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

I seek leave to present a legislative statement on the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: I move, That the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 October 2025.

Ryan Hamilton: Ah, very good!

Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you. Ha, ha! You shouldn’t take anything for granted. It’s with great pride that I speak on the first reading of this bill. It forms part of our Government’s commitment to opening ourselves to the world and ensuring that we are a place where our friends who would like to do business with fellow Kiwis and who would like to invest, to trade value for value, and get stronger together with us are welcome under our laws.

I saw a very wise New Zealander who has risen high in the ranks of business and politics internationally tell us something recently that I think we need to ponder on. He said, “It’s very simple: New Zealand needs foreign investment, but foreign investment does not need New Zealand.” For far too long, our country has stood at the edge of the map, asking people to jump through more hoops and go through more rigmarole in order to send their money and ideas to be part of New Zealand’s economy than nearly any other society. The delays have made people ask the simple question: “Are these guys for real, and do they really want us to send our money there?”

Well, since this Government has been in place, we have transformed that attitude. We have seen a dramatic improvement, simply through issuing letters of expectation, that have ensured that consents are processed much faster, with 88 percent of consents recently processed within half of the statutory time frame. That means 88 percent in less than 35 days. The average consent to invest, to send money to New Zealand, is now processed in 28 days. That’s pretty good progress compared with where we’ve been in the past, where people just kind of found that their consent had maybe been left in the bottom of the Minister’s draw.

However, in order to make more progress and achieve our goal of ensuring that New Zealand is a place where, if you have ideas, if you have knowhow, and if you have capital and you want to send it to New Zealand and invest in this country as a vote of confidence in the New Zealand people and the New Zealand economy, you will find that the laws of the land are welcoming to you, so long as you are not a threat to our national security, our public order, or our particularly sensitive assets. That is the objective of this legislation.

This amendment to the Overseas Investment Act, specifically the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, does three things, as laid out in the legislative statement. The first is that it revises the Act’s purpose statement. For too long, we’ve been alone in the world in telling overseas investors that it’s a privilege to invest in this country, with no sense that maybe people sending money to New Zealand might also have some benefit. This legislation finally rebalances that imbalance by putting an explicit statement at the beginning of the Act—and if I could just bring up clause 4, amended section 3(2), so I read it exactly right—that we will also have “the purpose of recognising the role of overseas investment in increasing economic opportunity by enabling the timely consent of less sensitive investments through an initial national interest risk assessment.” That purpose is now in line with the true benefits to New Zealanders of people sending their money and their knowhow here.

It will also consolidate the national interest benefit to New Zealand and investor test for the majority of consents. Now, there are some asset classes that will remain sensitive. Farmland will remain sensitive. We will keep the restrictions on investing in residential property. Investing in fishing quota will remain sensitive. However, for a large number of the investments that people would like to make in land that is not farmland—in businesses, for example—we will be consenting—and this is the third point of the bill—within 15 days. This is the message of a country that is open for business and does not fear the world but stands proudly amongst our friends who want to do business with us, trade value for value, and get stronger together. The effect of this—of clarifying the purpose; of consolidating the test; and ensuring that the overwhelming majority, I suspect, of consents will be processed in just 15 business days—is that New Zealanders get more investment.

Let me just give you a few thoughts about what that really means. I was visiting a couple of businesses—it was a few years ago now—in the same region in the same sector. One of them had received enormous amounts of foreign direct investment from a company on the other side of the world—a very sophisticated manufacturer of luxury goods. The sophistication, the automation, the marketing, the technology that this business had was seriously impressive. They were able to do it because they’d received two things from the other side of the world: one was knowhow, the other was money. That is what foreign direct investment brings. As a result, they were able to create better products that sold for more. As a result, they were able to pay their workers more. That’s what it’s really about—higher wages for people working with more capital. I went down the road to visit another business in the same region, in the same sector. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good people. They worked hard. They had good ideas. But I couldn’t help but think they were just a little bit behind because they hadn’t had that advantage of the capital and the knowhow from trading and exchanging value with their friends from the other side of the world.

