McClay ToddOVERSEAS INVESTMENT (EXEMPT INVESTMENT FROM OECD COUNTRIES) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 31 August.Hon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Mr Speaker thank you very much. National will be supporting this bill. We clearly have a view that foreign direct investment delivers jobs it raises incomes and it helps New Zealand grow. Therefore it's a pleasure to support this and we hope that it will go to select committee so that we can dig more deeply into exactly what the bill does. The challenge we have is that although the Government over the last five years say that they have freed up the investment regime they haven't; in fact the opposite has happened. The majority of the changes that they have made have made it more difficult for responsible investors to invest in New Zealand. They've screwed the scrum in the direction of forestry away from other assets. Good that we may have a few more trees planted although not the billion trees they pledged five years ago that they would deliver for New Zealand. But in effect what's happened as a result of that is the investment has gone in areas that it may not be as productive as the country needs it to be nor has it benefited the economy as much as it should and hasn't created the jobs that it needs to.So when the Government says they're doing a good job they're talking rhetoric and it's not backed up by the statistics. Unfortunately New Zealand's ranking in the index of economic freedom has fallen from third to fifth place over the last three years. And whilst the Government would say Well we're still five out of all of those countries." we are going in the wrong direction which means that investors around the world—responsible investors who have choices about where to put their capital to help economies grow—are looking less favourably at New Zealand because the direction of openness and ease of doing business is going sadly in the wrong direction. We've fallen further away from Singapore and Switzerland who are in front of us both of whom have economies that have performed significantly better than New Zealand's on average but certainly over the last few years they've performed better than New Zealand's when it comes to what's happened around restrictions and COVID and they're getting so very very much more investment than we are getting.I mentioned—and this is something that we'll want to look at at select committee if the Government decides to send this to committee for further investigation and discussion because they'll be backing up their suggestion that they are in favour of foreign direct investment in New Zealand. But one of the things this bill doesn't fix and I think we need to look at is the change that was made around the ability to invest in productive farmland in New Zealand if you are going to plant trees on it. And unfortunately what that means is we've seen foreign companies and others come to New Zealand to buy farmland to plant trees where there could be very many other uses that are better for the economy would create greater jobs and would be better for New Zealanders but the regime that the Labour Government has put in place does not allow that.One of the areas that we'll need to look at very very closely is the impact or interaction this proposed legislation has upon free-trade agreements that New Zealand has entered into particularly in as far as the most favoured nations provisions in our agreements where we give better conditions in one area—in this case investment—to others that is not better than is in the agreement that we have with a country we must extend to them as well. We'll need to understand that better. But here is the simple position of the National Party: if you are a responsible investor and you want to come and invest and make an active investment in New Zealand—not put your money in a bank or something like that—that will help the economy grow that will create jobs and help New Zealand pay off the significant amounts of debt this Government has run up and spent on things that actually are not working as well as they need to then we should be considering that we should be encouraging those investors to come. This legislation would send a very clear message to companies and individuals of the OECD countries that New Zealand actually is open for business as opposed to when the Prime Minister went across to Singapore on her very first trip when she left the country after the COVID restrictions were in place and went there and said "We're open for business and we'd like an extra 200 students to come down and work in New Zealand." Well that doesn't actually do it. That doesn't send a signal that we're open. That's not the type of things that responsible investors are looking for. They're looking for an equal and fair playing field. They want less restriction and regulation and they want to know that there is certainty that the Government of the day won't just change the rules and take their investment out from underneath them. This piece of legislation starts to give them that certainty. There is not a single thing the Labour Government has done in five years that does the same thing. In fact that's why we've fallen two places to fifth."