Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to this Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3). In deciding to oppose it I had to weigh up three things. One is that it is true there are elements of this bill that actually make it easier to get foreign investment into New Zealand which ACT has always supported for reasons that I've gone into detail in many speeches in this House including the one given earlier this morning. In fact ACT MPs have been doing that for about 25 years now. Number two there are certainly parts of the bill that make it much more difficult for foreign investment to be brought into New Zealand. And number three is the question of change.This is the fourth foreign investment bill or overseas investment amendment bill that this Government has brought in 2½ years. If you weigh those up well the things that make it harder to invest embedding a higher threshold for acquiring farm land reflecting its significant economic and cultural importance"—you know what that means in practice is that it's going to be more difficult for the likes of Stephensons who own a whole lot of land on the Central Plateau to sell it and free up capital for other projects such as a housing project in South Auckland. That's what happened to them. This restriction on selling farmland actually cost New Zealanders housing developments because New Zealanders weren't free to use their capital that they owned freely under the laws set down by this Government.It says "enabling decision-makers to consider the impacts of investments [including] water bottling … bulk water extraction for human consumption [or] water quality and sustainability;". So hang on a minute. We have a resource management regime in this country that is supposed to mean that any kind of activity complies with environmental sustainability. That's what the Resource Management Act (RMA) says. Then we're saying there's going to be a different test if foreign investment's involved. Well that's very interesting. The suggestion seems to be that somehow the RMA is not enough and if that's true we should be really worried about all the locally owned water bottling and extraction operations. On the other hand if the RMA is adequate and we are properly managing the environments in New Zealand why would we care who the investment was from on environmental grounds? So again needlessly making the law more complex.It says "[provide] better recognition for Māori cultural values including by taking into account plans to protect or enhance wāhi [tapu] wāhi tapu areas and Māori reservations;". Well that's all fine but the problem is that this bill doesn't tell anyone how to do that so there's going to be a new job interpreting what that means in the context of the Overseas Investment Act. Then it says a new regulation-making power so that at any time a future Government can by regulation not by legislation do what the other bill being passed through the Parliament in urgency does. So those are the things that make it harder. On the plus side you no longer need Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approval to buy land that's next to so-called sensitive land. That's sensible but what's being got rid of is so ridiculous it's difficult to know why they don't go further.Then there's a couple of other administrative changes but none of them make up for the fact that overseas investors are going to have to provide more information to the IRD. Who has ever chosen to invest in a country so they could have more intimate interaction with that country's tax department?Overwhelmingly the additional complexity outweighs any of the administrative easing in this bill. But there's another factor here which is change. This bill is a fairly weighty thing—32 pages of new legislation—that I'm fairly certain will actually make the Overseas Investment Act longer and that's the problem with legislation. Bills are like acorns: they grow. The RMA started off at 400 pages; now it's 900 pages and the OIA is going in the same direction.So the final reason for opposing this bill is not only do the new complications outweigh the simplifications but having had four Overseas Investment Act amendment bills in only 2½ years it is time to stop changing the law and hope that anyone who's still remotely interested in investing in New Zealand with this regime has some time to catch up. With that I oppose this bill and I hope it falls under a new Government soon."