This shows up in the statistics. Ultimately, a cost of living crisis is a productivity crisis. It’s because people don’t take home the money they need to afford the things that they want. That’s what it’s really about. Ultimately, if we want to raise productivity, we have to look at the factors of productivity. The most glaring one is that New Zealanders, particularly in the past decade—particularly after we had a Government that regulated too much, spent too much, and borrowed too much—have not had the advantage of significant investment in capital in the workforce. If we want to raise the productivity of New Zealanders, then we have to ensure that they have more capital to work with.

The other side of being able to afford more stuff is actually the productivity of delivering the goods to market. I spoke with a company this morning, and I won’t say exactly who it is because I don’t want people to stop telling them, but let’s just say that it was a business that is heavily invested in getting New Zealanders the goods that they need every day. This business is from offshore, and they are invested in a capital investment programme with an enormous sum of money. They’re investing that money—I won’t say how much, in case anyone figures out they’ve breached their confidence—in ensuring that the goods that people take for granted but often are not concerned about the price will be delivered fresh, often chilled, on time to the right place in the right quantity at an affordable price. In order to do that, they are taking an enormous amount of money from outside of this country into this country so that they can deliver goods faster, better, and more affordably to where New Zealanders live.

It could be another Costco—they’re doing this. It could be an IKEA. It could be the third supermarket competitor that people are talking about wistfully as if it will bring down prices. All of those examples are ways that by ensuring we have more investment, more knowhow, and more capital, we can get goods to market faster and more affordably so that New Zealanders can afford them. That is what foreign investment really means—more capital to work with, more higher wages through higher productivity, and more affordable goods and services.

This bill will go a long way to ensuring that foreign direct investment that can lead to better lives for all New Zealanders is reflected in our laws as a country that is actually proud that people want to send us their money and invest in our future, and that is not fearful of the rest of the world but stands proudly amongst it. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Actually, quite oddly enough, I want to first of all congratulate New Zealand First on being able to prevent the foreign buyers ban being reversed under this legislation. It’s good to see that you have held strong that that is a sensitive asset in New Zealand, and New Zealand First has held the line for the rest of New Zealand who does believe that our land, our residential land, should stay in Kiwi hands unless it meets certain tests. First, I do want to acknowledge New Zealand First for that.

The second thing I want to just have a discussion about is that I’ve just heard the Associate Minister of Finance say that we have one of the most restrictive overseas investment policies in the world, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The interesting thing that the Minister failed to actually say is that there are four other countries that are more restrictive than New Zealand: Australia, Canada, Iceland, Mexico. If you just look at Australia and Canada alone, it’s quite interesting to see that the Minister failed to say—we have one of the most restrictive overseas investment regimes in the world, in the OECD, and yet he failed to mention that our closest neighbours, which, if you want to question the productivity, you can, by the Government members, but, actually, they have the most restrictive overseas investment—

Dan Bidois: They don’t need the money.

Hon BARBARA EDMONDS: —regime in the world. It’s actually in the regulatory impact statement. I hear Dan Bidois, the MP for Northcote, say it’s because they don’t need the money. If that is the problem you’re trying to solve, how is cutting Government KiwiSaver contributions going to help deepen our capital pools? On that point, it doesn’t incentivise greater savings and investment, which is why Australia has greater pools of investment, of superannuation savings. Had the National Government back in the day not cancelled the Superannuation Fund back then, we would actually have billions and billions and billions of dollars more of capital here in New Zealand. But I digress, because he was just talking about why Australia is different from New Zealand, but, again, Australia, Mexico, Canada, and Iceland have more restrictive overseas regimes than New Zealand, yet, on some accounts, they’re actually more productive as a nation.

The Labour Party does not support this bill, and, ultimately, the main reason why we do not support this bill is because of the changes to the economic benefit test. The economic benefit test, under this legislation, will not only apply to assets such as farmland; it will apply to fishing quota and residential land. What about forestry? What about other assets? The Minister talked about investment in business assets.

The real key reason why I believe that we need to take a very good look at this at the select committee—and I implore our New Zealand First members on the Finance and Expenditure Committee to have a really good look at this—is because the benefit test to New Zealand has seven factors which are now gotten rid of by this Government. The thing is, under the regulatory impact statement, Treasury says overseas investment is enabled by a screening regime, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the economic benefit is actually realised in the country.

