Edmonds BarbaraBARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Fa'afetai tele lava Mr Speaker. It's a real pleasure to be finally at the third reading of this bill a bill that aims to improve the efficiency of the Overseas Investment Act and regime while ensuring that New Zealand still remains open for business and to protect our assets especially our farmland. The bill is a culmination of the Government's work to reform New Zealand's overseas investment regime and to ensure that we can continue to attract productive overseas investment that's sustainable and inclusive while also protecting our taonga.As the Minister outlined earlier these changes have been in train since 2018. The first Ardern Government made some key changes to the Overseas Investment Act to address the concerns of Kiwis that too many of our homes were being sold to overseas investors and the protection of our forestry rights. With the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreement on its way through the Government at the time realised we had to be able to futureproof to have the ability to screen so we could protect our assets. Previously there were no restrictions on these assets and if we had not made this change there was no way we would be able to protect them once the CPTPP came through.A big part of this work is that the Minister in his second reading referred to the ability to protect our assets when COVID hit our shores last year in 2020. Although we are in a better position than we initially thought back in 2020 I can recall very early in January last year that the first piece of regulation as a Government official that we had to deal with was the fisheries quota—rock lobster quota. Normally every year our rock lobster industry has to send rock lobster over to China for the Chinese New Year and at the time because COVID had hit China fisheries officials were incredibly concerned about the impact on businesses if those orders ran dry because that's exactly what was happening. Chinese New Year celebrations were being cancelled in China; so our rock lobster industry sought the assistance of the Government to be able to put in regulations to not have to catch the particular rock lobster or for those that they could catch be able to carry over that quota. They were really concerned at the insolvency that may come from the stopping of the sales.So again although we are in a better position at the time Government officials moved really quickly and the Government supported the advice that was coming through. So we had to act; hence the Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Bill now the Act. The Overseas Investment (Urgent Measures) Amendment Act gave the Government the backstop tools needed to manage significant foreign investments because the concern was that businesses to stop themselves getting into insolvency would sell their assets or sell their businesses to overseas investors. So we introduced a national interest test and a temporary call-in power to ensure that investments in our most sensitive assets including our critical national infrastructure were protected. But we needed to look ahead to the future and we were conscious that once we came through the worst we needed to be able to balance making it easier for foreign investors to be attracted to come to New Zealand to want to invest in New Zealand but also have those protective measures to look after our special assets. So this bill builds on those changes made in 2020 urgent measures Act and makes the most significant cuts to red tape since our rules were introduced in 2005.This bill will reduce the number of transactions that require consents by around 30 percent. It's a real balance for the Government to be able again to attract that overseas investment while protecting our taonga. Key changes include no longer screening investments in certain pieces of land simply because they sit next to each other. These were a number of issues that we dealt with during the select committee process and again I'd like to thank the submitters who came and submitted on the bill. The changes included no longer screening very short-term leases and approved investors that are making small increases in an existing holding. So again it was a balance between compliance costs as well as ensuring that we have attractive investment.The bill also simplifies the approval process for most transactions to ensure that limited resources are dedicated to reviewing transactions that are most likely to pose risks such as critical infrastructure as I've spoken to again. The Minister referred to it as that investors of proven good character would be able to access a fast-tracked approval and the test for acquiring land will be simplified reducing the number of considerations from 21 to seven and making the threshold for consents clearer. The national interest test will also be better targeted no longer automatically applying to investments by State-linked pension funds similar in nature to the New Zealand Super Fund that operate at arms' length from the Government. And as I mentioned in the previous reading part of the call-in powers was to make sure that there were particular exemptions that were available through the bill and again the select committee made those changes in order for us to get to a better balance.The bill complements the further changes to the urgent measures Act because it makes sure that the changes do not serve as a barrier needed for development such as housing on less productive land giving the Minister the flexibility to not apply the higher threshold in such circumstances.If I can go back to embedding a higher threshold for farmland which the Minister touched on briefly. While the Minister said it's critical that we do everything we can to attract valuable investment this cannot come at the expense again of protecting our taonga and our values. This is why the bill maximises New Zealand's chances to be able to protect farmland in two ways as the Minister touched on. First it codifies that foreign investors cannot acquire farmland unless they bring substantial benefits such as new technologies or jobs to New Zealand again balancing the need for attracting productive investment as well as protecting our taonga. Secondly the bill ensures that New Zealanders have a genuine opportunity to purchase farmland by requiring it to be publicly advertised before an overseas person can buy it. I remember during the select committee we had a really good discussion around advertising and it was something that we didn't want to be just a tick-box exercise; we wanted it to be genuine advertising on various platforms. I remember having that conversation with officials saying Well is an ad in the paper sufficient for advertising?" And we came to agreement that no it wasn't; there had to be some genuine advertising a genuine trying to attract Kiwis to be able to invest into this land. And if it didn't then we were OK; we would go through the process with the Overseas Investment Office.I think the Minister ran out of time to be able to thank officials in his speech. I want to pick that up having been a Government official who worked in the last term going through the changes that we did for COVID. The Minister and the select committee would like to thank the staff of Treasury would like to thank the staff on the overseas investment bill who not only worked really long hours last year to get that urgent measures Act through but also as soon as that Act was through had to start working on this particular bill. This bill was only made possible because of their work and their long hours. Again to the Finance and Expenditure Committee we were absolutely well served by those officials and we cannot take that for granted particularly in this time when having gone through a whole year of policy development that they continued on.So again I go back to the main point of this bill. This bill is about improving the efficiency of the overseas investment regime while ensuring New Zealand assets are protected that our taonga are protected. This is a culmination of our Government's work to reform New Zealand's overseas investment regime and to ensure again that we can attract productive sustainable and inclusive investment that we need to boost economic growth and protect our taonga at the same time. I'm proud to commend this bill to the House."