All foreign applications to buy NZ land approved - Peters

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Winston Peters
One News | 14 January 2014

All foreign applications to buy NZ land approved - Peters

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is labelling the Overseas Investment Office a rubber stamping machine, saying all 189 applications for overseas ownership of New Zealand land in the past two years have been approved.

"This just proves the Overseas Investment Office is a rubber stamping machine and applications are a pointless exercise. It's all a charade," Mr Peters says.

"The fact is we are lagging behind in the stewardship of our land as we become a target for foreign investment gobbling up our best productive land," he says.

Other countries guard land ownership to benefit their country and their citizens but in New Zealand the Overseas Investment Office keeps ticking off sales to foreigners, with 189 applications for freehold land approved in the past two years, Mr Peters says.

The latest includes a $9 million sale of Southland land to an Irish company to add to its extensive farmland in New Zealand, he says.

"Creeping foreign ownership is turning New Zealand into someone else's farm, pricing ownership out of reach and profits are pouring overseas.

"In New Zealand nothing stopped Shanghai Pengxin from buying up blocks of farms - the 16 Crafar farms and 13 Synlait farms and German company Aquila Agrainvest's buy-up of numerous farms."

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New Zealand First wants ownership of land, housing and business for New Zealand residents and has a bill for a foreign ownership register awaiting introduction to Parliament, Mr Peters says.

"Profits from foreign-owned businesses in New Zealand benefit mainly overseas interests, yet the National Government does nothing. We have to question where National's loyalties lie."

In last year's election campaign, the ACT Party called for the Overseas Investment Office to be abolished. Then-leader Jamie Whyte said the office has no proper job to do because when foreigners invest in New Zealand, we benefit, and land sales to overseas buyers should be encouraged.

But Prime Minister John Key rejected scrapping the OIO. He said the Government toughened up the Overseas Investment Act in 2010 and "it's set in about the right place".

Mr Key said New Zealand needs more capital to grow quickly and if we don't have that capital it has an impact on jobs. But the Government had no appetite to loosen the Overseas Investment Act.
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