Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. I would like to speak on this bill the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Bill which we've just received. There are elements of this bill that we clearly support and understand. The introduction of a national interest test is something that the Australians have introduced particularly in relation to strategically important businesses that have the potential to have military or dual-use technology. So we understand the need for urgency around that in the context of this incredible economic situation that we're facing at the moment where over a very short period of time many businesses have been thrown into absolute confusion with a collapse in revenue and in many cases a collapse in value. So we understand the impetus behind this bill. We do have concerns about it as well—significant concerns—particularly in the absence of any threshold whatsoever. I struggle to understand how the tranquillity of the Realm and the interests of New Zealanders would be badly affected if a company worth $1 million or less was sold to anybody in particular and so the absence of any threshold means that what we're seeing potentially is sand being thrown in the gears of the flow of investment into this country. Of course what we've seen in this Budget only read sort of a couple of moments ago is that the country has fallen into a massive economic hole where we've got 150000 jobs potentially being lost and $140 billion of extra debt or about $80000 per household falling on New Zealanders. So the most critical thing that we need as a country over the next year is to grow and a growth plan and we have some criticisms about the absence of a clear growth plan in the Government which we'll talk about at other times. The most fundamental driver of growth and new jobs if not new opportunities is private sector investment. If we are to take the view that we will rely solely on domestic investment then we'll grow very slowly because there is a limited pool of savings and throughout the history of this country if we wanted to grow faster we've relied on foreign investment as well. There is a kind of a mood that seems to be sweeping across this Government that all foreigners are to be treated with great suspicion and we don't necessarily go along with that. We do recognise the need for foreign investment. So the issue with this is that every single investment over these thresholds whether it's $50000 or $5 billion will go through this process. The Minister assures us that it will be swift: 10 working days—well you know I don't know. I don't know how confidence—Hon David Parker: The triage—the triage is 10 days. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: That's the triage and if there is a flag flown then it's up to 30 working days and that's quite a long time if you're trying to decide whether to make an investment. If you're in a big bad world out there wondering what you're doing you've got the whole world to potentially invest in and you look at New Zealand and you see these hassles it may put off some investment that would make a difference. So anyway I'm relieved that that the bill is going off to a brief discussion with the select committee. On that basis we're prepared to send it off to the select committee and have some consideration of it noting our reservations about the absence of a threshold and the potential that it would have to make. At a critical time when we need investment it could put off some of the investment that we would value and that would actually make a difference in terms of keeping some businesses afloat because there will be many businesses across this country right now that are in desperate straits that employ New Zealanders and it may well be that capital and resources coming from offshore might save those businesses and keep them going. If we turn off that tap and if we make it too difficult for that capital to arrive that could compound the problem that we have with jobs in this country and make the situation worse. That's not something that I think anybody in this House would want to do and I'm sure the Government doesn't want to do that as well. So we recognise the problem that they're trying to solve around the national interest where it relates to security and we recognise the issue to a degree in terms of compressed values through the crisis and the dangers associated with that but we are very worried about the impact that this would have on jobs and the ability for the country to grow. So I think that covers the issue in the sense that we'll send it off to select committee and have a look at it. We are voicing some reservations and we hope the Government would be willing to consider some of it—particularly the thresholds—and some of the issues that we'll be discussing over the next few days. Thank you Mr Speaker.