This Government is getting rid of the benefit test, which has seven key factors; one is economic benefits. What’s an economic benefit? The creation and retention of jobs, the introduction of technology or business skills, increased productivity. These are all about growth, and yet they’re taking away the test that actually helps to ensure that there is going to be proof of increased productivity—increased export receipts, increased processing of primary products, and reduced risk of liquid assets. They’ve narrowed the test.

The second element of the benefit test which is important is the benefit to the natural environment. I’m pretty sure we will have a number of members in this House who will stand up to say, “What is the point of overseas investment if it degrades our environment?” I’m not going to go into that, because I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of commentary on that.

The other assets that the benefit test, which has now been narrowed by this Government and which therefore doesn’t apply to are sensitive assets. There’s public access—there has to be some sort of assurance that the public can access these assets—protection of historic heritage, advancing a significant Government policy, oversight or participation of New Zealanders, and consequential benefits. This Government has narrowed that test and is giving, basically, a green light to all overseas investment unless it’s farmland, residential land, or fishing quota—basically saying, “Here’s the red carpet; come in.”—never mind whether it creates jobs, never mind if it degrades our environment, and never mind if New Zealanders can no longer access this asset. Basically, they’re saying that doesn’t matter. They are open to overseas investment, but never mind about actually proving that it benefits New Zealand.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Aotearoa New Zealand is a country that could be very, very prosperous if we looked after all of our people. The Government we have—and, in particular, the Minister who spoke to this bill—does not have the ability to imagine a country where we actually look after each other, invest in projects together which enable us to live good lives, enable us to protect our climate, enable us to protect our waterways and our beautiful diversity either on land or under the sea and our very large exclusive economic zone. Life is not commodity. The ideology—

Hon David Seymour: That’s so profound!

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —of the Minister who is speaking has been proven wrong for the last 30 years. Letting the rich get richer does not trickle down and help ordinary New Zealanders. There is no way that making these changes to the Overseas Investment Act is going to flow down to better wages for workers when the Government is, at the same time, changing employment law to disadvantage workers and refusing to raise the minimum wage to even match the rate of inflation. Every step they take is about disadvantaging ordinary workers and advantaging those who already have money and power.

This Government, make no mistake—Minister David Seymour; Prime Minister Christopher Luxon; most of those blue suits, or whatever, over there—all believe in a magical money tree, and the magical money tree that they believe in is foreign investment. They believe that very kind, benevolent foreign investors with their capital from overseas are going to come to New Zealand and invest in a way that benefits New Zealand. Really? Do we still believe that after the 1980s and 1990s? Look, the Green Party is proudly—

Joseph Mooney: Proudly against foreigners, against foreign accents?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —a party that believes in global peace and action on climate change. Don’t try to pretend that allowing foreign hedge funds to come in here and own our retirement villages—which is already the case, by the way—and to own more and more of New Zealand is something that is going to benefit New Zealand, and that those who question the benefits are somehow against people from other countries. That’s not the case.

The Green Party has proudly stood in favour of enabling immigration and of enabling human rights. I’d love to see the Government increase the refugee quota. Let’s see more family reunification for refuges, OK? But don’t pretend that BlackRock or Stonepeak or any of these huge hedge funds coming over and owning bits of New Zealand is going to benefit New Zealand workers, when, at the same time, they dismantle our employment laws and try to reduce the ability of workers to be able to negotiate for better pay and better conditions, and particularly when they completely overlook the incredibly important work that is done in the public sector by front-line workers who are caring for aged people, who are caring for disabled people, and who are teachers and teachers in early childhood education.

Every step this Government makes is about protecting the rich and powerful and then pretending and trying to sell to ordinary New Zealanders the crazy fantasy that by enabling more foreign ownership of things in New Zealand is somehow going to flow through to better wages and better infrastructure.

