"A fig leaf covering a rubber stamp"

new-zealand-first-party

Mon May 09 2016 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

“A fig leaf covering a rubber stamp”

Monday, 9 May 2016, 9:48 am
Speech: New Zealand First Party

Speech by New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters

Pukekohe public meeting,
Pukekohe Town Hall,
Massey Road, Pukekohe
2.30pm, Sunday, May 8th, 2016

New Zealand First has always had a clear vision for this country – that all New Zealanders should receive a good education, housing, health facilities and most of all the chance to have good paying jobs.

We stand for keeping our state assets in New Zealand’s control.

It was our policy to give free health care for under sixes and
it to all primary school children.

We have been the one party in New Zealand to defend the rights of superannuitants.

We believe there should be one law for all New Zealanders, irrespective of ethnic background.

We have never believed in separatism.

Unlike other political parties, including National, we have argued against a parallel state for Maori, as though New Zealand can have separate laws, separate systems and separate outcomes, based on race, and somehow help both Maori and all New Zealand.

We have opposed separate planning laws with separate legal powers when it comes to town and country planning.

We have always stood for an economic prescription of responsible capitalism, not the reactionary right wing naivety which has passed for policy these last three decades.

We support a mixed economy and oppose National’s blind free-market ideology that promotes private interests dominating the provision of public services.

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And here in Pukekohe today we reaffirm our support to electrify the rail line from Papakura to Pukekohe and even to Tuakau/Pokeno.

The Auckland transport in-depth study shows the benefit-to-cost ratio stacks up, and at $110m it is extremely affordable. It will benefit the huge growth in population and passengers here.

Mr Key claimed this week that what is happening in Auckland is a sign of success for business – so the crisis for housing, transport, hospitals, affordability, are all signs of success. Together with the growing number of dispossessed and deprived they are all, according to Mr Key, a sign of success.

Which begs the question, which planet is this man on? Obviously one in a galaxy that no one can see and surrounded by a lot of gas.

With respect to Auckland’s housing crisis alone, as one economic commentator points out in today’s Sunday Star Times, Auckland house prices will double again by late 2020. If they continue to rise at their current rate “the median price will be almost $2 million”.

What all this points to is the issue here in Pukekohe today;

Is this really your land?

What is the real reason for the National Government’s failure to halt the wholesale transfer of New Zealand’s land, housing, businesses, and other property to foreign ownership?

Is it simply their ignorance, negligence or something much more sinister.

Is it their agenda to put foreign interests before those of New Zealanders?

Whatever explanation it is a damning indictment on the National government.

NZ First has been at the forefront of those demanding action on foreign ownership.

We have called for strident action on foreign ownership unlike any other political party.

Others might be joining the argument now but where were they when the signs were emerging that pointed to the current disaster? Not one of them has got a consistent record on these issues. We have, and despite vociferous criticism, tens of thousands of New Zealanders are rapidly coming to our view.

A vast amount of NZ’s productive assets are now in foreign ownership. Our sharemarket has gone from less than a quarter foreign owned to virtually the reverse.

By some estimates foreign ownership is already more than 10% of NZ’s farming and forestry land, and it might be much higher. The National government has shown no willingness to collect accurate and comprehensive data.

And around 95% of our banking system is overseas owned.

A large part of our energy and electricity sector is now in foreign ownership. For example, last November the sale of Vector’s gas transmission and distribution assets outside Auckland for $950m to an Australian Investment group – First State Funds – was announced.

As a diversion the government likes to boast that New Zealand has now passed the milestone of 3 million tourists.

What the government does not mention is that over the last year 12 major New Zealand hotels have changed hands.

According to reputable real estate sources, around half of the hotels sold went to foreign buyers.

So while tourist numbers are soaring, foreigners are buying up existing hotels, which does nothing to add to the supply of hotels.

Just swapping owners does not create new accommodation; it just means the profits from the tourist boom go overseas. Given the amount of tourism infrastructure owned offshore the money from many tourists will get back home before they do.

This month the land under Wellington’s Museum Art Hotel was sold to a Chinese investor.

