Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to follow on from that last speech from Nathan Guy. One of the exceptions in this bill actually relates to a thousand-hectare block. That is an unusual choice of land area that the Government of the day has chosen because about 85 percent of New Zealand farms are below a thousand hectares—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh no it doesn't have to be continuous.Hon DAVID BENNETT: I know—I know. You can choose a thousand each year.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No. Aggregate.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes. But the thousand-hectare exemption means that the best land in New Zealand will be available for overseas purchase. When you fly over some of the roughest parts of New Zealand you may think Well maybe some of that could be in forestry." If you were really a supporter of the Greens and the New Zealand First policy you might think "Well some of that land—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Could you look at me and not say "you".Hon DAVID BENNETT: Some of that land could actually be very important forestry land. But the best land in New Zealand is typically in smaller blocks. Those smaller blocks now have a free-for-all for overseas investment.Just take an example of a town like Wanganui. As you leave Wanganui most of the farms are going to be less than a thousand hectares. It is only when you get out into the backblocks that you're potentially going to get the bigger farms. So what we're going to have is a whole lot of forestry around the town of Wanganui and then as you get out to the further bigger blocks—the blocks which have some erosion and those things—it's going to stay in grass. Does that help the river systems that the Greens are wanting to do? No it does the opposite. Does that actually help the productive heart of New Zealand so that you can utilise land in the most successful way? No it doesn't. What does it do? All it means is that it gives a fast track for foreign investment in the best parts of New Zealand land. It actually achieves the opposite of what New Zealand First has been saying in this Parliament: that they want to stop foreigners owning land. It enables the best land to go to foreign ownership through giving them a fast track.So I can't understand why the Minister chose a thousand hectares. I'd love for him to explain that because not only is there that thousand-hectare exclusion but you can divide that over two years. So a potential purchaser can do a thousand hectares this year and then a thousand hectares next year. So they can potentially cover all blocks of land if they want to and buy a 1200 hectare block of land and do 600 hectares this first year and 600 hectares next year and evade the rules of this legislation.This is bad lawmaking. It does not achieve its purposes even if you believed in what the left had been saying about environmental purposes or any of those other things. Under this exemption in the bill it actually achieves the opposite. It encourages foreign ownership of New Zealand's best land. That cannot be the interests that the Government is seeking to achieve. I wonder why they have done that. I believe it is because they have no concept of land in New Zealand. They have no concept of farming. They've just picked out a number of a thousand hectares and made it an arbitrary number not understanding what percentage of New Zealand farmland is actually incorporated in that and not understanding the quality of land that would be incorporated in that. Even if someone did believe the principles that the Government is speaking about no way would that legislation enable a thousand-hectare exclusion for anything less than a thousand hectares.So that is something I wish the Minister to actually explain: how he came to that conclusion of a thousand hectares and what it actually will mean in practice and reality. The answer is it will mean the best land in New Zealand has now got a free ride into overseas ownership and New Zealanders will be left with the rest."