There is no question. If you look around the world, the countries that actually have decent living conditions, less inequality, decent wages, better democracies—I wouldn’t say many places have thriving democracies at the moment, sadly—what they have done is very, very different; it’s the exact opposite to what this Government does. They have more progressive tax systems. They ensure that they don’t have a concentration of wealth, because the system will naturally concentrate wealth if we don’t have a progressive tax system. If we don’t have things like inheritance taxes, like capital gains taxes, then wealth will concentrate, and concentration of wealth is antithetical to democracy.

I see the Minister David Seymour shaking his head. The truth is that David Seymour is not someone who truly believes in liberty. He is a feudalist. He is here to protect the landed gentry, the powerful corporates. He dresses it all up, and he pretends he’s about liberty. But just look at the very law changes that he’s proposing: they’re all about enabling the very rich and powerful around the world to come to New Zealand and extract more profit at the expense of our environment, our workers, and our people. We will oppose this bill.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the National Party, to rise for this first reading of the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. As the Minister had articulated before, the importance of having overseas investment into New Zealand and making sure that we have the right settings is not without dispute; what is indisputable is that we do have one of the most restrictive foreign investment regimes in the OECD. That is what has been ascertained from a number of studies by a number of organisations over a number of years, and this bill will help open the door to that new investment. It’s all about growth, it’s all about productivity, and it’s all about higher wages.

The new national interest test is faster and more efficient, and, importantly, it provides more certainty for investors. It aligns—and here we go again for international alignment—New Zealand’s investment regime with global best practice while keeping safeguards for our key assets.

I just want to allude to the fact that getting our settings right is key to getting international foreign investment into this country, and there is no better example than a statement that was sent out by the Minister for Economic Growth, the Hon Nicola Willis, and the Minister of Immigration, Erica Stanford, yesterday that was headlined “Flood of interest to invest in New Zealand”. There is interest there if we get our settings right, and they have announced as of yesterday that “Since only April—less than three months [ago]—Immigration New Zealand has received 189 applicants for the Active Investor Plus visa, significantly more than the 116 applications received over more than two-and-a-half years under [the previous administration].” There’s proof there that people are lining up to invest in New Zealand if you get the settings right.

I look forward to this bill going to select committee for further discussion at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I commend the bill.

Mr Speaker, I’m over here, over in the seat called Siberia. We’ve got to get these angles right. You and I both have to adjust.

New Zealand First does support this Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. These are sensible changes. They’re not the apocalyptic version that the Hon Julie Anne Genter was describing before the dinner break or a return to feudalism. This bill does streamline some processes. There is some triaging so that the genuinely sensitive transactions that would trigger a national interest test still go before Ministers, but there is a fast track, if you like, a streamlined process, for those lower-risk investments, and it adds a trusted investor category too, which does make some sense. The process at the moment is ad hoc, it’s bureaucratic, and it is opaque. We do support these refinements.

It does enable us to have a focus on growth. We are absolutely, relentlessly focused on growth. We do have enormous opportunities in this country. We are restrained in many cases by capital. We’ve got an enormous infrastructure deficit that we do need to address. These measures are freeing up the overseas investment provisions, will create jobs, will enable us to add value to the likes of our primary sector—that’s $60 billion of primary exports—and get money for agritech and nutraceuticals and the like. But New Zealand First is cautious about foreign investments. It’s on the tin; it’s in the name. We have looked very, very carefully at this bill.

We do think there is a strong case for keeping control and having some oversight of our key strategic assets. To our cost, we have lost Marsden Point, we have lost control of our banking sector, and we see those dividends sucking out every year to the cost of our balance of trade or our current account deficit. It is not one-way traffic; we do need to keep some guard rails here. New Zealand First had been very clear, and I’d like to thank the Hon Barbara Edmonds for probably acknowledging that—well, she did acknowledge that, but she was right—New Zealand First has drawn a line around farmland, around fishing quota, and, essentially, the stock of family homes. Putting those on the international market and inflating them beyond the means of the average Kiwi is completely anathema to us. The coalition as a whole has agreed to that, and that is protected, and I want to make that absolutely clear in this reading that that is protected within these provisions.

