Parker David: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Parker David: Overseas Investment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21533] 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I would like to deal with the issue of marginal strips. Because of the numbers in Parliament we are being forced to drop the marginal strip provisions of this bill. 
Simon Power 
: It’s called democracy. 
DAVID PARKER 
: That is right; it is the effect of democracy. But I want to explain why we in the Labour Government feel that we were right to include them and wish that we had the numbers to put those provisions through. 
The underlying assertion behind Mr Key’s argument that I disagree with is the idea that a property right in land includes the right to sell it to an overseas person without restriction. That fundamental assertion underlies Mr Key’s objection to the compulsory laying off of marginal strips when one sells land to an overseas person. Of course the position at law in New Zealand and in many overseas countries including provinces of Canada parts of Japan and many other countries is that there is not an unrestricted right to sell to an overseas person. Indeed as Mr Key referred in his own speech until 1995 there was a virtual prohibition on the sale of rural lands to overseas persons under a part of the Land Settlement Promotion and Land Acquisition Act 1952 which was not repealed until 1995. So the idea that a Government has to concede that a property right in rural land includes the unrestricted right to sell it to an overseas person is wrong logically I suggest. 
Deborah Coddington 
: It’s not unrestricted now. 
DAVID PARKER 
: I know that it is not completely unrestricted now but it was virtually prohibited until 1995. If it was permissible virtually to prohibit the sale of land to overseas purchasers it must be permissible and not in contravention of the private property right to have a lesser degree of restriction on the sale of overseas land. All that the provisions in the legislation did was to impose a lesser degree of restriction on the sale of rural land to overseas persons than was the case until 1995. It was not expanding upon the position before 1995; it was trying to restore rights of access to our waterways which are sometimes placed at greater threat when land is sold to overseas persons. 
What evidence did the Finance and Expenditure Committee have that there were legitimate concerns on this front? For a start advertisements for Poronui Station were placed before us. Poronui Station was advertised for sale for US$50 million—in US currency—in airline magazines. The advertising material plainly included “private water” as a benefit to those who would acquire the property. That was emphasised in a number of places in the documentation. 
I know that in my electorate I have had complaints from some of my constituents that some of the overseas purchasers of our rural land more rigidly stick to what they assert to be their private property right to exclude people from accessing waterways that pass through their properties. We have the ridiculous situation that the title of some of those properties runs under the river and so although the landowner does not own the water he or she owns the riverbed. People have the right to float down the water but they have not got the right to walk down the riverbed if they are fishing—except with the consent of the landowner. 
One cannot fix all of these problems which have grown up over time through accidents of history I suspect. Mistakes were made in contravention of directions by earlier Governments that marginal strips should always be laid off. Sometimes those instructions were ignored by the relevant ministries particularly in relation to pastoral land where pastoral leases defined just the boundary and really did not have regard to the need to lay off marginal strips alongside some of the rivers that passed through that land. So Labour reached the position that it was appropriate to actually record that a private property right to land does not include the right to sell it to an overseas person without restriction. It never has. 
I would also like to point out what I see as—I am not allowed to use certain words here—absolutely irreconcilable: on the one hand certain political parties deny that Maori should have any rights to the foreshore because we need to protect the rights of all New Zealanders to access the foreshore yet those same political parties including National oppose restrictions on the sale of land to overseas people that would see the compulsory laying off of marginal strips alongside waterways. 
I am one who is sad to see those particular provisions lost from the bill but we are reliant on United Future to pass this legislation and those members would not have supported it with those provisions in it so accordingly we are removing those provisions. 
The balance of the legislation is good legislation. It effectively reflects the status quo in respect of business purchases that are to be permitted as of right without Overseas Investment Commission approval being required. Purchases up to the new limit have in recent decades always gone through anyway so there is no point in further regulating them. With those comments I am pleased to note my support for the bill.