Goff Phil: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5238. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I move That the Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. As a provincial member Mr Deputy Speaker you will know that here in New Zealand we have a deep cultural attachment to owning our own land both our homes and our farmland. I guess that comes from nearly two centuries of migrants coming to this country to escape from being servants and tenants. People came here to make a better life for their family and the Kiwi dream was born of owning your own home and working your own farm. Our forebears did not come to this country to be tenants in their own land.As the ANZ bank pointed out in an analysis that it did a few years ago land is also important because that is where New Zealand’s competitive advantage lies. What our economy relies on is what we produce on the land. The bank itself noted that we have got a huge degree of interest in maintaining local ownership. I think it is for those reasons that many New Zealanders feel that Kiwi control of our land and the Kiwi dream is under threat. It is under threat from the increased acquisition of property both residential homes and farmland by overseas investors.I guess the first question to answer is: “What is the level of land being sold?”. The curious thing is when I looked up what the manager of the Overseas Investment Office said she said that she did not know how much of our land was in foreign ownership. Is this not typical of the Government? It does not know how many of our residential houses have been bought up by foreign investors and it does not know how much of our farmland is being bought up by foreign investors. Many people would say that it is not a case of not knowing; it is that the Government does not want to know—or rather more precisely it does not want New Zealanders to know. But some figures are available there. On the broadest definition of land approved for overseas sale the Overseas Investment Office records show that under John Key more than 1 million hectares of land has been approved for sale wholly or partially to overseas interests—1 million hectares since John Key became Prime Minister. On the narrowest definition which is of net farm sales solely—100 percent to overseas interests—the figure is over 300000 hectares.We should not be surprised about this because John Key and Bill English came to office in 2008 saying that they were going to open up our land for sale to overseas interests. Bill English said that the system was cumbersome and he was going to loosen it up. But then came along an organisation called Crosby/Textor. Crosby/Textor did some polling and lo and behold what did Crosby/Textor find out? It found out that New Zealanders fundamentally do not want to see their birthright their houses and their farmland sold to overseas interests that do not have at the forefront of their goals the betterment of New Zealand. So suddenly the rhetoric changed and John Key got up and said: “We do not want to be tenants in our own land.”Although the rhetoric changed what did not change was the practice. The political spin altered but not the reality. What happened? Very bravely the Minister of Finance altered the regulations and said that we should actually have oversight to safeguard New Zealand’s interests—very vague. What did that convert to? Absolutely nothing. Then in December 2010 Bill English sent a ministerial directive to the Overseas Investment Office. On the surface it looked like it was toughening up until you read the fine print. You know what the fine print said? The fine print said: “I want this office really to concentrate only on sales of farmland that are 10 times the average New Zealand farm.” That is a tiny percentage of the sales. What went under that does not seem to matter and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. These regulations have had no impact.In fact in the last 3 years the consents for sale of our farmland overseas have gone up not down. Another 140000 hectares has been alienated from New Zealand ownership—David Seymour: People with the right genetics.Hon PHIL GOFF: And wait for it Mr Seymour wait for it: Ministers have the discretion to decline sales. Of the 400 approvals in the last 3 years how many were declined?Pita Paraone: Zilch.Hon PHIL GOFF: Zilch. None. Not one. Not one time did New Zealand Ministers see fit to stop the sale of land to overseas interests. What the National Government is doing is simply rubber-stamping the approvals to sell land to every application from overseas to buy it.Who is buying that land? The biggest buyers are the Americans followed by the Canadians the Israelis the British the Australians Switzerland the Netherlands and Luxembourg. One thing that is actually quite interesting in this is that the accumulated sales of farmland to Chinese interests are very low but in 2014 the largest purchaser of farmland was China because of the changes that are happening in that country. But really it does not matter whom the land is being sold to; what matters is that ownership of more and more land is slipping out of New Zealand hands.I want to say that Labour allowed too much land to be sold—it allowed too much land to be sold. But to its credit it changed its policy 4 years ago and this bill is a product of our commitment to that policy. National pretended to change its policy but in reality nothing at all has changed.Why do I object to the sale of land overseas? Well the first thing is—and let us hear the National Party on this—it is not a level playing field. Young New Zealanders wanting to work up from being a sharemilker to owning their own farm are competing with overseas investors whom they cannot possibly compete with. They are competing with people with access to money where they are paying a fraction of the interest rates that the young New Zealand farmer would have to pay for borrowing to buy that land.The real worry is that with the dramatic fall in the New Zealand dollar over the last 6 months the cost of buying up New Zealand land from overseas is becoming cheaper and we will see the American pension funds buying up that land. We will see the farmers who are suffering from a downturn in dairy prices forced into mortgagee sales having that land go to people who will snap it up as a bargain from overseas. We will see the changes that are happening in China having an impact as well. I know China well. I know the Chinese Government has liberalised the investment rule for its investors. I know that investors in China right at the moment with a 50 percent drop in the Shanghai stock exchange are looking abroad for safe places to put their money and what better place to come to than a country that has no capital gains tax no stamp duty and where that land is certain to maintain its value over time?I am in favour of foreign direct investment but I am in favour of it in areas where it will benefit New Zealand. What this bill says is that investing in residential property and investing in our farmland is good for those overseas investors but it provides nothing for us as New Zealanders. In the residential housing area we have seen house prices in Auckland go up by 26 percent in the year to June 2015. Who thinks that overseas investors wherever they come from are doing us a favour in pushing those prices up? We will see overseas investors pushing out the young couple that want a life farming their own land and stopping them from having that opportunity. I say to those members shame on them.