Lee Melissa: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5240. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): Thank you. [Interruption]Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order cousin! I have called Melissa Lee who has the floor.MELISSA LEE: Thank you very much Mr Deputy Speaker but I almost feel like I have to give the opportunity to the front-bencher in front of me because he does actually have some wonderful lines about the member who just sat down Phil Goff.I rise to take a call as the Government benches’ first speaker on this the Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill. For a little while there while Mr Phil Goff was speaking I was thinking: “Maybe he’s actually unlike some of his other colleagues and he isn’t actually going to be having a go at you know the Asian migration and the house prices.” I thought this was about land. You know what? I understand the value of land. Korean people are very strong on landownership. They have an attachment to the land and they value the land. But one thing about land is that it stays in this country. It is not like they can package it up bag it and take it back to China or any other country that they could take it back to.I have to say that I am rather disappointed and actually surprised that the honourable member for Mt Roskill is the main proponent of this bill. After all he is a former Minister of Trade who hopes perhaps to become the mayor of the super-city of Auckland. I thought he was actually gunning for the role of mayor His Worship next year. If he does in fact become the Mayor of Auckland he will have to go overseas and look for investment into the system—if he is in fact the mayor. After all Auckland is in fact the home to 50 percent—almost 50 percent of people living in Auckland are born overseas. How is he going to explain this bill to the people who will eventually vote for him? I am just a little surprised.Mr Goff the honourable member is a longstanding member of this House whom I actually get along really well with. I do attend a lot of ethnic events with him as he is the spokesperson for ethnic communities for the Labour Party. He also claims he is a champion of the working man and yet he fails to represent the 39 percent of his electorate who are of Asian descent and the 3 percent who are of Middle Eastern descent and indeed any New Zealanders in his electorate who have family and friends from their homeland looking to invest their hard-earned finances and resources into the better development of this country.Just in case he is actually wondering whether I got this data from a real estate agent I will just say that this data comes from the census figures—that 39 percent of his electorate are in fact of Asian descent. When his colleague actually calls me 40 percent Chinese I have to say that I am 100 percent not Chinese. I am 100 percent Korean-made but I am 100 percent Kiwi. I have made a conscious decision to become a New Zealander. I have been in this country for three-quarters of my life almost but I was made overseas in Korea. I just cannot change that. My parents did the deed.I am surprised and yet not shocked that the former Leader of the Opposition promotes this legislation. I am wondering whether the member feels that I should be less offended because at least he thinks that this is actually not about a particular ethnic community—that he is not actually having a go at the people who look like me or the Chinese or those who may be mistaken for Chinese just because their surname happens to be Young or Lee or Ling for example.I must say that the Labour Party has not had too many issues about non-Asian people buying land in the past and I fear that in fact the Labour Government sold double the amount of land that this National Government has actually sold. I mean we have sold half what the previous Labour Government actually sold to overseas interests—less than half. I am surprised that Labour members get up now to say: “Oh selling to overseas interests is wrong.” You know somebody reminded me that New Zealanders will never get rich selling to ourselves and that is true. We cannot make milk just for New Zealanders. We are not going to bring foreign currency into New Zealand by selling to just New Zealanders and so what? I am just wondering whether Mr Phil Goff when he decides that he wants to sell his farm—or maybe he did try and maybe a non-Asian did not want to buy. Maybe locals did not want to buy. Maybe it was in fact Asian people who wanted to buy and he had to turn them down because he is anti - Asians buying land perhaps. I do not know. I am not going insult him but I have to say that the honourable member is wrong and I am voting against this bill.I am just a little bit sad that Labour has to condescend to ethnic communities in this way. It is actually pitiful and I have to say it does not work. I think people in this country who are of ethnic origin do recognise that these kinds of policies that Labour is proposing are simply racist. It is simply not something that most New Zealanders want. It does not work. The former leader I am afraid is showing his advanced years and I am not talking about his age. He has actually been here for about three decades. It is a shame that he does not grow in understanding and compassion for those New Zealanders who are of ethnic origin and those applicants coming from distant shores to try to make their dreams of becoming a Kiwi a reality.I am just baffled that he does not actually get this. If he holds the portfolio for ethnic communities he must understand how ethnic communities work. Most people when they send their children to New Zealand to study English or do high school or university are thinking about their future. When their children become New Zealanders or become accustomed to the New Zealand way of life they often want to buy them homes so that they have a comfortable life while they are living in New Zealand and so they invest in a home or maybe they invest in a farm because they see a little bit further into the future; that when they are looking to retire maybe they will settle in the country that their children have become accustomed to and maybe they have become New Zealanders. So by virtue of that they would want to invest in this country and they will eventually move to this country and many have.I am a New Zealander. I sort of had to follow the other way. I did not come to New Zealand to study and have my parents follow me but I had to follow my parents who had decided that New Zealand was the haven that they had been looking for. I had to follow my parents—typical Asian family; you know families move together. The member must know that most ethnic communities who invest and send their children to school in New Zealand buy houses and land because they hope to become New Zealanders in the future full stop.This Government has already put a number of measures in place to prepare for situations where there are concerns about potential investors. These measures can be found in the Overseas Investment Act 2005 and that Act voted for by the honourable member while his party was in Government strikes the balance between widening the investment opportunities that New Zealand gives to the global community and protecting those sensitive assets that New Zealand cares about.I must point out that Mr Goff the former Leader of the Opposition and a former Cabinet Minister signed off on the free-trade agreement with China. He was in the past a beacon of overseas investment I am sure going over to China many times over and actually telling those Chinese people to invest in this country. It baffles me to think why Labour cannot see its own creation is in fact working. The 2005 Act is working like the National Government is working and like most New Zealanders who work hard and hope to one day retire to our beautiful rural landscapes so the foreign investors and businessmen wanting to diversify their stock and set up somewhere can retire in peace while maintaining a strong connection.Some of the big investors in New Zealand—an example is James Cameron a recent appointment to the Screen Advisory Board and a resident here in the Greater Wellington region. Look at the owner of Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown Julian Robertson. He has done so much for New Zealand that we appointed him a rare Honorary Knight Companion of the Order of Merit for his philanthropy across our country. But the opposition of Mr Phil Goff is not about these gentlemen; it is actually Asian investment that he is worried about. It is a knee-jerk reaction to the housing crisis and I am appalled that he buys into that. I know that he does not believe that and hopefully he will wake up because he will need their vote if he is to have a hope of becoming the Mayor of Auckland. I oppose this bill.