Donald Rod: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Donald Rod: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:606;Page:3915] 
10.  
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Would amending the Overseas Investment Act 1973 in order to meet the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society’s request for the Government to ban sales of substantial areas of coastal land to foreigners contravene General Agreement on Trade in Services’ commitments made by a previous Government; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 That would depend on whether the proposed use of the land was related to trade in services. Off the top of my head I assume that most would not relate to trade in services. 
Rod Donald 
: Which is more important to the Government: preserving coastal land from foreign ownership or enforcing the foolhardy General Agreement on Trade in Services’ commitments made by a previous National Government in 1994? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The most important is ensuring broad good public policy including access to coastal land. Often the greatest problems have occurred with New Zealand resident and citizenship owners of land in New Zealand rather than with foreign owners. Indeed on occasions I have been able to negotiate conditions of access in a variety of ways with foreign purchasers that would not have been able to be achieved with a New Zealand purchaser. 
Mark Peck 
: What action has the Government taken to strengthen the protection for iconic sites? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Government has brought into force legislation passed in 1998 to strengthen the national-interest test for farmland and lowered the trigger point at which the national-interest criteria apply to foreshore sales from 0.4 hectares to 0.2 hectares. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Could the Minister explain to the House and to the Greens how most New Zealanders are affected differently if a piece of coastal land—say in the Gisborne area—is owned by an absentee landowner living in Invercargill or by one living in Sydney? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think that in that particular case the absentee landowner lives in Virginia for most of the year. It is worth reminding ourselves that in the last 6 years the Overseas Investment Commission has approved the sale of about 27 kilometres of New Zealand’s coastline. That is less than one-fifth of 1 percent of the total. That greatly exaggerates the net transfer because it includes coastline sold by foreigners to foreigners and does not include any coastline sold by foreigners back to New Zealanders. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Can the Minister please tell us exactly how many hectares of land he has approved for sale to foreigners in the last 12 months? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have that number in front of me today. I will attempt to get an answer for the member. 
Rod Donald 
: Following comments made by the Minister of Conservation that “our capacity to purchase land of conservation value has been severely compromised” by the high prices resulting from overseas bidders will the Minister ensure that there will be no more commitments liberalising overseas investment rules that would make it even more difficult for the Minister of Conservation to compete with overseas buyers? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think it is fair to say that the amount of land bought by overseas purchasers is not sufficient to affect greatly the total land market within New Zealand. The problem is that with regard to some specific areas of coastal land of very high value New Zealanders have to make a choice about whether they want to purchase that land themselves. Equally the member has to recognise that if the Government refuses to allow New Zealanders to sell their own land effectively it is denying them the right to realise the value of their property.