising consistently as part of this debate, and I think it should be captured within the title of this bill, is the delegation of power from Ministers to regulators, but also, more importantly, the ability for the Ministers to even override or have directive letters, like my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter has said. I think another appropriate title for this is “This Act is the Overseas Investment (This Government Doesn’t Care About Democracy But Simply Just Want Their Ministers To Do Whatever They Want and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”.

In terms of the title, there is no intention of changing the title. It’s pretty clear and straightforward. It says what it does. In terms of the commencement date, that date is there based on the fact that we hope to have this in place sooner, but if systems take longer to set up, then that’s the maximum that’ll give us the time to get it set.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to replace “National Interest Test” with “National Interest Assessment” be agreed to.

The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to delete “National Interest Test and Other Matters” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to refer to “Asset Ownership Screening Changes and Other Matters” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to insert the word “Pathway” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to insert “Consent Criteria Modification” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to refer to “Screening Streamlining” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to refer to “Sensitive Asset Protection” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to refer to “Sensitive Land Safeguards” be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s tabled amendment to clause 1 to refer to refer to “Expedited National Review” be agreed to.

Francisco Hernandez’s three remaining tabled amendments to clause 1 are out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.

The question is that the Hon Erica Stanford’s amendment to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 470 be agreed to.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third Reading