Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I rise to speak in support on behalf of the National Party of the Overseas Investment (Forestry) Amendment Bill. This bill tries to rebalance things that had become a little out of balance in terms of the assessment of foreign investment. So what we're trying to do here is say that we welcome—the National Party certainly does—forestry which has a significant contribution to New Zealand of about $6 billion per annum; we welcome foreign investment; and we welcome having the right tree in the right place but the problem is that this had become a little out of balance and so this bill rebalances this somewhat. Rather than having a special forestry test it focuses on a benefit to New Zealand" test. You might ask why that is important. Well in total there have been 110 one-off consents granted under the Overseas Investment Act using the special forestry test since October 2018 when the test was introduced through to 30 April 2022. The total area consented was 240539 hectares which included sales from one overseas owner to another overseas owner. There were 90607 hectares transferred from a New Zealand owner to an overseas owner. There is a balance that we're trying to strike here because like I said we do welcome forestry and we do welcome foreign investment but we also think it's really important that we protect the productive land that is producing food and I may note that the primary industries themselves contributed $52 billion to New Zealand last year. So that's huge for our country. It's an incredibly important part of our economy and it's incredibly important for our communities as well and I can say that I have personal experience on both sides of this discussion. As a young guy in fact I remember going with my younger brother cycling around local farms and asking if they had a job. When I was a 12-year-old a farmer was good enough to take me on—and I think my brother was 10—and we got our first job working on farms and it went on from there. I worked for years as a young person on farms. I helped out in the shearing sheds I went out cleaning troughs and checking fences and I went on to do a whole lot of things. Through many summers I worked on farms around the region. When it was hay-baling season—you know the old square bales—we'd get out there and we'd work day and night bringing in the hay. You'd have to get it in before the weather broke so we'd stack these hay bales up seven or eight tiers high and we'd be driving these old Bedford trucks so you could get them into the sheds at the back of farms. I got my driver's licence and got my truck-driving licence and we'd drive these trucks into some pretty precarious places and then unload these things at midnight or after midnight and then go back and carry on with it. So I've got a very good understanding of just the value of the productive farming sector to the country through that experience from my younger years. I also have experience in the forestry sector. In my teens I also worked both in the Hawke's Bay and in Northland in forestry in my summer holidays making money so that I could pay for school etc. and—Angie Warren-Clark: Did you work for my family? JOSEPH MOONEY: Oh who knows? I may have—there may be a connection there. So look I'm familiar with getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning driving for miles in the back of the van and then going out in all weathers pruning trees. You've got to fight your way through blackberry to get tree to tree and then start pruning from the bottom and pruning your way up. You get the ladder on the tree and then climb up and carry on and you're often doing this in very steep country. I did a significant amount of that work. As one of the speakers said before it's tough work and all credit to those who do it because it is challenging work. You really work hard for your money and certainly then you were paid by the number of trees you did. So the more trees you did the more money you'd make and obviously if there's more blackberry it takes longer to battle your way from tree to tree. So I have an understanding of the forestry industry from that practical perspective as well. It is a valuable industry and it does provide employment and it does provide economic potential to New Zealand but we need to balance it also with this conversation around our biodiversity. That's one of the other challenges that we have along with our carbon sequestration and food production. So we've got these various things that we're trying to balance here and get it right. I understand that the select committee sought advice on this "benefit to New Zealand" test. There were some concerns expressed that this test would preserve incentives for foreign investors to convert farmland to forestry and after receiving advice on it the select committee "heard that the benefit to New Zealand test will reduce the risk of losing highly productive farmland to forestry because it requires investors to demonstrate benefits that are proportional to the land's sensitivity. For example highly productive farmland would require a correspondingly high benefit." I think that's quite an important point. It's certainly something that I've heard quite a bit about in my electorate of Southland where there has been quite significant concern expressed by many people in my region with farms being bought that were quite productive land that are going to be put into forestry. There is a real concern that there will be a significant loss in productive food capacity from those farms being converted into pine trees and certainly there is a strong view that this was not the right tree in the right place. Also there is the impact on the surrounding communities because the various businesses that provide services to those farms would no longer have that work and the people who normally live and work in that area would no longer be able to put their kids into school so it would have the impact on schools with schools being potentially shut down. So there are quite a few concerns there and also quite a few concerns from some folks that they will not be able to compete in a fair market because what they could pay for productive food-producing farmland was not the same as those who could purchase it for forestry when taking into account carbon sequestration etc. So it's encouraging to see that the intention here is to demonstrate that the benefits from forestry—which are significant and important both for wood production and for carbon sequestration—are proportional to the land's sensitivity. For example our productive farmland has real benefits—particularly in this current era where food security is becoming an increasingly significant issue around the world—and we need to really pay close attention to the value that we provide both economically for ourselves but also for the food that we can provide to others for their needs in a world where food has become constricted and is more and more important for people. So that is an important thing here and it is something I think is good. The final thing I would note here is that we certainly do want to send the right signals here. The signals I clearly want to make as I said at the beginning of my speech are that we do welcome forestry we do welcome foreign investment we do welcome having the right tree in the right place and we are trying to balance these different considerations with carbon sequestration biodiversity food production and strong communities. This is a bill which we believe has made a positive step in rebalancing the investment framework so that there is a fairer playing field in terms of those who are investing in New Zealand land for the purposes that are important for this country. So with that I'll conclude my remarks and commend this bill to the House."