McNair Craig: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
McNair Craig: Overseas Investment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:18026] 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 The purpose of this bill is supposedly to introduce changes to the way in which overseas investment is regulated in New Zealand. New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill being referred to a select committee. 
If the bill passes its first reading which it probably will it will be interesting to listen to submitters and hear evidence from officials on this very important legislation. The reason I say this bill is such important legislation is that this Government should have no choice but to get it right. However the sad fact is that the Government has got this one wrong on a huge scale. The bill’s implications will hurt this nation in a devastating way in the same way as we saw in the mid-1980s and the 1990s with the sell-off of New Zealand assets by the Labour and National Governments of the time. 
Members just need to look at the bill. They do not have to look very far to find what I am saying to be true. For example the threshold for overseas ownership will be increased from $50 million to $100 million. Mr David Carter from the National Party said that that amount was small. He said that $100 million was a small amount. I say it is a very large amount New Zealand First says it is a very large amount and the average New Zealander would say it was a very large amount. 
Also for example the explanatory note states: “Purchase of land by overseas person with an unimproved value of more than $10 million will no longer require consent where the land is not screened for other reasons.” From just reading those two examples and there are a few more examples as well we find that this bill takes us back to the Labour Government of 1984 to 1990 which sold New Zealand Steel Petrocorp Health Computing Services the Development Finance Corporation Postbank—remember that—the Shipping Corporation Air New Zealand Landcorp Financial Instruments the Rural Bank— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Could the member come to the bill please. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You asked me to come back to the bill. I am speaking directly to the bill because this bill obviously concerns overseas ownership. That is what I am talking about as far as the sell-up of assets— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come back to this bill and do not dwell on the 1980s. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is all coming off the member’s time. 
Dail Jones 
: New Zealand First is saying that this bill is all about the sale of New Zealand assets and we are giving examples of how the Labour Government has done that in the past and the National Government has done that in the past. These are just examples and we will come back to the bill in the ordinary way. I am disappointed that you should have interrupted that member. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry. Perhaps I was a little hasty. 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: Thank you Mr Speaker for being open to our comments in that regard. Before I was interrupted I was telling the House about a long list of companies and State-owned enterprises that the Labour Government sold off back in the 1980s. I referred directly back to this bill because that is what this bill does; it opens the country up to being flogged off once again into foreign ownership. That is what the bill is doing. 
We saw that the Labour Government is still holding on to its past when for example it passed the Taxation (Annual Rates Venture Capital and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill this week—we just finished speaking on it today. That legislation gives certain non-residents a tax advantage on profits from the sale of shares in unlisted New Zealand companies and that will disadvantage New Zealand - resident venture capital investors. 
If we look at the National Government’s list of sell-offs we see it is almost as bad as Labour’s. Between 1990 and 1996 the total—[ 
Interruption 
] He left the National Party during that time because it broke every promise in the book. I remember 1990. I was a young fellow 14 years of age. I remember flicking on the television and seeing Mr Bolger the leader of the National Party at the time say basically: “Read my lips.” He said that there were hardly any more State-owned assets to sell. The Labour Government had pretty much sold all of them. This bill brings in some more; it brings us back to those old days. That is why I have mentioned the Labour Government’s track record and the National Government’s track record. They refer directly to this bill. Jim Bolger said that and that is what this bill will do. This Government is going back to its past. It has not changed its heart and it shows us that by this very bill which increases the threshold for overseas ownership from $50 million to $100 million. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: How much? 
CRAIG McNAIR 
: Fifty million to $100 million and that Maori member is voting for it. He is allowing foreign investors to come into this country and they will take their profits back to the country they came from. That money will not go to New Zealanders. A Labour Government is supposed to stand for that; that is what I thought it was supposed to stand for and it is not standing for it. As Rob Muldoon used to say: “I know what I stand for but I’m not going to stand for it.” That is what the Labour Government is doing. It is not standing for it. It is not standing for what the people who voted for it thought it would stand for and that is an absolute disgrace. 
The amazing thing about this bill is hearing the National Opposition speaker talk on it. He was almost reminiscing about the old days and how great the economic experiment was—selling off $6.36 billion of State-owned assets. That is what the National Government did. It sold off $6.36 billion of State-owned assets after the Labour Government had sold off $10.1 billion of State-owned assets. That is when the National Party said that there were no more State-owned assets to sell. 
That is what this bill does. It takes us back to the past back to what the National Party members—in particular Mr Carter who spoke just before me—and the Labour Party members including Helen Clark the current Prime Minister and Dr Cullen were a part of in what they call the good old days. That is what they call it and that is what they want to go back to. Basically they will sell these assets to foreign-owned companies for a song and let them take the profits back to the overseas countries they came from. New Zealand First opposes that in its entirety. We say it is disgraceful repugnant and wrong because New Zealanders own those assets and the money should come back to New Zealanders.