There should be a Kiwi citizenship advantage. We should tip the scales in favour of our own people in areas like that, where it doesn’t actually bring any advantage to us, just inflating a price of an existing asset. We have held firm over that, and we make no apologies. It is core to our values. We do not want to be tenants in our own land. That doesn’t mean that we are “Fortress New Zealand”. We are not North Korea. We do rely, and have always relied, on foreign investment to grow our economy and to build our productive capacity, and, as the Minister said in his introductory speech, it’s not just the capital; it’s the expertise that can be brought in, and it’s the access to the domestic markets for the companies that are coming in. There are some mutual benefits that can be gained through this, but we do go in with our eyes wide open within this bill. We should make it easier. It is far too complex; it is far too bureaucratic.

We will support this bill. We are going to support this through to the select committee and beyond. We think we’ve got it into a pretty good place. We thank the Minister and our coalition colleagues for being sensitive to the ideals that we hold dear and hold firm on, and we have made our way through this to get this bill to this first reading. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. E tū ana ahau ki te whakapuaki i ngā whakaaro o Te Pāti Māori e hāngai nei ki ngā whakaaro o te iwi Māori mō tēnei pire e kīia nei ko te Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand to express the opinions of the Māori Party that align with the opinions of the Māori people concerning this bill, known as the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.]

I might just open by referencing the Associate Minister of Finance’s statement. He said we’re opening ourselves to the world. This seems to be a fairly common theme in the thinking from this Government—opening ourselves up to the world. Indeed, we’ve seen many bills brought before the House that have suggested that opening ourselves up to the world is the way to go. We’ve already had to deal with the Fast-track Approvals Act, readily opening ourselves up to the world as quick as we possibly can. The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill—opening ourselves up to the world again—lorded over the New Zealand public for more than a year, exhausting many of us. Now, we have the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) aiming to do the same thing. It’ll open us up to the world, and not just any part of the world, e te whānau: the corporate part of the world. You know, whai mai [follow along]: it stands that following these few, we’re going to have to deal with a review of 28 pieces of legislation, taking Te Tiriti o Waitangi out—one of the last and longest-standing vanguards for the protection of Aotearoa against the corporate interests of the world. But, here we go, let’s get rid of that one too!

Now, here we are with the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, and the Minister is happily and openly promoting the idea that we need to open ourselves to the world for foreign investment and that exports are the things that we need to fix our country. Well, in my 46 years—but probably only 30-odd of paying attention to these things—it seems that exports haven’t managed to save us yet. Neither has foreign investment. All it’s done is managed to entrench the people who live in the lower end of society—all of the New Zealanders out there—into their category.

As we all know in this House right now, we are living through some of the most extenuating times that our country, and people of this country, have ever had to deal with. All of the economic wizardry of decades and decades and decades of Parliaments and Governments come and gone, come and gone, come and gone, hasn’t seemed to address the issues but only entrenched them even further. Here we go again: a bill with no regard for Te Tiriti o Waitangi—a common theme amongst many bills in the current iteration of New Zealand Government—the removal of protectionary measures that are there—they’ve been there for a long time, but let’s strip them out to make the accessing of natural resources and the opening up of ourselves to the world easier to do, quicker to do. The benefit test has been stripped down to one protection that a single Minister could make the call on. We’re just continually faced with this set of circumstances and these types of propositions that have consistently failed us, decade in, decade out, so why should we possibly think that they’re going to fix things now for ordinary New Zealanders?

A condensed time frame—it seems again that te iwi Māori have been quite conveniently left off the groups of people who will be consulted with bills such as this. When we’re talking about opening up our natural resources, I’m sure te iwi Māori are still a partner to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That had a blanket caveat across all natural resources of the country and yet was left out again—owing to, of course, a short time frame. Well, we know that the bill was part of the coalition agreement, so it’s been around for at least two years, so I don’t know how you haven’t had enough time in two years to consult with any iwi Māori groups out there. And I’m sorry, but Te Arawhiti and Te Puni Kōkiri don’t count as iwi Māori groups. But we are getting used to seeing this—getting used to seeing this. All these things are left out of a raft of bills: the fast-track Act; the Treaty principles bill; the RSB; the removal of Te Tiriti o Waitangi from 28 bills, as promoted by New Zealand First; and the Overseas Investment Bill—all taken out. And so, man, where can we turn to?

