Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Sitting date: 04 April 2012. Volume:679;Page:1646. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
11. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in the Overseas Investment Office and his Ministers Hon Jonathan Coleman and Hon Maurice Williamson over the issue of the latest Crafar farms deal; if so why? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I do not have responsibility for the Overseas Investment Office but I do have confidence in the two Ministers. I would note that the Ministers are not party to any “deal” with regard to the Crafar farms. They are simply assessing an application as they are required to do under the Overseas Investment Act which Labour brought into effect in 2005.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It seems that the Prime Minister was asked in the primary question about the issue not the deal; how can he have confidence in either of his two Ministers when a High Court decision has already so sadly demonstrated that they either do not understand or are not prepared to comply with the law they are acting under? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: When the law was brought in by Labour in 2005 the understanding of the application of the law in terms of the benefits test as interpreted by Crown Law and the advisers to the Overseas Investment Office was a “before and after” test not a “with or without” test. I would note that every application including ones that were made when that member was a part of that Labour Government was made with the “before and after” test not the “with or without” test.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister still not understand that those two Ministers were on the High Court’s decision found to have not even read sections of the legislation on which they were meant to act and what did he mean about New Zealanders not becoming tenants in their own land when under the agreement that those Ministers are looking at Landcorp will be paying about $18 million a year by way of an equivalent fifty-fifty sharemilking deal on the propositions before it right now? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: There are previous Ministers who have been known not to read their papers but the current ones I have in my administration do. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I ask the Minister why it is that he thinks that that is an adequate answer when there are sections in the legislation which the High Court went to pains to point out that both the two Ministers and the Overseas Investment Office seem to have totally overlooked? What would give anybody confidence that those Ministers are now going to go ahead as they did before and with the full backing of the Mandarin candidate we have here as Prime Minister? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: With the greatest of respect I do not think the member understands Justice Miller’s application of the law. And with the greatest of respect to the member my mother was Austrian and my father was English. The nearest I have come to China is when I visited Beijing. Outside that I do not have any Chinese blood in me.