Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to these bills. The history of New Zealand is a history of foreign investment and if you doubt that let me tell a story. In the beginning there was no foreign capital in New Zealand and then Kupe showed up with his waka hourua and a few kunekune pigs. That was the start of importing foreign capital and we've never looked back. There are two reasons why that matters: first of all capital is important for jobs. A job without capital is called a labourer. I've been a labourer in parts of my life and even the proudest labourers will tell you that if you don't have capital you can't earn much money. So capital is important for raising wages. The second point is that there's a lot more capital overseas than in New Zealand. That's why our history is a history of foreign investment. But it's a funny old thing that New Zealand is an outlier amongst democracies because most of the xenophobia is on the left. Never forget it was our Labour Party of the Chinese-sounding names publicity stunt and it was our left-wing Government that introduced the oil and gas ban that has investors around the world scratching their heads saying Do these guys want to be part of the First World and the 21st century or not?" Then came the Overseas Investment Amendment Act at the beginning of this Government that further sent the message that this country wants to replace Fiji as the largest group of Pacific Islands. This bill makes worse a situation where New Zealand is among the most hostile destinations for foreign investment in the OECD and the Opposition—I say how they don't know that? They don't know that it's almost easier to invest in Indonesia or in Saudi Arabia than it is in New Zealand and it needn't be so. I say to the xenophobes that if you don't like foreigners foreign investment is for you. Why? Because immigration is when foreigners come and live here; foreign investment is when they stay home and just send their money. Even the most xenophobic parties in this Parliament should think that's a good deal. So this bill comes along and at precisely the time when New Zealand businesses are going to be desperate for investment capital so they can keep going and keep jobs going and maybe hire more people this Government is introducing legislation as the first Act of this Budget that makes it even harder for foreigners to send their capital to support businesses and help jobs. The greatest irony of all is that in this Budget this Government is borrowing $140 billion and if it's not the $60 billion that the Reserve Bank is just going to print it's the other $80 billion that's going to come from offshore. So the Government is importing foreign capital but the private sector can't. How crazy is that? That describes the problem with this Government. It is trying to manage the economy from the Beehive and that's inadvisable for any Government but especially foolhardy for the Government that gave the world KiwiBuild. It is now trying to rebuild the whole economy. Phil Twyford's going to be there with his high-vis vest and his hard hat trying to rebuild more than just the cluster that he had with KiwiBuild and houses. They're going to KiwiBuild the whole economy. That's why New Zealanders should be concerned and that's why the ACT Party the only party consistently standing for a free and open economy in New Zealand is proud to stand alone in this House in opposing this myopic inward-looking backward build. Thank you Madam Speaker."