Copeland Gordon: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Copeland Gordon: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21603] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to use my third reading speech on the Overseas Investment Bill just to tie up a few loose ends from my point of view. 
The first I would like to mention is that during the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s consideration of this bill I spent quite some time wrestling with the good character test set out in the bill—namely that one of the criteria that has to be satisfied is that foreign people who are buying business assets of more than $100 million in this country are of good character. I wanted to explore the possibility of putting something in the bill that would actually stop a repeat of the disastrous New Zealand Rail sale. In other words I wanted to think of a way whereby we could maybe safeguard ourselves to ensure that we would not sell our large companies again to investors who were merely asset-strippers. 
The officials working on the bill were very patient in that regard. They went away and got a lot of information. They came back and they told us about our World Trade Organization obligations our various free-trade obligations and so on and so forth. But the clincher for me in the end of course was just to realise as the Hon Richard Prebble pointed out that the problem with the New Zealand Rail sale was not that it was made to overseas buyers or foreign investors but that it was made to a consortium that included Fay Richwhite—New Zealanders. It was Fay Richwhite—and I say this under the privilege of this House—that then led the charge disgracefully to strip out every single dollar that New Zealand Rail had and to leave our rail system in disarray to the great detriment of New Zealand and its citizens. It was a disgraceful action but it was actually perpetrated on New Zealanders by other New Zealanders who had given in to unbridled greed and who were quite prepared to make money at the expense of their fellow citizens. I believe that that was a disgraceful episode in New Zealand’s history. It was the unacceptable face of capitalism yet it was not done by foreigners but by New Zealanders. 
Rod Donald mentioned that 41 of our top 100 corporations in this country are foreign-owned— 
Rod Donald 
: 100 percent foreign-owned. 
GORDON COPELAND 
:—100 percent foreign-owned and I would like to ask him whether there is any problem with that. Are any of those companies asset-stripping? I think most of them are doing a very very good job. They are good corporate citizens and they are making a huge contribution to this country. We do not need in any way to restrict their operations. 
I want the New Zealand First members to think this through for a moment. Why do they conclude that people born in this nation somehow have superior characters and business ethics to people from overseas? Really when I analyse it I tell those members that the bottom line is that it is xenophobia—it is xenophobia pure and simple and they cannot escape that conclusion. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Given that the member has just specifically addressed his question to New Zealand First could I ask through you that he yield the floor and allow me to answer that question? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: There will be an opportunity for New Zealand First to respond. That is not a point of order; it is a debating matter. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: As we all know in life sometimes the truth hurts. The other thing I really want to recognise though as a New Zealander is that one of the great things about growing up in this country and being a New Zealand citizen is the freedom we have. We have the freedom to leave this country at any time. I have the freedom to leave here if I want to to go overseas and live there and hopefully to buy a home there and so on and so forth. That is something we value when it comes to us but we do not seem prepared to extend the same freedom to other people. 
When we think about it we realise that a restriction on freedom like that in any part of the world is a danger to world freedom world democracy and basic fundamental human rights. We saw that kind of thing existing in the world under communism where those countries built walls to keep their people in. It exists in Cuba today. Cubans cannot go overseas and until quite recent times most Chinese could not go overseas. That is actually what we are talking about here—the basic fundamental human right for people to be able to travel freely invest freely and interconnect as equal human beings with equal dignity and I resist very very strongly any attempt in this House or in New Zealand outside this House to categorise people on the basis of nationality origin race colour or language. Such categorisation is seriously wrong and needs to stop. I hope one day that more of our fellow citizens will come to that simple conclusion and will start to treat all people in the world with the dignity and respect that is their inherent God-given right. 
I want to make another point too which I think was unconsciously made by Rod Donald. He said this bill is such a terrible animal that the day could come when people from overseas could buy up all the assets New Zealand has. It just showed me how much he misunderstands the process of buying and selling assets. Because of course if that were to happen the net result would be that we New Zealanders would be the wealthiest people on the face of the earth. We would have sold our assets at top dollar to other people and would have greater wealth and huge assets. I make that point because people seem to misunderstand that if we try to stop foreign investment at the same time we deny New Zealanders the right to get a decent price for their properties. There are two sides to the equation and it is time I think that the Greens in particular and New Zealand First woke up to the fact that when one buys and sells there are two parties to the process. It is mutually beneficial which is why people buy and sell by agreement and the funds that swap hands are going from out of the pockets of foreigners into the pockets of New Zealanders. How that can be bad for this country is beyond me to understand. It simply leaves me to say that the analysis and understanding that go into that opposition are shallow in the extreme. 
One other loose end I would like to mention is to do with the Hon Nick Smith’s Overseas Investment (Queen’s Chain Extension) Amendment Bill which arose out of the unsatisfactory situation on D’Urville Island. As Clayton Cosgrove has pointed out this bill ensures that that unsatisfactory situation will not be repeated in the future. It brings in a very very strong enforcement regime with powers given to the court powers to set aside contracts etc. to ensure that non-resident New Zealanders who buy sensitive land in this country will be forced to carry through with the conditions that apply to that privilege. I think that is a very very good move and I think that the situation that arose in D’Urville Island was totally satisfactory. We did not have legislation previously with enough teeth to ensure that people who undertook obligations were forced to actually carry them through. There were no consequences of departing from the terms of the approval given and that has now been fixed in this bill. If we really think it through we know that it makes Nick Smith’s member’s bill redundant so we should bring it back to the House and discharge it. The problem he identified—quite correctly by the way—has now been fixed.