Donald Rod: General Debates 
Donald Rod: General Debates 
[Volume:613;Page:9961] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is good to be back where we belong. 
David Benson-Pope 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask that that leave be put again please. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No leave has been put. I have called Mr Donald and he is already into his speech. 
ROD DONALD 
: Dr Michael Cullen tried to pull a giant confidence trick on Monday. His so-called first principles review of the Overseas Investment Act is all about selling off the business and the building while claiming to protect the facade. Dr Cullen’s review has everything to do with chasing after that elusive free-trade deal with Washington and very little to do with keeping rural land affordable making sure our high country is accessible to our trampers and fishers protecting vulnerable rural communities from the wholesale conversion of farms into forestry and preserving the Kiwi dream of one day being able to own a bach at the beach. 
Let us make no mistake about this: the Green Party does want greater protection from overseas ownership for iconic sites of historical cultural or environmental interest. We agree with Dr Cullen’s concerns that overseas trophy hunters are buying up our backcountry and our beachfronts in order to create hideaways down under. But the fact is that what Dr Cullen wants to do is not a patch on what the Finance and Expenditure Committee recommended a couple of years ago—a series of recommendations that the Green Party proposed and that were adopted by a majority on the committee particularly the Labour members of that committee. If I get a chance I would like to return to those recommendations later. 
This review is a smokescreen. It is a smokescreen to mask the Government’s real agenda which is as plain as day in the first page of Dr Cullen’s release. That agenda is all about lifting the restrictions on overseas investors so that they can gobble up New Zealand companies. That is what it is all about because Dr Cullen wants to remove consideration of such purchases from oversight by the Overseas Investment Commission. Dr Cullen states in his release that he is committed to maintaining a liberal investment regime. Therefore it is no surprise that this review is being led by Treasury. The fox is guarding the chickens and we know what will happen to them. 
I ask this House whether it is a coincidence that one of the major demands from our trading partners during the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations was to scrap the Overseas Investment Commission allowing foreign firms and individuals unrestricted access to New Zealand property and businesses? Is it a coincidence that one of the very first US free-trade deal demands on Australia was to reduce or eliminate restrictions on overseas investment in Australia? Does that not send the signal that that will be one of the US’s bottom-line demands in any negotiations with New Zealand? I do not see what the Americans’ problem actually is. Our Overseas Investment Commission has turned down just on 2 percent of overseas investment applications over the last 5 years; it is already totally ineffective at keeping foreign hands off our silverware. That is all the more reason for tightening the rules on foreign investment not for allowing a free-for-all. 
Yesterday Mr Sutton claimed that New Zealand could if it wishes tighten the conditions surrounding the purchase of land by overseas people in New Zealand. I have news for Mr Sutton: he has actually been caught by his own GATS commitments. It would be a breach of our GATS commitments if we decided that certain iconic urban sites could not be sold to foreign investors without Overseas Investment Commission approval if we decided to reduce the level at which the Overseas Investment Commission’s approval is required to below $10 million or 25 percent of overseas ownership or if we chose to change the overall structure of the Overseas Investment Act in a way that made it more restrictive than the current Act in any way whatsoever. Notwithstanding what previous Governments have locked New Zealand into under the GATS we want foreign investors to be brought under control because they do not come here to help us.