Prebble Richard: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
Prebble Richard: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:18030] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to say that we will also oppose the Overseas Investment Bill but for completely opposite reasons to the Green Party. 
Rod Donald 
: I thought so. Predictable. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: It is a shame that it is predictable because Mr Donald though he tries to hide it has a better intellect than was showed by the speech he gave to the House. He was talking emotional claptrap. The idea that foreigners are buying up homes in Otara pushing up the price of homes— 
Stephen Franks 
: Wainuiomata. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
:—or in Wainuiomata—and making it impossible for young New Zealanders to go there is absurd. If he listened to his own rhetoric about the amount of overseas investment in New Zealand he would know that it is still tiny. 
If he had bothered to study history when he was at school he would realise that this nation was built on overseas investment. If one goes back far enough one can see that nearly every economic activity in New Zealand was done by foreigners. If we look at New Zealand’s economic growth at the time when there were no rules at all against overseas investment we see that we have never matched that growth since—never never matched it. Indeed according to research done by Geoffrey Blainey who is as I am sure the New Zealand First member knows probably Australia’s most prominent historian it is his belief that in 1900 New Zealand had the highest standard of living in the world—and that was at a point when we had no overseas investment rules. 
These rules are nonsense. Let me give one other small example. The explanatory note includes “investments” that are “sensitive” and “sensitive assets”. When one reads through it one finds out that those refer to land but the proposal actually increases the “threshold for screening non-land business assets” whereby overseas people can buy from a company to $100 million. I hate to be the first to break it to the Government but that means people can go and buy a company on the New Zealand Stock Exchange for $99 million— 
Stephen Franks 
: Lots of them! 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
:—one could buy quite a lot on the New Zealand Stock Exchange for $99 million—and the next day deregister it and put it on to the Singapore Stock Exchange—which has happened to a few public companies. That is possible. But the “sensitive” investment is land and no one has worked out how that can be picked up and put into Singapore. No foreigner has ever managed to acquire a piece of New Zealand land or foreshore—perhaps a little bit of sand but not a proper section—and take it overseas. It cannot be done. That is a load of rubbish and when we hear the stuff about some singer who has bought some land— 
Craig McNair 
: Shania Twain. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Apparently she is a pop singer or something so I am told—[ 
Interruption 
] Well jolly good. 
Hon Member 
: She’s very good-looking. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: I have various strengths but that is not one of them—but I can guarantee that that land is still there and I suspect she is probably a better landowner than many Kiwis. 
I listened to Mr Rod Donald and to the New Zealand First member talking about overseas investors and heard that they have a dreadful impression of some sort of robber barons. It is interesting that they did not name one of those corporations. If they have to look at robber barons in New Zealand I would have thought the New Zealand First member would know about the Wine-box. Not one overseas company was involved in that—not one. 
I can tell the member why that is so. It is because overseas companies tend to be very careful about obeying the law. I have been a director of New Zealand companies overseas and we are extremely careful to be very good citizens. There are quite good reasons for that. We certainly would not be interested in playing the sorts of games that New Zealand companies have played—regrettably—on occasions. 
This also raises questions for New Zealand First and the Green Party. I will give one example. If we are to follow the advice given by New Zealand First and the Green Party do we say to New Zealand’s biggest multinational Fonterra that it should not own overseas companies and that it should withdraw its bid for—what is it?— 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: National Foods. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
:—National Foods in Australia? In fact the Green member said that no foreigner ought to be able to own any land in New Zealand. That is interesting. I hate to break it to him but I am a New Zealand citizen and I own land overseas. So if that theory is applied that land should be taken away from me. I assure the member that I am a very good owner and my wife would be even more upset than I would be if that were to happen. It is nonsense. 
I say to the House that it is a shame when members get up and scream because that is really what the New Zealand First member did. I guess he can plead his youth as he did. I do not know what Rod Donald’s excuse is for getting up and talking emotional claptrap but it does not help the House. I do not doubt for a minute that there are many New Zealanders who instinctively fall for that sort of appeal but it is still claptrap. 
Let me give the member another example which is probably one of the more famous. We all know that the United States became the wealthiest nation on earth. One of the actions that achieved that was the building of the railroads right across the United States which in that century was the big economic development. The people who paid for that were the British; the British put in the investment. Under the theory advanced by the Greens and New Zealand First the United States should have come out of that experience as a very poor nation. Did they? No not at all—of course they did not. 
If we had had the sense to get the British to build the New Zealand rail I would not have had to go and save it; it would have been a problem for the British. But of course we put our money in unlike— 
Craig McNair 
: The difference is that the British actually lived in the US. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Oh they lived in the US? That will come as a great shock to them. I guess they did in the sense that some of them thought the “united states” were still the colonies but most of the investors did know about the Declaration of Independence. Most of them knew that the United States was a separate country but there could have been a few New Zealand First supporters who got confused about that sort of development. I assure the member that no railway was built when the United States was still a colony of Britain and the point I make to the member is that that is just one example—a very easy one for anyone except New Zealand First members to see—where the people of the United States were the real beneficiaries of that investment. No doubt British investors got some money as well. 
But coming from the ACT party which believes in sound economics I say to the House that this whole bill is emotional claptrap. Of course overseas investors should have to obey the law but they ought to obey the general law of New Zealand that applies to all investors. They should not have to fill out those sorts of forms and as Green Party and New Zealand First members have accurately pointed out many of the forms they will be asked to fill out have been put up just for political smokescreen reasons by the Government. 
Hon David Carter 
: That’s right. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: The National Party member says that is right. That is because neither of the two original parties in this Parliament are prepared to get up and say that what we ought to do is have no such bill of this sort. We should be saying that anyone who wants to come and invest in New Zealand can do so but they must obey the general laws of New Zealand and that if there is anything wrong with those general laws then we should fix them. I think there is—there are too many of them. 
This addition to investment law is of no assistance so the ACT party will vote against it. Yes there will be people who claim that assets are being sold. I tell the House that I have never sold a State asset. I have sold many State liabilities but I have never sold a State asset. Some overseas people bought those liabilities and nearly all of them did a better job than previous Ministers. I say to the House that this bill is emotional nonsense and that it is a great shame for the country that we are even attempting to pass laws of this nature. The ACT party will vote against it.