Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to be talking on this new bill the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Bill. If I recall and understand what the Minister said when he introduced the bill this bill is basically about stopping fire sales of businesses in New Zealand and with that the loss of intellectual property and jobs overseas. I think that at a high level there is merit in that argument for sure. However what I find slightly disconcerting is he then went on and used the term triage" and to me that has a rather negative connotation about the way you look at approval of foreign investment. It implies a negative connotation and I think that is wrong. We are talking about foreign investment in New Zealand and as many of the speakers have noted previously it has been very beneficial for New Zealand. I think the big issue here—and this is what the crux of this bill will be about—is there are good forms of foreign investment and there are poor forms of foreign investment. In the main there are many good types of foreign investment and the classic I want to talk about is for instance if a company is in trouble—and we've seen the Auckland Airport do a significant rights issue recently. If that company wants to get fresh equity so it can recapitalise and grow its business or expand its business that is fine and that type of foreign investment should be allowed. What worries me in this bill is that all the good stuff and the bad stuff is going to be put together into one little box and pushed through the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) under strict requirements to do it within 10 days and also the whole processing at 25 50 75 and 100 percent takeover—each of those thresholds just double up the requirement to be able to make that happen. The other thing is it obviously builds on this issue around the national interest test and the call-in powers. No one's mentioned it yet I don't think but the national call-in powers and the national interest refer to industries such as national military or security companies telecommunications electricity ports airports financial institutions and of course the media. Those are the types of categories that these provisions will relate to particularly. I think that in terms of looking at this bill at the select committee the first thing is making sure that its focus is very very confined because if it starts to impede businesses who are currently in trouble and who need capital and can't get that capital other than going locally then that's a real issue. This bill actually—what it's done is hung out a shingle to many people from overseas to say "If you want to do it even though you're going to be fast-tracked"—supposedly—"under this system you will have to still go through quite a rigmarole." at a time when New Zealand companies need that money quickly. So the focus will be around its purpose and scope. The second thing is around the definition of the national interest because I think it says in the bill that the Minister can "impose conditions on prohibit [and require disposal] of investments". So it's quite wide-ranging powers. The third issue is the definition and scope of the call-in powers and I think that will need a lot of work on it because that is a heavy-handed right. The fourth thing is the capacity of the OIO. If you talk to any lawyer who has been involved in OIO processing—and I did recently—they will normally say that the process for doing foreign investment in New Zealand is time-consuming and my first question is we're now doubling up on it requiring it at 25 50 and 75 and 100 percent thresholds. That means the resources of the OIO will need to be resourced. I don't see anything in the Budget for that and so how that's going to be done is another issue. The other issue is the approval by one Minister. This is again a heavy-handed approach—and whether that's appropriate—and finally the criteria when these emergency powers should be disbanded or discontinued will need to be addressed. All of that means that we've got a lot of work to do in a Finance and Expenditure Committee meeting over the next week. I'm just wondering who's going to turn up as submitters. I don't think we'll get any foreigners because they'll see this bill and think they won't want to go near it. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The next call is a split call."