What we can say is that Te Pāti Māori are committed to strategies that enhance te taiao, strategies that protect the country’s natural resources for future generations, and strategies that are committed to the wellbeing of our mokopuna. These are the things that we will support, but unfortunately for this bill, we do not commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to speak on this, the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I think it’s good to bring it in context with another bill which will be coming through today or tomorrow in its third reading, the Invest New Zealand Bill. Of course, my colleague referred to the Active Investor Plus visa. As you start to look at these things in context, it’s starting to say New Zealand is open for business. We can’t survive by selling things to ourselves; we need to open ourselves up to more investment to get things done. Federated Farmers agrees and says that, as a small nation, capital and investment from overseas can help New Zealand to fix infrastructure and drive industry development. I commend this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill that exemplifies the cracks in the coalition. This is a bill that exposes that, on one hand, you have the ACT Party that want to sell everything off and, on the other hand, you have a deeply conflicted New Zealand First, who are agreeing to something that they know is not right.

Now, let me be very clear: Labour is and has always supported high-quality, strategic investment that delivers benefit to New Zealanders. That is without debate. That is something that, throughout our history, we have supported and will continue to support. Do we believe there should be no guard rails? The answer is a categorical no. What we believe is that when it comes to foreign investment coming into New Zealand, we need to ensure that this is of benefit to New Zealand, and this is our problem with the bill that is in front of us. What it does is it removes the benefit to New Zealand test.

Now, I do acknowledge that New Zealand First have looked for carve-outs in some areas—in farmland, in residential housing, in fishing quota. But I put to you: what about our health system? What about our education system? What about these other parts of things that we own here in New Zealand where we must always be asking ourselves when someone seeks to invest in them: is this of benefit to New Zealand? The fact that we have a piece of legislation in this House that is removing that question is of great concern to Labour and the reason why we cannot support this bill.

Now, making these decisions is not easy. It is complicated and it is complex. I myself, as a former Associate Minister of Finance, have been a deciding Minister, along with my colleague Damien O’Connor; we were deciding Ministers in the last Government around this. It is always a decision that weighs heavily, needing to ask that question of whether this is of benefit to New Zealand and whether or not it is something that we should be doing.

Now, one only needs to look through the regulatory impact statement that has been tabled with this bill to understand why there are concerns. Although this section is heavily redacted in the regulatory impact statement that has been tabled with the bill, this is what is noted: “While the potential benefits are clear, foreign investment can also pose risk. New Zealand[ers], like our partners,”—heavily redacted section. It then goes on to say, “Reflecting this the UK, Canada, Australia and the US have all tightened their own investment screening regimes to protect essential security interests in recent years.” What we have here is removal of that fundamental screen of whether or not this is of benefit to New Zealand.

Now, on this side of the House, do we think that processes around making decisions around the Overseas Investment Act could be faster? Certainly. Do we think there are ways that we could have tighter time frames? Certainly. Do we need a bill that removes the benefit to New Zealand test in order to do that? The answer is no. We can make changes to make a more efficient, more streamlined Act that does, actually, make sure that those that seek to invest their capital here and invest in our country can do so and they can get an answer quickly, because everyone I’ve spoken to is after that. They want to know whether it is yes or no, and they want to know it within a reasonable time frame. We believe that is an entirely valid argument to put up.

But do we need to remove asking that fundamental question about whether or not this is of benefit to New Zealand? The national interest test is a different test than the benefit to New Zealand test. It is possible to still have those safeguards, those guard rails for New Zealand’s interest within this legislation. That is why, despite being a party that absolutely believes that we do need to attract foreign investment in New Zealand, we need to have the appropriate guard rails so that we can put New Zealand first.

There are three things needed to grow an economy, according to Robert Solow, who was a Nobel Laureate in economics. The first is human capital, the second is physical capital, and the third is financial capital. The bill that we’re debating here today deals with improving the financial capital of New Zealand, which, as the Minister spoke about earlier, also has knock-on effects to our physical and our human capital, and all of these in turn improve our economic performance as a nation.

