Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): National supports this bill. It's one of those bills that we support with a clear understanding that it's far from perfect that the Act that remains could also be better but that this is a step forward and an improvement on the status quo.From a principled basis the National Party supports foreign investment that creates productive sustainable economic growth. We believe that foreign investment can lead to increased jobs and increased innovation and can help generate wealth for New Zealanders. We think it's important that the law around foreign investment strikes a balance between screening for risk and ensuring that any investment accrues benefit to New Zealanders while also ensuring that in setting out that law and setting out those requirements we don't create such an intolerable compliance burden that New Zealand essentially becomes a closed shop. Of course the reality is we are living in a hyper-competitive world where capital has many places it can go. We are an economy that is constrained by capital and there have been many reports written on the impact this has on our productivity levels and on the opportunities we have for innovation and growth. So it is important in that context that we remain a place where the world's capital wants to come to invest in projects that can drive better opportunities for New Zealand and can drive innovation and job creation. We have to get the balance right.This bill is a step forward in that it does reduce the regulatory burden around some types of foreign investment. Some of these changes are small and specific but very important to the people who interact with this regime. I want to acknowledge in this speech the select committee process and those who submitted to us about their experience of interacting with this piece of legislation and the practical effects it has. Our select committee heard from a broad range of submitters; everyone from Federated Farmers through to Woolworths through to people involved in property investment—all sorts of people talking about what the regime has meant for them in practice. There were stories of significant delays months of process and huge legal fees and so any steps that we can take that reduce that regulatory burden so that money actually goes into the right things are steps forward. An example of that is removing the screening requirement for non-residential leases. Another example of that is streamlining the consent process for subsequent investment for overseas investors who've previously been screened. So they've already gone through the whole process of being analysed being looked at and they don't need to be taken through all of that again. This bill is a step forward in that regard.It is also a bill that I think benefited from the select committee process because issues were drawn out that are reflected in this final piece of legislation. In particular I want to draw attention to this issue around productive farmland because what we had discussions about at the committee was the fact that sometimes land that is zoned as rural land or land that is zoned as potentially productive or farming land is actually land on the outskirts of a city or a town that is much more likely to be used for commercial or residential development. As National's spokesperson on housing this is an issue that is close to my heart. It is certainly my view that there is a lot more land that in the future needs to be able to be made into housing. So it is good that this bill gives the Minister the ability not to use stricter approval criteria if farmland is likely to be used for residential development. That is an important improvement an important piece of discretion.Members throughout the debate on this bill have pointed out that we still have an Overseas Investment Act regime that doesn't create a level playing field and I do want to focus on that. In a world where we allow foreign investment but we do so subject to quite strict caveats we need to be very careful that we're not incentivising one form of investment over another to the detriment of our communities because that is in fact a situation that will lead to perverse outcomes and as it stands our Overseas Investment Act does tilt the playing field. It makes it much easier for overseas investors to purchase sensitive farmland if they're going to convert that land into forestry. So what we are seeing around the country is that while foreign investors may have difficulty buying productive farmland for the purposes of keeping that land as a productive farm they have very little difficultly in purchasing land that has been productive farmland for generations and converting into forestry. We in the National Party have no problem with forestry—forestry can be a good thing—but we do have a problem with a regime that favours forestry conversion over other forms of investment because this is having a perverse impact throughout our rural communities. We are seeing that the economic and social characteristics of many parts of New Zealand are changing very quickly. There has been an immediate response to this Government's decision to tilt the playing field toward forestry in that screeds and hectares of land are being bought up for conversion into forestry and that has meaning for communities. There are few jobs because forestry doesn't require as much labour and manpower and womanpower on a day-to-day basis and in some communities it's also having pretty significant environmental effect. These are very human stories. These are people who no longer are able to have enough kids at the local school because what have always been productive farms are bare pine forests. People no longer have enough people for the rugby team. It's the changing face of rural communities. Of course our rural communities have changed and have been resilient and have withstood a lot of change but that is only change that is for the positive if we can see that it's actually happening on a level playing field. Our current regime does not allow that. It incentivises foreign investors towards one form of investment and we the National Party have raised our concerns about that. We have noted that while this bill is a step forward there is every opportunity for Labour members opposite to amend the Act further to remedy this imbalance. It's an imbalance that was born out of a coalition agreement with the New Zealand First Party and it's my understanding that even the Green Party oppose it now. So we have one set of defenders of this unbalanced playing field and that is the Labour Party. I want to take this opportunity to say to those in the rural communities across New Zealand who have spoken to me and my colleagues about this issue that National has their back. We understand how important this is. We understand how urgent this is. We understand the changing face of your communities and it is abundantly obvious to us that while the Labour Party has time to make pages and pages of changes to the Overseas Investment Act it has chosen not to take this opportunity to remedy the major challenge for our rural communities right now. If those people in those communities want to know who has their back it is National and we will continue to advocate on that issue. Thank you Mr Speaker.