Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Oh it's me. Thank you very much Madam Chair. Well of course following on from the Hon Amy Adams' very very excellent history of why we are in this situation it's interesting to note that while you can have New Zealand First members Labour Party members and Green Party members standing up today saying this is the great saviour for New Zealand ownership of land it fails to recognise that it allows foreign capital to come in foreign investors to come in—we might use the word speculators" but they can't bring themselves to do it—allows those people to come in build all sorts of housing projects with no problem whatsoever. It's right there in the bill—that's allowed. They just can't own them. Or worse than that—my apologies; I'm wrong—they can own them but they can't live in them. They can own them but they can't live in them. So what we've got here is a bill that is just a complete charade when it comes to actually doing something that it is claiming to do.The worst thing is it denies the history of this country. Going back as far as we like in European settlement there has been huge foreign investment in this country. What happened in that pre-1840 period? Trading was carried out and it was foreign capital that allowed trading interests then to establish in New Zealand including Māori. Post-1840 the establishment of a European-style Government here—massive amounts of British capital and other Commonwealth capital coming into this country to build the main streets of New Zealand. It's only into the 1970s that you start to see some of that ownership transferring in a greater bulk back to New Zealanders but those New Zealanders were often financing those purchases with foreign capital.One of the things that this bill tries to deny is that New Zealand is a country that has to trade in an international environment. We enjoy a lifestyle in this country far in excess of what a domestic economy here might be able to provide for us and we enjoy that because we are free to engage in trading activities with other countries. Some of that requires that there will be some foreign investment in New Zealand property. Now it's OK for the Government apparently to carve out some of their friends when it comes to a big property investment. It's OK for the Government to say "Well if it's forestry that's OK because that suits our billion-tree pipe dream and it's OK for us to invite foreigners to come in here build houses but never own them." And they'll come in their droves apparently. Well no one goes to a place they're not welcome. The problem will be that we are going to see an even further tightening of available capital for the sort of work that's required to not only keep our economy going but also deal with some of the housing needs that this country currently has.I'm fascinated by my friend over there Mark Patterson from down south—I'm told he's a very competent farmer very capable farmer—getting concerned that it was only the top end of town apparently that we were talking about over here. Well let's ask ourselves a question here: if people have come into this country and they've spent an enormous amount of money in this country building these flash homes and they have the $7 million to $15 million value or even more on them how many buyers are there going to be for those properties? What we're really seeing here is some sort of early 1900s breakup of estates carried out by Governments. I just think it actually sends a very poor signal to New Zealanders who want to invest in property—a very poor signal. There are not thousands of these properties. There are not even possibly hundreds in that category. They're few and they're far between. Stopping them being sold to other foreigners and more capital coming into New Zealand for more expenditure in the New Zealand economy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and pandering to the prejudice that some people have against foreigners coming to this country is utterly ridiculous.Let's make it very clear: foreign capital has done a huge amount to expand the conservation estate in this country and to start protecting New Zealand's conservation values. To close all that off and say "No we're not going to have it." with this rubbish bill is a tragedy."