Invest New Zealand Bill

We’ve presented a legislative statement on the Invest New Zealand Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon TODD McCLAY: I move, That the Invest New Zealand Bill be now read a third time.

Firstly, can I congratulate the Minister for Racing for the successful passage of the Racing Industry Amendment Bill, unanimously, in the House.

I want to thank members for their contributions in the debate so far over previous weeks to this important piece of legislation. By establishing a dedicated agency, the bill helps to deliver on the Government’s growth objectives to attract more high-quality investment to New Zealand that is good for New Zealand and good for New Zealanders.

Invest New Zealand will streamline investment processes and provide a tailored support to international investors. This will deliver greater capital investment and infrastructure, help foster more innovation in key sectors, and attract world-leading talent to our shores. New Zealand produces world-class businesses with huge export potential. They’re looking for domestic and global partners to help them grow and compete, and international investors who have plenty of choices about where to invest around the world need to increasingly see global viability of opportunities in New Zealand, and for New Zealand to get on the radar with these investors.

This bill is about creating a smarter, more targeted approach to international investment attraction in New Zealand, streamlining processes and ensuring New Zealand competes for the best people, best ideas, and best capital to join New Zealanders—who also are the best people, have the best ideas, and best capital—to produce more together than we could by ourselves. Overseas experiences, notably in Ireland and Singapore, demonstrate the value of a focused investment attraction agency dedicated in achieving just that.

The objectives of Invest New Zealand include attracting foreign direct investment in high-potential sectors such as agritech, fintech, renewable energy, and advanced manufacturing; attracting new research and development investment in New Zealand by multinational companies and encouraging global companies to expand their own R & D footprint here, individually and collectively in partnership with New Zealand companies; encouraging skilled professionals to enhance domestic capabilities and global connections; and identifying opportunities to streamline processes and to increase the capital available to invest in new and existing projects and enterprises.

The creation of the new agency is critical in stepping up New Zealand’s effort to attract investment, and we need to supercharge our economy. It will also boost the impact of the Government’s other economic growth initiatives, including reforms to the Overseas Investment Act and changes to the Active Investor Plus visa settings, which we have seen, this week, delivering significant investment into the New Zealand economy already.

Together, these initiatives will help unlock tens of billions of dollars in global investment opportunities and make New Zealand a more attractive and predictable destination for investors to grow our tech sectors, to grow our innovation and our R & D, and to help New Zealanders grow where they currently are restricted and unable to.

I want to recognise the officials at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, as well as the Parliamentary Counsel Office for their work in supporting the passage of this bill through the House. I’d also like to recognise and thank New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and all of their staff for their ongoing work as the bill has moved through, in looking at the structure and supporting the creation of Invest New Zealand.

During the debates previously we heard much about concerns from members opposite, and I’m sure the next speaker from the Opposition will raise questions around whether or not Invest New Zealand is going to sell various things. This is a country that has always welcomed investment. We do best on the world stage when we cooperate with others. Invest New Zealand will do nothing more than that. Invest New Zealand is called invest; it’s not called sell. So I say to members opposite that, actually, the opportunity to achieve things that are good for New Zealand and good for all New Zealanders is something that we should be celebrating together. It is not too late for the Labour Party to show they support investment to grow the New Zealand economy by supporting this bill. Nevertheless, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much. People listening to the Minister’s speech may be sucked into thinking that this is going to be all good for New Zealand. Let’s put on the record that Labour has always supported good foreign investment into our economy and into our country; in fact, our history’s built on that. But we’re in a new world, and we say that Invest New Zealand is a glorified real estate agency selling New Zealand and New Zealand intellectual property (IP) and opportunities—it’s not the right time for something like this. The passage of this bill under urgency—remember, this is under urgency without proper parliamentary scrutiny, and it will be passed today at the end of these speeches.

But we have in the House as well, introduced yesterday, the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. What that bill does is take away the requirement of a benefit to New Zealand test for many overseas investment propositions into our country. They have been previously scrutinised by the Overseas Investment Office, but the Government is now going to move to shift responsibility for some of those tricky decisions and put them in the hands of officials, making it easier for investment to flow into New Zealand.

Now, historic times would have said that that would have provided better benefit for New Zealand when we needed the capital. We are living now in a world where there are trillions of dollars floating around the world looking for a place to park. Our ancestors and, indeed, us in recent times have worked hard through COVID times, through difficult times, to build a reasonably secure economy, systems with integrity, reasonably high trust, and a place where people can invest their money with some certainty. New Zealanders have saved. In fact, we’ve saved to the point through the superannuation funds, KiwiSaver, ACC—these are initiatives put in place often by Labour Governments to build the level of savings within our own economy, to have a level of capital that enables us to invest in our own future. That has not always been the case. So setting up Invest New Zealand to just bring more money into this country, without the proper tests, checks, and balances that we’ve had in the past does open the door for the scouring out of opportunities for future New Zealanders.

