Cunliffe David: Urgent Debates — Overseas Investment Rules—Sale of Crafar Farms 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Urgent Debates — Overseas Investment Rules—Sale of Crafar Farms 
[Sitting date: 14 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4325. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 It is good to be back. I have just got back in—[ 
Interruption 
] It is good to be back. I have just got back in this weekend from a few weeks overseas. There is nothing like seeing New Zealand from 10000 miles away to understand with a bit more perspective the problems that we have. 
Why are we debating the issue of the Crafar farms? Because it is an emblem of a much deeper problem. It is a problem that ordinary New Zealanders out there understand. What they think is wrong is that a New Zealand Government - owned entity called Landcorp instead of running New Zealand farms is going to become a tenant for a subsidiary of the Chinese Government which is going to own a whopping great chunk of New Zealand prime farmland and that this National Government is selling New Zealand pound by pound hectare by hectare and there will be nothing left. 
Underneath this there is a real choice. From a long distance it is really obvious. New Zealand either has to pay its way in the world by increasing the value of what we sell or we follow the kind of road that members opposite are advocating which is just to ship a greater volume of raw materials and when that does not work actually sell the land it came from. What a terrible admission of failure. 
Everybody knows when you go overseas that New Zealand is a great farm. It is great at making protein fibre and some of the best food products in the world. We can be really proud of that just like we are of our soldiers who fought to retain this land and just like we are of our Olympians who have done us proud. But if we are so great at the things that farms produce why would we not want to add value to that production and retain that farmland rather than as Dr Russel Norman said sell the goose that lays the golden eggs and sell out the underlying land itself? 
I see that that Minister Mr Williamson has been carping away. Let us just get a few things straight. His first contention was that Labour is anti-Chinese. That is absolute rubbish. Labour’s policy is blind to country of origin. It applies across the board evenly to any investor from any overseas jurisdiction and in no way is it anti-Chinese. Indeed it was Labour who signed the historic free-trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China and we are pleased to see investment and trade increasing under that framework but not at the expense of selling out our birthright. 
The Minister has said that Labour is anti foreign direct investment. That is absolute rubbish. I agree with the Minister that New Zealand is not paying its way in the world. The question is how we get there. The answer is that we want the investment that allows us to do better and we do not want the investment that simply takes away our future potential by selling the land that it comes from. 
The Minister’s next argument was that Labour members cannot talk about this because some land was sold under them in previous years. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Some land? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: There is the Minister like a little jack-in-the-box popping up again. Here are some numbers that the public out there can get their heads around. In 2008 the year that the Minister came to office and a black year for New Zealand admittedly there were 828 hectares of farmland sold overseas—828. The Crafar farms deal alone is 7892 hectares. That one deal—7892 hectares—is roughly 10 times everything that was sold in the year that that Minister came to office. 
Labour wants New Zealand to prosper. We want New Zealanders to get good jobs. While I have been away the unemployment rate has gone up again. So National something is not working. Whatever you think is your plan it is time to think again because just milking more cows digging up more of Southland and selling off the land and selling out the whenua is clearly not getting people back to work. What happens if you sell your house to pay a mortgage and then end up renting for more than you were paying? You get poorer right? You get poorer. That is what we are doing. We are selling the farm and renting it back and over time we will be poorer because we will have paid more. In the jargon the current account deficit will go up. That is why our foreign debt is going up and that is why we are getting poorer year by year. 
The Crafar farms decision was a poor one. Labour has a member’s bill in David Shearer’s name aimed at a better framework for foreign investment.