Cullen Michael: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Cullen Michael: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21592] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Overseas Investment Bill be now read a third time 
. The Overseas Investment Act has not undergone a thorough review since it passed in 1973 and I thank members of the House for their cooperation in progressing this important bill through the House. I particularly want to thank the members from ACT the Green Party and New Zealand First who demonstrated how powerful the arguments in favour of this bill are. 
At the commencement of this long-overdue review two objectives were identified as being of paramount importance. These were to ensure the regime focused on sensitive assets of critical interest and to further reduce compliance costs in areas where that is feasible. The bill does that. Indeed the second part of that has not been focused on at all during this debate. 
I want to say quite clearly that it is critical for the future of this country and for our social and cultural development that we have a welcoming and open attitude towards inwards foreign direct investment. Indeed I have to point out that today the Government announced new rules for the entrepreneur category and it was attacked by the New Zealand First leader in his first press statement as being an attack upon inward-bound investment by foreigners. It is true that 45 minutes later he put out another press statement saying we were simply pinching New Zealand First’s policy but nevertheless his first statement showed that party’s confusion on the issue of inward-bound investment. If this country relied on its own capital resources alone we would not just not grow; this economy would shrink because our investment levels would be insufficient to maintain our current level of economic activity. It is a bit like Arsenal which had to bring in a Frenchman to be a decent coach because it could not find anybody from its home area—I remind Peter Brown. 
The second point I want to make is about this issue of reducing compliance costs. Today I have been going through as usual some Overseas Investment Commission recommendations on purchases. What the members opposite who voted against this bill might need to know is that the largest single category of investment that I have to approve at the moment under the law relates to for example—today—the purchase by a supermarket chain which is foreign-owned of 1¼ hectares of land for a new supermarket in a small North Island town simply because the land backs on to a drainage reserve or something similar. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Iconic drainage area! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes an iconic drainage reserve no doubt—in Dargaville if one could imagine such a thing being possible. That requirement is stupid. It is stupid that we have a Government agency going through such stuff and Ministers’ time being consumed in approving things of that sort. This bill wipes out the requirement for approval in that kind of case. I have to approve time after time redevelopments in terms of urban subdivisions because the initial purchaser of the land for subdivision is a Singaporean company and again if it is a large subdivision the chances are that it backs on to a recreation reserve or a drainage reserve. And those subdivisions are going to be sold off to New Zealanders at the end of the day but we have to have Overseas Investment Commission approval for that to go through. It is a nonsensical piece of compliance cost and business cost which we need to strip out of the system. 
I make no apology for driving this measure through the policy process and driving it through Parliament. I thank those parties that have supported it for their sanity in that respect because bluntly I have to read through all the pages of these reports—although having read the first page I have pretty much come to a conclusion—before I go any further. I am grateful that Ministers in the future will not have to do that kind of silly stuff. 
Simon Power 
: We’re here to help. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Indeed and we appreciate that help when it comes rarely from the National Party; a party of course that celebrates the fact that it is only 4 percent behind in the opinion polls which is a sort of interesting commentary on the modern National Party. 
Then we come to the issues of sensitive land. What Peter Brown tells us—from that vast North London farming experience he comes from; those broad acres of high-country sheep farms in Highgate which are actually his background or in Baskerville Hill or wherever it was that he comes from—is that somehow or other because foreigners have been allowed to purchase New Zealand land the ordinary average Kiwi bloke can no longer buy a high-country farm. As we all know in that good dim distant golden age of the 1950s good average Kiwis down there in Sydenham could go down to the good old Post Office get the 3 percent loan and go off and buy themselves a decent property somewhere around Cromwell or Queenstown or wherever it might be and sadly that is no longer true. 
 It is a bit like those people who write in the  
Listener 
—the true magazine for those with memories of the 1950s that are somewhat rose-coloured—that no longer can the average person own a seaside bach. Well actually in the 1950s it was always the middle class that owned the seaside baches; it is just that the seaside baches have become a lot bigger and more posh in the last 50 years than they used to be and cost a lot more to buy. I grew up in Burwood and people there did not have seaside baches. It was the people in Fendalton and Cashmere who had them. So let us not weep for a golden past that never was which has always been the basic foodstuff of populist parties. 
This bill gives us the capacity when considering those applications to ensure that we can address a range of important issues such as access conservation values historic values and so on and that is very very good indeed. It can turn into a win-win situation. 
Let me also make this point because I am sick and tired of both the Green Party and articles in the  
Listener 
 getting a fundamental point wrong. When foreigners purchase New Zealand land they are subject to New Zealand law in every respect just like a New Zealander is. They do not have a separate Resource Management Act regime. They do not have a separate regime in any other sense. The people who are fighting improved land access up sensitive waterways for recreational purposes are not a bunch of foreigners; they are fifth-generation Kiwi farmers most of whom inherited their properties. Let us be clear about where the problems are in that particular respect. I have no time at all for this golden age rubbish and this strange xenophobia that insist that a New Zealand - born landowner is somehow kinder to New Zealanders than an American a Canadian or some other landowner might be. We have a damn sight more chance of tramping our way across Shania Twain’s property than we have of tramping across those owned by New Zealanders in that particular area. What is more she can sing a damn sight better than most New Zealand landowners can and if I am allowed to say so in these PC days she looks a damn sight better than most New Zealand owners. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I knew that would upset New Zealand First. It is not for me to mention that Craig McNair that great New Zealand nationalist worked for United Airlines flying the friendly skies on behalf of Americans and is an American citizen. It is not for me to mention these facts about our comrades opposite—Peter Brown that well-known North Londoner like myself; Dail Jones who was born in Pakistan. My friend opposite is still trying to be quite sure about where he came from in the first place. We have all these sorts of things going on from these latter-day converted Anabaptist New Zealanders over there. 
The final point I want to make is that the bill transfers the administration of this very strange Overseas Investment Commission which has a board comprising four people and about five employees into Land Information New Zealand which will have the capacity to do the follow-up work. The bill improves enormously the penalties regime so that we can actually enforce the conditions that are imposed which we have had great trouble doing in the past. I think this is very good balanced legislation. I thank those members who have supported it with coherent arguments. I thank those members who have opposed it with incoherent arguments.