Carter David: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
Carter David: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:18025] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 National will support this bill to the select committee but will be watching the submissions carefully and reserving its position for the future. Sadly overseas investment invokes some of the worst sentiments in some of our people and some of our political parties. Xenophobia which is the intense dislike of foreigners and foreign investment has no place at all in this modern world. I think that people like Winston Peters who trot out this xenophobic attitude time and time again for the polls does himself a huge disservice and he does huge disservice to the recognition of foreign investment and its importance to our economy. I do not believe he genuinely believes in it but he uses the election cycle and every 3 years out comes the same message that is simply promoting fear and hatred but only for the purpose of collecting votes. New Zealand needs foreign investment. 
Rod Donald 
: Why? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: If Rod Donald had bothered to study the history of this country even he would realise that it was founded totally on foreign investment. As long as New Zealanders remain relatively poor at saving for themselves then we will continue to rely on foreign capital being invested in this country. Therefore any rules must not be so tough as to turn overseas investors away from this country. Other countries also seek foreign capital and if their rules are grossly easier than ours then the investor has the chance to go somewhere else and that would not be good for our economy. 
This legislation appears to be a reasonable attempt to allow small inconsequential investment to occur without hassle and if that is what is achieved by this legislation then I congratulate the Government on that. At the same time this legislation appears to recognise that some sensitive land—and by that I mean sensitive to New Zealand because of its iconic nature—will need to meet a higher threshold. Again I agree with that. 
We need also to acknowledge the abuse that has occurred in the past in the Overseas Investment Commission process. I am certainly unaware of any case at all where action has subsequently been taken against a foreign investor. I recall land being purchased by Bill Lloyd of Sovereign Yachts— 
Hon Member 
: That went well. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Well it did not go too well in fact. This man promised what I believe Lianne Dalziel is on the record as saying in this House that he would create a business to give 600 jobs somewhere in Auckland. 
Brian Connell 
: I think Jim Anderton had something to do with that. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Exactly. Brian Connell reminds me that the man then befriended Jim Anderton. Not only did Jim Anderton see that this man got tens of thousands of dollars of corporate welfare from the taxpayer but also Jim Anderton ensured that he had the ability to buy some surplus Crown land in Auckland at a price grossly below market value. 
So this man had to seek overseas investment approval. When I look at the rules that applied at the time the first test Mr Bill Lloyd had to pass was that he had to demonstrate as they called it “business acumen”. Well as many of the political parties on this side of the House subsequently revealed this man had had a very chequered career in North America. He certainly had not demonstrated any business acumen in those countries at all. His track record in New Zealand is equally disastrous. I am not sure but at the last count he may have employed five or 10 people. He may have built one boat not the hundreds that he promised. So I say that if the overseas investment legislation sets rules and thresholds it is vital that they be met in the approval of foreign investors to New Zealand. 
The next clause I want to bring to the attention of the House in this debate today is clause 18(2)(d): “there are or will be adequate mechanisms in place for walking access over the relevant land …”. The reason I raise this is that this is the first indication of any of Mr Jim Sutton’s public access legislation being advanced. It is the first indication of a move towards a freedom to wander at will over private land. We know that the legislation has been sitting on the Minister of Agriculture’s desk since March. We know that he is too nervous and scared to move that legislation. We know that this man at least until next Monday has been the farmers’ representative around the Cabinet table and he has been a disaster in that role. 
Only this week we revealed that Accident Compensation Corporation premiums had leapt another 30 percent for farmers. As Dover Samuels knows that decision was passed by the Cabinet table and Jim Sutton sat at that Cabinet table as the Minister of Agriculture and failed to represent the farmers. If this is the first step of developing public access legislation then Mr Sutton should front up as he promised with the balance of the legislation before Christmas. 
The last point I want to make is around the weakness of some of the rules already in existence with overseas investment legislation. One of the rules I know of which was introduced at the insistence of Winston Peters himself was the necessity for any farmland that was to be offered for sale to be publicly advertised so everybody knew that it was on the market. I happen to know of a farm in Conway Hills in North Canterbury that has been sold by a New Zealander to an overseas company. The deal is stitched up and done and it was only subsequent to the deal being stitched that the owners realised that they had to advertise it publicly. We then had a tiny little advertisement appearing in the public notices. So technically the law has been satisfied but farmers who are looking to buy land in New Zealand do not look at a small advertisement in the public notices column of the Christchurch  
Press 
. They look in the farms for sale column. 
I raise that because the more rules that are set for overseas investment in this country then the more inventive and imaginative the solicitors will be in trying to circumvent those rules. 
I finish where I started. Capital is a scarce resource in this country. Capital is a scarce resource in this world. If New Zealand wants to progress and prosper we must attract foreign investment to this country. If we establish rules that make it simply too hard for investment in New Zealand then we will be setting rules that will be the poorer for this country.