Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I think this is a debate that clearly illustrates that there are two parties in this Parliament that don't fear foreign investment and there are three parties in this Parliament that do. Certainly the National Party is one party that welcomes foreign investment in a sensible managed and ultimately productive way for New Zealand that improves our lot economically socially and culturally and doesn't harm it. The difference between my party and the ACT Party who also support foreign investment—and disappointingly in my view in the context of this bill—is that if I interpret what Brooke van Velden said in her third reading speech was because this bill is only incrementally making improvements to the Overseas Investment Act and doesn't completely liberalise overseas investment then they shouldn't support it. We take a different view. We think that because this is an improvement albeit not as far as we would go we should still improve it and improve it we did through the select committee process.But I think we should be really measured in the degree to which we think this is going to make material improvements and on that I do agree with Miss van Velden. The definition of overseas persons" the improvements in the 25 percent control the unproductive farmland and one or two other amendments I think—the removing of the requirement for certain existing overseas owners and particularly when they're selling one overseas owner to another overseas owner not materially affecting the degree of foreign ownership in this country. All good stuff but I've got to say I did choke on my water a bit when I heard the Labour member Anna Lorck talking about how this is going to be protecting farmland from foreign ownership. Well if the Labour Party really wanted to protect farmland from foreign ownership they shouldn't have agreed to the sop to New Zealand First to have the carve-out for very highly productive farmland to be converted into forestry an industry that itself is already owned—70 percent I think—by overseas owners.Now thankfully they can cut it down and take it away but they can't take the land away and for that reason I'm completely ambivalent about that except to the degree that the change that was made in the previous Parliament that enables foreign buyers not to jump through high hoops when they're buying farmland so that they can convert it to farmland is incredibly concerning to me and to the National Party and despite our efforts we couldn't fix that. That remains a significant irritant in our overseas investment framework and for Peeni Henare to talk about the rights of tangata whenua and looking to tangata whenua to care for the land for our young—"We have a bill that does just that." he said. Well actually it doesn't—doesn't do that at all doesn't improve things from the significant backtrack that we took in terms of what he described as protecting the land for our young. His rugby team might be booming in Moeroa I think he said it was—Hon Aupito William Sio: Moerewa.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —thank you—but it isn't because of forestry. Anybody who goes into a forest particularly when it's harvested might be lucky to see five people because of the mechanisation technologies that removed a huge amount of labour need from that industry. Yes there is planting; yes there is pruning over a 30-year life cycle of a forest but let's not pretend that that's propping up the premier rugby clubs around the Bay of Plenty and Northland because it's not. Actually—[Interruption] I'm not sure what she said but I don't think it was probably going to improve the dialogue any. I sometimes am grateful for the fact that I'm profoundly deaf in one ear.We will continue to support this bill but I stress let's not get too ahead of ourselves in terms of what this is going to mean. I think there is still much more we can do to show the world that New Zealand is open for business and it's open for investment for the benefit of New Zealand. We believe in free trade. We believe in the free movement of capital. We believe in a reasonably free movement of people—although we're probably backsliding in that regard given the Minister of Immigration's approach over the last few months. So we shouldn't be too terribly worried about the free movement of investment in this country because they're not stealing anything. Every time an overseas company invests in this country that frees capital up for New Zealanders to invest in other things. That's how the economy works and to be scared of that is to put the shutters up and close for business.Hon Member: Fortress New Zealand.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. There is no fortress. There might be a very large moat around the islands but it is hardly "Fortress New Zealand" and long may that be the case.So with those caveats and with the very material disappointment that I have that we are not fixing a major irritant in the overseas investment framework we support the bill."