Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): The only thing that Minister the Rt Hon Winston Peters came home with when he had been to Vietnam and apparently convinced them that this wonderful deal which David Parker just a few weeks ago was touting in the House as being exactly the same text as the 2016 text—Hansard will record that. The footage from the House will record him standing there holding up the document saying This is it the text. Nothing's changed apart from these 26 suspensions that are in it." Of course when you read those 26 they are minor small things. They are not major. When you as my colleague said take two pages out of over 4500 pages you could hardly say that this was major. What we've got here—and we just heard it from the Rt Hon Winston Peters—is an absolute verbal contortion of the worst kind. Firstly I congratulate them for twisting themselves into this position because it will be good for New Zealand—no question about that. But I would say to the Hon David Parker that when his Government does not have the capacity to pass legislation to give effect to this bill he might want to think just a little bit before he puts around some of his propagandist nonsense about how well he's done in changing this bill.Let's just look at a few of the aspects of it—first of all the idea that somehow he as a sole genius in the Government has come up with a way to prevent foreigners from buying land in New Zealand. Well first one fact: the churn of land sold to foreigners in New Zealand means that it's about 0.5 of 1 percent of our land mass a year—an infinitesimal amount. But when those sales occur it's New Zealand owners who largely benefit from that.The second point I'd make is that this proposal to have the Overseas Investment Office Act altered so it becomes harder is a bit like expecting New Zealanders to believe that if you could take a colander you could store water in it—completely impossible. There are three tracts in that bill that allow people to buy land in New Zealand and all they have to do is satisfy the criteria and they're through the gate. The criteria themselves are very light. The criteria themselves simply say things like "can create more jobs". Well the Rt Hon Winston Peters mentioned Crafar farms—Crafar farms were in a dreadful state. You had animal welfare crawling all over them because of the state of the stock and I will bet dollars for doughnuts that there are many times more the number of workers on that farming operation these days than was the case before. So they would get through the gate straight away—first up.Then of course apart from the other two tracts—which I may come back to—is the extraordinary situation for Mr Peters and his party to be supporting which allows foreign investors in New Zealand to buy up to $200 million worth of assets here without going through any process as he would say whatsoever. Let's just take for example a struggling building products firm—a firm that might employ thousands of New Zealanders directly and indirectly. They put themselves or part of their operation up for sale so they get themselves out of a big hole because they've had a little bit of a financial hard time and a few bad business decisions. Well that transaction if it's below $200 million—or any multiple of it—does not need to go to the Overseas Investment Office; they simply are able to purchase it. And even if they did the national interest test would say "Well this saves X hundreds or thousands of jobs—tick they're through the box." So there is a whole lot of deception being talked across the other side of the House. This agreement is largely as it always has been.We hear today the Rt Hon Winston Peters saying "What happened? The United States pulled out because they didn't like the agreement." Everyone knows that the politics of the United States are very very different at the present time but if the Rt Hon Winston Peters is saying that his foreign policy is now modelled on Donald Trump's view of the world then this country is in some severe trouble. The United States is making noises at the moment about possibly reconsidering their position on this comprehensive Trans-Pacific Partnership but they will require all of those 26 suspensions to be unsuspended. Those 26 suspensions will not be enshrined in New Zealand law; they will be able to be traded away changed or they will be simply wiped aside and reinstituted by a majority of the parties to this agreement. So the claim that is being made is nothing short of deception and as I said before is sort of a contortionist's view of how you present a policy—and particularly a policy change.The other issue is this investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) situation. David Parker is right to say that—while Mr Peters might be out there saying "We're protecting New Zealand from being sued by foreign Governments and foreign business entities." Mr Parker knows that that is not strictly speaking the full case. But the other side of it is that New Zealand is a trading nation and increasingly we trade in services and in skills that are provided largely without any particular product that you can hang your hat on in many other countries. Engineering skills geotechnical skills legal skills—on and on we can go and often those contractors will be engaged with foreign Governments. So this provision as Mr Peters now touts it as being good for New Zealand exposes those companies in other jurisdictions reduces the amount of cover that they might have had by the law and somehow that's waved around as being something good for this country.There are so many aspects of this bill that the current Government have claimed success on that are simply not a change at all and while we are very pleased to be supporting the bill it's becoming increasingly irksome that a Government cannot among its own members its own contributors get the numbers to pass the bill. It's somehow being thrown back in our face that there was failure on our part but we are still expected to create a situation where they can go around the countryside telling their mistruths—frankly lies—about what they've achieved in the preparation of this document.The idea that this is somehow bipartisan which I've heard David Parker mention a number of times and that there is a bit of cross-party work going on here is plain wrong. What happened is that over a period of years a National Government did negotiate the vast majority—the overwhelming majority—of this text with other countries. Of course when the United States pulled out there was another negotiation and then when there were 11 there were further negotiations—that's obvious that that was going to happen. Most of it took place under a National Government. The last little bit was the trip to Vietnam where the Canadians stopped stomping their feet and finally came to the party albeit that they had to have some different name to satisfy their domestic politics. And it would have been I think fitting had Mr Parker reached across the House and said "Well why don't the National Party send their trade representative to the signing on 8 March?" It might have been just a little bit of insurance so that over on this side of the House there's no exercise of the contortions we are seeing over there to find a reason not to vote for it.This is an extremely good arrangement an extremely good trading deal for New Zealand and I have no doubt that the New Zealanders who now apparently are patting Mr Peters on the back are actually just patting him on the back saying "Thank God for you coming to your senses"—oh sorry for Mr Peters coming to his senses and not sending their business down the tube. And of course we support them in that.So let's be very clear: the changes the Government are claiming are not substantial. The legislation they're making around landownership is so broad you could drive a bus through those regulations and frankly that's what will continue to happen."