SpeechRt Hon DAVID CARTER (National): It's a pleasure to follow that contribution from Jamie Strange realising that xenophobia is alive and well on the other side of the House. Let me be quite clear to that member as to how National will vote: National will vote to support it to the select committee but gives no guarantee that we'll support it after the select committee process. We've decided on that course of action because this is a complicated piece of legislation delivered at a time of crisis in New Zealand and we accept that. But I think comments from Jamie Strange like We don't want to sell out New Zealand to strangers." send all the wrong signals at this time. The first piece of legislation that we're rushing into this Parliament after the most serious Budget that's been presented in my lifetime potentially sends all the wrong signals to the investment industry right throughout New Zealand and internationally. It sends the signal that New Zealand is closing its doors. Now I listened very carefully to the Hon David Parker as he introduced this legislation and he talked about the need for it to protect those strategic industries that may be vulnerable because of the economic crisis of COVID-19—industries associated with the military with the ports with airports perhaps electricity perhaps even the media—and there is some justification for needing to make sure that those industries who may become fragile and vulnerable are recognised as strategic industries and are therefore subject to a strong regime and tests around foreign direct investment. But what Mr Strange didn't realise with his contribution is that New Zealand already has a very very strong regime around overseas investment. The Hon David Parker talked about a threshold existing in the current regime of $100 million. Well if the ports of New Zealand and the airports of New Zealand are now going to collapse to a value below that and I certainly hope that's not the case—but if it is think seriously about adjusting that threshold. But the way I read the legislation this means all foreign investment comes under the scrutiny of this new bill. I want the member opposite to consider Queenstown as it is today—desperate for jobs. I will guarantee before too much longer there will be a motel unit there perhaps of 20 or 30 units that will go bust and potentially it could have been sold to an overseas investor and saved a lot of jobs. But that particular threshold now means that that distressed business—a motel of 30 units potentially—is considered strategic under this legislation and goes through yet another hurdle if indeed this doesn't chase off the potential foreign investor buying that. What this country needs now more than at any time is business confidence because confidence equals jobs. The Prime Minister delivered her Budget speech and talked about the Budget being a Budget for jobs. Well think about that distressed motel owner currently in Queenstown potentially with a staff of a dozen people who is about to go bust and wanting to find a way of getting some fresh capital into that business to keep those jobs there. This legislation threatens that. I listened particularly with fear to the Budget speech from the Rt Hon Winston Peters and he spoke with his normal xenophobic nature against foreign investment spoke against the reforms of the 1980s—which I think were the saviour for the New Zealand economy—and spoke against foreign investment. He was the man who three years ago campaigned against any foreign investment into New Zealand's second-largest meat-processing company Silver Fern Farms—a company which was so vulnerable it potentially could have tipped over—and finally there was some investment. Yes it was foreign investment. It happened to be Chinese foreign investment which will really worry the xenophobes on the other side of the House but that company recently returned a $70 million profit and will pay tax to the Government. That's what foreign investment can do. So let's be grateful that the Government will send it to a select committee for a short period of time to give us a chance to really examine the detail of this. But I can't help thinking there were far easier ways to construct legislation that wouldn't look as if New Zealand was closed for business and that wouldn't turn people who have investment money who are interested in New Zealand off from considering New Zealand and send them to other opportunities that exist in countries like Fiji or Australia because jobs are important. That's what we need at this time. So I say to the Minister that the select committee will examine the legislation. I warn the Minister that there is no guarantee that as the legislation comes back from the select committee National will continue to support this legislation. I personally think it's complete overkill and it sends all the wrong signals to our business community at a time when they're asking for confidence in the Government. They're asking for a Government that knows how business works because this legislation suggests to me that many on that side of the House have not a clue what actually makes a business survive."