Whether we sell businesses, whether we sell IP, whether we sell land or homes is a critical component of the future prosperity of our country. We have a low productivity economy. There are claims that we haven’t invested enough in some areas of technology. I accept that and we have to work on that. The question is: who should do the investment and for what reasons?

Setting up Invest New Zealand is a broad objective just to bring more foreign investment into our country. Without the safeguards that the Minister refers to, he hopes—and there may be, but there’s no guarantees—that there will be benefit for our country. In fact, if you go to the regulatory impact statement, there are a lot of qualifications written in there by Treasury that say that money in itself doesn’t guarantee the progress that many people might assume might happen. In fact, the Minister assumes it will happen.

This Invest New Zealand agency is being paid for by, firstly, shutting down Callaghan Innovation; secondly, taking $11 million from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise—a Government agency that has been tasked with developing enterprise in New Zealand, assisting them with trading and selling those wonderful products around the world, and also attracting, where necessary, investment into those enterprises. This coalition Government has now disconnected it.

I am astounded that New Zealand First has approved this. It’s been a party that for a long time has talked about protecting New Zealand’s sovereign rights, talked about protecting New Zealand businesses and enhancing their opportunities, and now is prepared to sell them out to make it harder for New Zealanders to compete for the IP, to compete for the properties or the businesses, enabling foreigners to come in, outbid them because they have access to cheaper capital, and to make it difficult for young New Zealanders to get ahead in our own country. That’s indeed why we see 191, every day, hopping on a plane and going to Australia—because this Government is not offering them any hope.

Invest New Zealand—this piece of legislation is opening the door to more foreigners, more competition from foreign capital to develop a better future for New Zealand and for New Zealanders. If you read the regulatory impact statement, the statement in there—

Hon Member: It’s good.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: —you’ll see—oh, the member says this is all really good. Well, he may not be so happy when his children hop on a plane and go overseas because they don’t see a future for themselves in our country. We want to see New Zealanders invest in themselves, and I think one of the questions that should be asked, had we had a proper select committee process, would be: could we use our superannuation funds, our KiwiSaver funds, in our own country to invest in the businesses that require the capital—and I accept that that is necessary—delivering us a better long-term alternative than foreign investors, where people bringing the money in will have the rightful opportunity to take the returns on that money through dividends and indeed sell on to whoever they like.

The issue of ownership and its importance to us as a country, to individuals, as business owners or homeowners, is a critical question that needs to be asked and answered. Does ownership matter? Do we require high levels of foreign investment without the checks and balances that we’ve previously had in place? Do we need that money to develop a better future for New Zealand? The Labour Party has always advocated for smart foreign direct investment in our economy, developing greenfields projects, assisting us to grow our businesses, but not simply bringing capital in to inflate the values of farmland, of business, of homes. All of this will occur unless we have proper checks and balances.

The piece of legislation that sits alongside, as the Minister referred to it, the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, is one that is going through; it is going to a select committee, and we welcome the opportunity. We’ll be asking the questions there, but this Invest New Zealand piece of legislation that we’re dealing with at the third reading, which is going through the House today, heard under urgency, without checks and balances, without an ability to ask the hard questions, is simply opening the door to unchecked foreign investment in our country.

I urge people to take the opportunity to submit on the piece of legislation that will go to the select committee to, hopefully, make some changes to bolster the checks and balances that will be needed to protect the rights of New Zealanders now and into the future. We understand the value of capital, but capital in itself, without a highly skilled workforce, without the proper regulations and environmental protections that we need, will not deliver a better New Zealand for New Zealanders into the future.

I say that, once again, Labour is a party that has assisted to develop New Zealand, will continue to welcome foreign investment, but not through the through the set-up of an agency without the checks and balances, which I fear will be the reality for Invest New Zealand. This is a real estate agency that is set up to sell New Zealand, to sell New Zealand ideas and businesses without the checks and balances, to ensure that our sovereign rights, our sovereign objectives of building a better, more sustainable country into the future are kept in place. Labour doesn’t support this bill, because it has not ensured that protections that we need around foreign investment will be in place through this process.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair. The House will resume at 2 p.m.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 12.57 p.m. to 2 p.m.