Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Thank you and I thank the Minister in the chair Christopher Finlayson for his active involvement in this debate. It was interesting today—with the good offices of Phil Twyford there was a group of youth leaders from Myanmar who were following MPs for the day. The discussion with Myo Thu who was working with my office was very much that in Myanmar there is no Torrens system so there are great difficulties in terms of customary ownership of land and working out who owns land and therefore how any property taxes should be levied and the benefits we have in New Zealand from having our Torrens system the fact that it has been put online and the fact that it does then provide as Michael Wood noted indefeasibility of title and a security when people are engaging in property transactions which we are very fortunate to have.I would just like to comment in terms of Mr O'Rourke's Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) particularly the one that seeks to reinsert clause 54 SOP 314. Certainly in the Green Party we are supporting the bill but we will be voting against this SOP because with other members of the Government Administration Committee we were convinced by the evidence that the Law Society and the banks provided that it was going to make the whole system too cumbersome if there was a requirement in the bill as it was originally introduced that the mortgagee would have to verify the identity of the mortgagor.I note in the submissions of the Law Society that it made the point that it thought that this provision clause 54 had ended up in the bill because of the concern that New Zealand would follow Australia in terms of the increase in incidence of identity and mortgage fraud. But while Australia as the Minister has noted was the birthplace of the Torrens system—in South Australia—it seems that New Zealand has subsequently overtaken it and that our electronic Landonline system is now much more robust than the largely papers-based system that operates in many states in Australia.The point that both the Law Society and the banks made was that Land Information New Zealand already has quite detailed standards which require evidence about contact details for the physical address of the property and the landowner concerned and quite a high level of information that is already provided. The other point that was made was that there has been only one known case of identity fraud in New Zealand since Landonline was introduced. So it certainly was not the problem that it was in Australia.So we will not be supporting that SOP but we certainly will be supporting Mr O'Rourke's other SOP SOP 325 to insert new clause 9A Registrar to keep foreign ownership of land register". The Minister thinks this may be beyond the scope of the bill but I would encourage him to go to clause 10 of the bill because that does talk about the purpose of the register: "(a) provide a public record of land that is subject to this Act including a record of—(i) title to estates and interests in land … and (ii) other information …". Looking at the contents of the register we think that Mr O'Rourke's SOP is perfectly in line with what the register should have in it as set out in clauses 10 and 11. There is increasing concern about the extent of foreign overseas ownership of land in New Zealand and it is very difficult to get accurate information on that. I think the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)—it has fallen on it as a non-governmental organisation with the limited resources it has to be the best source of accurate information on the extent of land that has gone into overseas ownership. In 2016 I think CAFCA calculated that there were at least 362000 hectares of freehold farm and forestry land and 103000 hectares of leasehold land. If Mr O'Rourke's SOP became law we would have much more accurate information on the extent of land that was in foreign ownership. It is the Green Party's longstanding view that our laws around overseas ownership in New Zealand are far too lax and that we should actually change the law to put significant restrictions on landownership by non-citizens and non-residents.I think we have seen that recently with a Landcorp farm Jericho station in Southland: there is a significant degree of public concern about this 1400-hectare property going into overseas ownership. A local New Zealand Southland farmer put in a bid of $8.5 million but an overseas owner can offer more than that. If we have title laws on foreign ownership—and Mr O'Rourke's SOP is a step towards actually just providing more accurate information—we can help ensure that the basis of the primary production sector of the economy is maintained in New Zealand ownership. Alienating that alienates the basis of creating wealth in our primary production sector. This is only a very small measure but I do encourage the Government to consider the purpose of the register the contents of the register and the fact that this SOP belongs with this bill and would actually add to the value of the register in providing accurate information to New Zealanders about overseas ownership. Thank you."