Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Thank you Mr Chair. I think we're witnessing tonight the strength of a strong united Opposition. I just heard a series of speeches tonight that just demonstrate the breadth and interest in this topic and this is from active members of this very good Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. I particularly want to just acknowledge the chair a good friend and colleague from—Hon Tim Macindoe: And the deputy chair.ANDREW BAYLY: And the deputy chair—ha!Hon Member: What about the other members?ANDREW BAYLY: Well I'm getting there. But the 10-minute speech from the chair—lucid concise—and then I looked at that speech we just heard from the member from Hamilton West—Hon Tim Macindoe: Yeah the deputy chair.ANDREW BAYLY: And deputy chair. But good points were being made questioning of the Minister in the chair Damien O'Connor and I think the way that the Minister stood up and answered some of these questions has been very good too.One of the things I just do want to highlight is this discussion around investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions which are effectively a dispute. I listened very carefully to the Minister's response before and Minister honestly you could be one of us—you could be one of us—because your explanation around trade and the importance of trade was very good. I just hope your learned colleagues are listening to you intently in Cabinet because we need good people like you who promote trade and make sure we get the right framework and legislation in place. I think the ISDS—I know last time certain members of Cabinet on our Cabinet were very very opposed to them. What you pointed out is the importance of being—[Chairperson gestures to himself] Sorry what the Minister pointed out was the importance of being flexible. Last time when we were negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement we just had these irrational comments around the inappropriateness of the ISDS provisions and I think what you've talked about tonight is very useful.Now I see Mr Chair just looking at me slightly—I want to turn my mind to Part 2 clause 13A. This is inserting new section 68A and what it reads is In section 61(1)(i) (as replaced by section 46(4) of the Overseas Investment Act …) [to] replace 'either or both of overseas investments in sensitive land and overseas investments in significant business assets' with 'overseas investments in sensitive land'." Now we're all very aware of how important the implications are of the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill which is now an Act that's just recently passed its way through Parliament and the chilling impact that is having on foreigners looking to invest into New Zealand to help us do a whole lot of additional activities that we would not otherwise achieve. These are responsible investors but that Overseas Investment Act has had a chilling impact on it. I just want to highlight that with the current arrangements we already have certain thresholds where overseas investment coming into New Zealand is subject to strict oversight. We have those under the most favoured nation clauses and of course we've got arrangements with China China Taipei Korea and Hong Kong. Then we've got the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement or the P4 which of course includes New Zealand Brunei Singapore and Chile and of course our obligations under CER. What most people don't realise is that there are already these thresholds and so under the rules the thresholds now are $200 million other than for Australian businesses which have a half-billion-dollar threshold. The issue with the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill was that what it did was it promoted and allowed for our forestry industry which is 75 percent owned by foreigners now to basically have a free ride. It could invest in a whole lot of additional forestry and anything over 1000 hectares was open slather. So what that means now is that this bill helps allow that. What it's done in my view has actually made the issues around overseas investment a difficult topic and even more so under these arrangements. I don't think anything in this bill that's before us tonight actually helps in terms of making sure that New Zealand continues to be a good place for people to invest in."