Brownlee GerryHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Having listened to the last four Labour speakers I was momentarily wondering to myself why I was supporting the bill. Then I realised that we were supporting the bill on this side of the House because we know what it does; they on that side of the House clearly don't. We had the extraordinary comment made by the first of those speakers telling us that this bill was all about the Government's priority to get New Zealanders into houses. Well all I would say to that is if the Government's priority is to get New Zealanders into houses don't have too many priorities because it is not going very well at the moment and there is nothing in this bill that will make that current situation any better. Then we had the wonderful traverse across the Canterbury Plains from Rino Tirikatene. Now I've got to say that I thought he is the first Labour speaker I've heard in this House say anything positive about the rural community the first Labour speaker in this House that I've heard actually supporting the work of farmers in this country and the first Labour speaker to recognise that it is the investment in horticulture and in agriculture in this country that is so important to our export mates. And guess what! A big chunk of that export income that holds up all of the social services provided in this country that eventually will manage some of the extraordinary debt that we're going to see in front of us tomorrow will come from that sort of investment and this is a small step—a very small step—towards recognising that New Zealand has always been a country that has had significant foreign investment whether it was once upon a time our main streets of our post-Treaty towns owned by banks and insurance companies that were domiciled in the British Isles or in some other part of Europe or today where we have a range of different nationalities owning some parts of our CBD some of our farmland some of our forest land and some of our industrial and other productive sector as well. It is no different. The reality is that in a world that is flush with capital at the moment it can go anywhere. If we are to be a country that remains competitive internationally that does have the opportunity to keep its interest rates low and over time to massively increase the incomes of New Zealanders—something that has not happened in the last four years and is now actually by a decree from the Government for a big chunk of New Zealanders not going to happen in the next three years. But if it is to happen then we will need to have ongoing investment in various activities around New Zealand and some of that will come from foreign sources. The interesting thing about this is the fear that clearly comes through in this bill from the Government. It is timid—very very timid. Look at some of the main provisions that are in this bill. Firstly it says the bill will grant the Government powers to effectively manage the risk posed by foreign investors. Well how is it that you've got a bill that enables foreign investments that then focuses on the risk of those investments? Why isn't there simply the opportunity for those investments to be made? Immediately anyone looking at it gets a degree of Not welcome here." Then we look at introducing the higher threshold for acquiring farmland. It ensures farmland is advertised in a way that ensures New Zealanders have a chance to acquire it before overseas investment is involved. Remember all the furore over the Crafar Farms? Massive furore—people up and down the country upset that they were being sold to Shanghai Pengxin a Chinese company. People ignored the fact that the animal husbandry on those farms was appalling and ignored the fact that the investment in those farms as productive units was non-existent and now people will be able to go and look at those farms and see what happens when you get good quality investment in farming activities in New Zealand. It brings everybody else up with it. It should also be recognised that it is the quality of that investment that also determines the price that ultimately gets paid for the product produced. So I can't understand why people can celebrate the fact that it is still going to have to have a ministerial flick over it when in fact there is no chance that that farmland can be wrapped up packed up put in a container and taken away. It remains here. Anna Lorck: But the profits can. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: It is a question simply of the activity—no. Hang on I'm not talking about the vineyards. I'm not talking about the vineyards and the product from them—best the member doesn't get into any of that discussion. I just think that allowing decision makers to factor in sustainability and water quality in investments involving water bottling and bulk water extraction is also a very interesting thing. Look at the situation that exists down in Canterbury where a former wool scour had an enormous right to take water to wash out the various contaminants in the wool—and we all know what they are—and then to send that contaminated water down the local river no worries whatsoever. Now of course the plant has ceased operations because some of the people like those on the other side of the House thought that it was far better to wash dirty wool and send the by-product down the river than it was to put that pristine clean water into a bottle and recover funding for this country from its sale and a fraction—just a fraction—each year of what would normally be flushed down that river would be sold at a benefit for the entire New Zealand economy. It's the attitude that we're seeing over there. They're all getting excited over there at the moment. You'd swear they wanted to go out and bottle that filthy water after it's been through a wool scour. I can't understand their attitude. Yes there can be standards. That's why you have a Resource Management Act that puts those standards on it—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! The member will come back. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —and that is why this particular provision—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you. Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: —in this bill is of absolute concern to this side of the House. Then there is the idea—and I think that David Seymour covered this extremely well—that you have to put into the bill some protection for better recognition of Māori cultural values including taking into account plans "to protect and enhance wāhi tūpuna wāhi tapu areas" and then it says "Māori reservations". Well why wouldn't that just be a natural condition for any investor in this country? No it's got to be specified here as some kind of overlay because a whole lot of your cultural pirates are likely to land in New Zealand and want to buy up some of our land. Let me just take you to a part of the bill that the previous speaker Mr Greg O'Connor didn't manage to; that is section 17 in clause 9 of the bill. It talks about the aspects that would be focused on where there is consideration of the sale of land to foreign entities. Why is it that anybody coming into New Zealand can buy perfectly good farmland productive farmland promise to put it into a forest and not have to go through a process? Why is it that we have a foreign investment amendment bill that still means that if anyone wants to come and buy that land for productive purposes—annual productive purposes job-creating productive purposes—they can't without a massive number of hoops to go through. But if they turn up and they say "We're going to plant it the whole 1000 2000 3000 hectares formerly beef and sheep and whatever else might be produced on that land and we're going to plant it in trees." and the answer is "Go for your life." that's the sort of convoluted logic that unfortunately the Government presents all too often. So while we are supporting this bill it is with the caveat that it is a bill that is only taking baby steps to the sort of investment this country is going to need if we are to get through the extraordinarily difficult times likely to be ahead of us given the heavy load of debt that we will all see exposed in the Budget tomorrow."