Hudson Brett: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Overseas Investment (Owning our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5243. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): I rise to speak in opposition to this bill. Before I move on to the substance—the flaws—of this bill I would just like to acknowledge the Hon Phil Goff. He has a reputation for being an extremely diligent and hard-working member—Hon Christopher Finlayson: He had—past tense.BRETT HUDSON: —had—and for being a very capable senior Minister in the previous Labour Government. Mr Goff this is not your finest work.Before I move on to the flaws and the tests that this bill would apply I shudder. There is quite a chilling effect that has come with news in the recent week or so. There are some provisions in the bill as it stands at the first reading for how those to whom it would be applicable would be determined. Just this past week the House has had very good cause to consider that if this bill were to progress to a select committee and beyond the true test of applicability would actually be based on the sound of people’s names. That is an absolute disgrace. It is absolutely terrible to stand in the House this week after such postulation has been made over the past 10 days and after the Labour Party’s spokesperson for ethnic communities has been quite equivocal—quite equivocal—in his not quite condemnation of what his colleagues have done. That we could possibly look to change the applicability on the basis of what a name sounds like has quite a chilling effect.Let us now actually move on to the provisions of the tests of this bill and to how flawed they are. As the speakers on both sides have pointed out the test for a foreign investor who is wanting to buy land of 5 hectares or greater—rural land—would under this bill be what a hypothetical New Zealander might do in the future. How on earth can you run a robust test—particularly for people who say that they support foreign direct investment—on the basis of what someone who does not exist and is not in the market at that time might possibly do? Anyone could make up what someone might possibly do if in fact that person is not in the market at the time bidding for that sale. The only test that logically can be applied outside of fundamentally objective criteria such as the Overseas Investment Office uses today—that is “Will it create more economic benefit? Will it create more jobs?”—is to test against other participants in the marketplace. This bill creates a test against a hypothetical bidder—someone who does not exist—and it is open to purely subjective decision-making at any point in time. The bill is poorly drafted. Simply it would not really work.It is quite rich that this change is being suggested by a member of the previous Labour Government. I would like to remind the House that the previous Labour Government sold the equivalent of the whole 16 Crafar farms every month for the whole 9 years—9 long years—of the tenure of its Government and Mr Goff the sponsor of this bill was a senior Cabinet Minister in that Government. What we have and another reason that this bill is simply unnecessary is we have a current Overseas Investment Act. We have provisions for testing the value of an overseas bid to buy farmland in this country. It is an economic test. Will it create economic benefit? Will it create jobs or protect jobs? There is a real possibility particularly when you look at the receivership circumstances of the likes of the Crafar farms that keeping the work farm going as a working concern is in fact every bit as good as any other test because otherwise jobs would be lost.Let us look at how we operate this balance and how we are placed across other countries in the OECD that we would compare ourselves with. We have a very restrictive regime. The OECD rates New Zealand as the sixth most restrictive nation in the OECD for investment in land.David Bennett: What number?BRETT HUDSON: The sixth.David Bennett: The sixth?BRETT HUDSON: The sixth. So it is interesting to see that those members think that we have a problem that needs to be addressed. We are the sixth most restrictive today under a set of objective criteria.Hon Members: Say it again.BRETT HUDSON: The sixth—the sixth most restrictive. Just to remind ourselves that if we were to adopt a bill such as this investments by Haier or particularly in land by Mutt Lange or James Cameron would be rejected. Julian Robertson—they would all be rejected. The bill would not achieve what it would want to achieve in terms of an objective measure. It is a flawed idea. It is flawed bill. I oppose it.