Other, more prosperous, countries around the world understand this, and that is why they welcome foreign direct investment. They also make it super easy to get foreign investment into their countries. I welcome this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

I can only conclude that members of the Government have not actually read the regulatory impact statement associated with this bill. It’s probably worth them taking a little bit of time with it, because the solutions in this bill don’t necessarily address the problems that are raised in the regulatory impact statement.

Let’s just start with some of the obvious things in here. Now, we all agree that the Overseas Investment Act has gotten really complex and difficult. I just want to draw members’ attention to something that has been said—if I can find it. I can’t find it exactly, but it acknowledges that, in actual fact, the current regime is complicated and difficult to negotiate, that there could be ways of making it better, and that, in fact, something could be done in that space. It could have been done, but, in fact, you’d need to do it from a first-principles sort of basis.

If we go to paragraph 46 of the regulatory impact statement, it says that instead of doing a fuller first-principles review, it couldn’t be completed within the time required—in other words, that the Government has imposed some kind of artificial time constraint on getting this right—and it was broader than necessary to meet the coalition requirement. Now, it just strikes me that we shouldn’t be doing things just because they are coalition requirements; we should actually be doing them because they are the right thing to do for New Zealand. That is what Governments are supposed to do. It is a shame that they haven’t taken the opportunity to do a proper review of the Act and to streamline some of the processes, which we all agree could perhaps be done.

Then I want to look at some aspects of the regulatory impact statement—and, members, if you need to find it, it’s on the Table there. I’m going to draw members’ attention to paragraph 43. It talks about the objectives that “effective foreign investment screening regimes must balance”. It’s things like the “Management of risk”, the “Provision of flexibility”, and the “Retaining Investment Attractiveness”. But here’s the difficulty: those are put in an order, and the first one is “Retaining Investment Attractiveness”, the second one is “Management of risk”, and the third one is the “Provision of flexibility”. I suggest that the proper one to go first, in terms of thinking about overseas investment regimes, is actually the “Management of risk”. Why is that not being given priority? When we’ve managed the risk, then we can look at some of the other aspects.

Then there’s the final set of information that I found sitting in this regulatory impact statement, which suggests that we should actually reject this bill because it simply is not going to deliver some of what we were told it would deliver. In the regulatory impact statement, it says, “New Zealand’s approach is one of the most restrictive in the OECD”—that’s New Zealand’s approach to overseas investment. It says, “There is evidence New Zealand’s approach does not balance these objectives well”—the objectives around screening foreign investment—and, “In particular, the OECD FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index shows New Zealand to be highly restrictive of overseas investment. In earlier iterations … [it] was found to have been the most restrictive foreign investment policy in the OECD. Recent methodological changes find New Zealand is no longer the worst”.

We’re actually better than a couple of countries now, in terms of openness to foreign direct investment. Do you know who those two countries are listed in here? They’re Canada and Australia. Our rules at the moment are pretty much the same as Canada’s, but they are way less restrictive than Australia’s. I don’t know what problem this bill is trying to solve. We’re actually sitting alongside our OECD and our Commonwealth peers. We could do things better, but I think this is an overblown solution to the problem. Something could have been sorted. Perhaps we should have gone for that proper full review of the Overseas Investment Act. Perhaps we could have sorted out procedures in the office. Perhaps we could have funded the Overseas Investment Office better so that it could process applications better. There were all sorts of avenues that were available and simply weren’t taken.

I am so glad that I am the final speaker to speak in support for this first reading so that we can go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—that great select committee—and we can actually pass this bill. Do you know what? I’ve been on the user side of the office and this legislation, as I was working as a consultant trying to bring in good, healthy foreign capital to help New Zealand companies to grow. But guess what! The problems are the uncertainties with the waiting time and the huge legal costs and compliance costs that come with the uncertainty of waiting and waiting and waiting, and, essentially, companies just say, “Guess what! If you don’t want our money, New Zealand, I’ve had enough, and I’ve had enough of the opportunity cost.”

I am so supportive of this bill, and I know that it will deliver for New Zealand some really good, healthy capital that can help New Zealand businesses to grow and, in return, grow the economy for all New Zealanders. I support this bill.

The question is, That the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Instruction to Finance and Expenditure Committee