Today David Shearer released a new Member’s Bill to prevent foreign investors from buying rural land unless they can prove it will bring substantial benefits to New Zealand that would otherwise not occur.
National has botched the handling of the Crafar farms issue. They’ve got it wrong. John Key has tried to brush away criticism by arguing land was sold to overseas investors under Labour too and if we were serious about our opposition we’d change the law. Today David made it very clear we will be doing just that.
Unlike National, Labour is out there listening to New Zealanders, who are increasingly concerned about our country being sold out from under us. John Key was right when he said New Zealanders don’t want to end up tenants in their own land. It’s a shame his actions aren’t living up to that sentiment.
David spells out the case for the Overseas Investment (Owning Our Own Rural Land) Amendment Bill pretty clearly:
“We cannot afford to lose control of our best income-producing assets and become tenants in our own land. Selling our farmland to foreign buyers does not improve our economy. Instead the profits simply flow offshore. We also do not want to see New Zealand farms priced out of the reach of Kiwi farmers who are the best in the world at what they do.
National just doesn’t seem to get that we can’t sell our way to a brighter future. Four years ago John Key was ambitious for New Zealand. Today he seems content to manage our economic decline. There are alternatives, and Labour is going to be at the forefront of promoting them.
Click here to download a copy of David’s Bill, along with the detailed explanatory note.
Yee haa!
David is the man! Woo hoo! 
!
If Kiwis don’t start selling more of our products to overseas then this bill will be academic. New Zealanders have spent four decades spending more than they earn and now for the first time we’ve arrested that trend in the last three years.
Unless we get a more productive economy, then eventually we will have to sell everything to foreigners.
In the 1970′s and early 1980′s there was a big emphasis on trying to get exports going.
However Government in NZ changed the emphasis onto the privatisation of State Assets and Asset Stripping.
Then we went onto the emphasis on property investment and negative gearing and building up your property portfolios.
We have been going down a misguided and slippery path for a long time.
There is only room for so many Investment Bankers like Ron Brierley, Sir Michael Fay and Alan Gibbs, some of the architects of the Asset Sales Programs.
Likewise the property development scene has gone through some turmoil with the collapse of mezzanine funding through the Finance Companies, and traditional banks are reluctant to finance building projects.
New Zealand needs to get back to the basics and do what we do well and look for further growth opportunities in world markets.
I struggle to see any difference to the OIA as it stands currently. I still do look forward to hearing the criticism of the purchase by James Cameron, or some poorly staged footage of David Shearer planting an NZ flag on his land.
Opposition to foreign ownership is nothing but xenophobia, as morally repugnant as that is it will also greatly depress our economic fortunes.
So, naturally, it’s to be Labour policy.
I just had a spare ten minutes so read the bill. Lots of talk and I really see no substance. It just appeared to be a huge amount of waffle, you also seemed to have changed the name of the bill half way through. I’d really consider getting some better proof readers or possibly high school leavers, they may have done a better job.
Just out of interest are you therefore saying that you want to stop the market setting the price by dictating who can buy? Looking forward to working on the farm collectives if this is ever passed.
Good idea lets keep New Zealand for New Zealanders, if they want to become NZ citizens they can buy land otherwise we are just prostituting ourselves to the rest of the world.
The all mighty $ is driving current economic thinking and social conscience is being thrown out the window.
Isn’t GREED a wonderful thing.
And where is the discussion on our sweet spot for population numbers. Business interests promote expansion and bigger markets for their profit taking, with dividends expatriated.
We are loosing NZ as we know and love it in so many ways and the subject is suppressed.
World population size is the number one survival issue ahead next to climate and only one country of note seems to have come to grips with population expansion.
Greed if left unchecked will destroy what we cherish.