Tanczos Nandor: Limited Partnerships Bill — First Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Limited Partnerships Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:641;Page:11318] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 The Greens support the Limited Partnerships Bill because we support measures that will see greater access by New Zealand entrepreneurs to investment capital. It has often been remarked that access to venture capital in particular has been fairly limited in New Zealand for some time. Although admittedly high rates of interest in New Zealand in more recent times has seen capital flow into the country as international financiers have seen the good returns to be made in this country it is not so clear that capital has found its way into the kinds of enterprises that we hope this bill will benefit. Neither should we have to rely on a crippling interest rate to get capital into the country and to our entrepreneurs and innovators. So the Green Party supports measures to establish a tax and legal structure that will facilitate venture capital in particular. 
This position may surprise some observers. The Greens have wrongly been seen by some commentators as anti-business and anti-investment. That is not at all correct. We certainly have concerns about foreign investment rules that allow international capital to buy up major stakes in key New Zealand infrastructure strategic assets and extensive landholding including some of our most iconic coastal high country and other landscapes with little impediment. We have concerns about practically unrestricted access for foreign capital to our most successful businesses and enterprises to the extent that foreign investment in New Zealand has been largely restricted to the buying up of stable and successful concerns. That has sometimes been accompanied by the stripping of the assets. Essentially what we have seen at times in this country has been the ram-raiding of the New Zealand economy aided and abetted by the New Zealand Government. That kind of investment if we can call it that does not help New Zealand or New Zealanders and we will continue to oppose the current overseas investment rules which facilitate if not quite smash-and-grab investment then at least the control of key strategic assets by overseas interests. 
There is a great deal of difference between that kind of investment and the kinds of investment that this bill is aimed at facilitating. The Green Party certainly supports rules that make it easier for New Zealand start-ups to access capital. I know how it is when one has a good idea a lot of energy but few assets. I well remember discussions with my bank manager about getting access to even short-term loans for demonstrably profitable purposes to be told that capital would be available only if I could secure it with property or if I had the equivalent amount of money in a term deposit account. I never quite understood the logic of that because if I had the money I would not be leaving it in a term deposit account to earn less interest than the bank was going to charge me for the money I was going to borrow. Why would I do that? I would be working the money. But it just illustrates the tendency of New Zealand lenders to avoid not even risk but actually anything novel. So instead they support the tried and tested safe business-as-usual options which is why New Zealand companies need to get better access to investors who are prepared to take a risk in order to unlock the very real entrepreneurial spirit that many New Zealanders have not just those who are generally recognised as business leaders. 
 It is interesting to note that Maori in particular have been identified as being one of the most entrepreneurial peoples in the world. I cannot help wondering how many more successful Maori businesses there would be if people with good ideas did not have to struggle so hard against the kind of discrimination I am certain Maori business people face in terms of access to finance. 
I certainly know many young people—actually not so young any more but young when I was young—both Maori and Pakeha who started their own businesses only to see them either fail or struggle for years just to keep their heads above water because they could not get access to the capital they needed to make their businesses really hum. So the Greens certainly see the benefits of introducing measures to improve access to capital for start-ups and for businesses needing capital for expansion and generally to support our entrepreneurial and innovative businesses. 
We also recognise that much of the innovation does not come just from the old school. In fact some big-business operators and investors are not as innovative and entrepreneurial as they claim. They are often conservative and dull. They rely on small fish struggling through with their innovative ideas and if those small businesses manage to survive and even grow then big businesses will gobble them up while smugly telling themselves how innovative they are. It reminds me of a badge I once saw: “I learnt everything I know by killing smart people and eating their brains.” That is the kind of operating system we have in this country when it comes to supporting innovative creative small business. That is not to say that there are no genuinely creative or innovative people in the big-business sector—there certainly are—but simply to point out that if we want to get real about it then we have to find better ways to support the fresh the novel and therefore inevitably the risky and the untried. We hope that this bill will do that.