Donald Rod: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Donald Rod: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21561] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a call or two on this part because it is the substance of the bill. As I said in my second reading speech I would like to give the Government some credit for some improvements to this part of the bill and to thank the officials for their assistance in achieving those improvements—particularly such things as adding a definition of “good character” and so forth. In our view the bill is still remiss and therefore we have put up a number of significant amendments that I would like colleagues in the House to give some serious consideration to. 
The first amendment is to clause 10 where it refers to “an overseas investment in significant business assets”. We want to make it very clear that in our view significant business assets should include aquaculture. Aquaculture is an increasing business on our coastline. In fact it is a business that in our view involves people in businesses being able to make a private profit from an activity conducted on and in the public commons. Therefore the coastal marine environment in our view is just as sensitive as the offshore islands the high country the lake fronts and the riverbanks that have particular restrictions placed on them under this legislation. 
We believe that aquaculture should be covered by this legislation and it is not. That is a significant deficiency in the legislation so we want clause 10 amended to extend to aquaculture. I have proposed that amendment because this concern was reinforced by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society in its submission that stated the bill failed to protect public open space in the coastal marine area and because there was no screening of purchases by overseas persons of their resource consents or application for resource consent to use the coastal space for aquaculture. We think that it is absolutely vital that any foreign investor who cannot prove that such an investment is in the national interest should be disallowed from investing in applications for coastal permits and associated resource consents. 
Therefore we would like to see this bill include some weighty environmental criteria to ensure that those wanting to use our public commons our coastal marine space which is scarce and is sensitive need to pass a hurdle as least as high as the hurdle that is required of those wanting to buy the high country or an offshore island. 
But we are well aware why the Government is opposed to that amendment. It is because successive Governments have given away this Parliament’s right to protect our coastal environment. They have given it away through their negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Way back in 1994 a National Government basically gave away our power to protect our coastal space and then the Labour Government made it even worse through the Singapore free-trade agreement where it basically did not exclude aquaculture from that agreement. Therefore it is included and it would be regarded as a breach of that agreement if the current Government or the current Parliament were going to protect our coastal marine environment. I think that that is extraordinarily sad and it is outrageous that one Government has chosen to bind all future Parliaments in this way. 
I contrast that with the fact that even what the Government has signed up to with the OECD has at least left the door open by reserving commercial fishing. Commercial fishing could be interpreted as aquaculture but because of the Singapore closer economic partnership Labour signed up to I think without due consideration we are locked into forever in the future allowing more and more of our coastal areas—areas that New Zealanders value as a place to go fishing for themselves a place to just potter around in their boats—to be taken up by marine farms of one sort or another to the detriment of our ability to enjoy our great outdoors. 
 The next amendment we will be putting forward to this part relates to the threshold at which an overseas investment should be scrutinised. As I said during the second reading debate Jim Bolger in the dead of the night lifted it from $10 million to $50 million and then this Labour Government reinforced the $50 million threshold in the Singapore closer economic partnership and they want to multiply it up to $100 million whereas we want to cut it back to $10 million. I am hoping we will get some support from New Zealand First on that at least because they supported a figure of $10 million at the select committee review in 2002. 
We also have an amendment that would require all pastoral leases to go through a tenure review process before any of the high country can be sold. That was another recommendation from the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society which we believe has a lot of merit and therefore we are putting forward an amendment to achieve that goal. 
But the most significant change we want to see in this part and the one I hope I have the chance to elaborate on is that we want to see clause 18 applied to significant business assets. Clause 18 as far as it goes is quite a good clause. It does require somebody wanting to purchase land to demonstrate that he or she will achieve a number of things such as the creation of new job opportunities the introduction of new technology and business skills and an increase in export receipts for New Zealand and that in the process there will be adequate mechanisms to protect or enhance existing areas of significant indigenous vegetation. I appreciate that the Government has added at my request on behalf of Fish and Game New Zealand that exotic species will also be covered in terms of taking account of or protecting or enhancing them in the case of trout salmon and gamebirds but also that public access will be enhanced. 
But these provisions do not apply to business purchases and that is ridiculous. Why apply them only to land? Why not extend them to significant business assets? So we have put forward amendments that say clause 18 should apply to business buy-ups. It is actually business buy-ups that are having much greater impact on our economy than land purchases by foreign investors. It is not enough that those businesses only have to meet a “good character” test. They should have to demonstrate that buying a business is going to lead to more job opportunities bring new technology to New Zealand and will look after the environment. We would add by way of an amendment that they should increase domestic substitution of imports into New Zealand to balance the export receipts the Government has put in. 
It is absolutely vital that business buy-ups are greenfield investments not asset stripping which so many business buy-ups have been in past. Tranz Rail was a classic example of foreign investment leading to this Government having to bail out the rail network in New Zealand because it was stripped of any worth and left in a very dangerous state. So the Government ought to back extending clause 18 to include significant business assets. Without that this bill has no substance. It is completely gutless. It will not achieve the intent the Government claims it will achieve and it will certainly not meet the expectations of New Zealanders for tighter scrutiny of applications for foreign investment let alone scrutiny of their activities when they come to New Zealand. 
It is also remiss of the Government not to have any reference in this part to the Treaty of Waitangi and we have suggested an amendment to clause 18(2) so that there are adequate mechanisms in place to ensure that any decision is made with reference to the principles of the treaty. We think that the Government should not back off its commitment to the principles of the treaty and therefore we seek that amendment to this part. 
We also want to pick up on the submissions that came from many people that any regulatory agency should be keeping a full and correct record of all land business and building sales to foreign investors. Something that came through and was I think virtually unanimous around the table was that we do not know the extent of foreign ownership in this country and even if the scrutiny threshold is higher than zero the monitoring should be set at a base level.