And the list of foreign-owned assets goes on – and on - vineyards, waste management, hospital catering (Compass), meat exporting, car parks, suburban rail services in Auckland and Wellington, and all types of housing and commercial property.

Most of the losses go under the media’s radar and the public gets no real notification

That is why NZ First has been active over the murky Silver Fern Farms deal involving New Zealand’s largest meat exporter.

This proposed deal appears real great for the Chinese company, Shanghai Maling, and real bad for the existing shareholders and future generations of Kiwis.

NZ First has alerted the public to some of the recent losses to foreign buyers:
· Stockerau Station, 1,191 hectares near Whakatane, has been bought by Chinese interests for $8.5m.

· A 124-hectare hop farm in Upper Moutere, Nelson, has been sold to an American who promises to increase exports to the US.

· Guide Hill Station at Tekapo, a 3,550 hectare station, has been sold for $16.5m to a Hong Kong-based company

By this time you will be asking, where is all this leading?

Well it is not going to deliver long-term prosperity for New Zealanders – it is taking us in the other direction – to a place called poverty. A place where many New Zealanders are likely to be second-class citizens and tenants in their own country.

The consequences of this relentless foreign takeover are stark.

A large proportion of NZ’s wealth is now being syphoned offshore every year in the form of profits, dividends, fees and other payments

And that tsunami of money flowing out every year accounts for nearly all of NZ’s chronic balance of payments deficit – running at nearly $8 billion in the year to the end of 2015.

If you are doing the household budget and spending more than what’s coming in you will know what the outcome must be.

Unless we start to address the foreign ownership issue there is simply no way to tackle NZ’s massive external debt-now around $150 billion.

That is a number our government never mentions – because it reveals their utter failure to rebalance the New Zealand economy onto a long-term sustainable basis.

A fig leaf covering a rubber stamp

Immediate action is long overdue on the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) which – if you will forgive the mixed metaphor - is a fig leaf covering a rubber stamp!

To describe the OIO as a facade is too charitable – it is pure window dressing!

If the government were serious about scrutinising foreign buyers it would ensure the OIO was a well-resourced, rigorous and high-powered agency. But that is the last thing that National wants. Instead it much prefers to have the OIO stay a toothless poodle.

In his trip to China three weeks ago the Prime Minister came away from his “high-powered” negotiations with precisely nothing.

Worse still, he promised the Chinese to speed the Overseas Investment Office processes up. Returning home, he announced that the OIO would have more staff, not to verify applications, but to see that they were handled with more haste.

All this happened while international revelations of New Zealand being a Tax Haven were swirling around the Prime Minister’s ears.

As the “Panama Papers”, 11.5 million documents exposing massive tax evasion and fraud around the world with 60,000 references to New Zealand, have revealed there are armies of high paid international lawyers and consultants who are expert in brushing past our laws’ cursory scrutiny.

The most recent OIO fiasco has been their blunder in connection with a Taranaki farm purchased by brothers (Rafael and Federico Grozovsky) convicted for leaching tanning chemicals into an Argentine river.

In late 2013, the OIO recommended approving the sale of the 1320ha Onetai Station in Taranaki to the brothers via their Panamanian company.

The Grozovskys were convicted in 2012 because a tannery they owned leaked chemicals into a river. The conviction didn’t stop them passing the OIO’s good character test.

Cynically, one of the promises they made the Overseas Investment Office was to clean up the water on Onetai station.

There are only two words for Ministers who tolerate the woeful performance and failure of the OIO – incompetent and contemptible.

And if some don’t like that description then we say “you go on condoning such behaviour while the rest of us set out to rescue the country’s reputation. You be cowered into silence but we will not.”

That is why NZ First is warning foreign buyers who have bought New Zealand land or businesses, and are found to have lied on their applications, that they will lose their ill-gotten NZ assets.

We will leave them in no doubt about what is expected of them. Either they provide full disclosure in a straightforward application in which the owner and their background is clearly detailed and authenticated, or face the consequences.

Let’s be absolutely clear.

NZ First is not opposed to genuine foreign investment when it actually brings new and genuine investment and jobs for NZ’s prosperity.

If a firm wants to build new plant and capacity or bring new technology to New Zealand then they are actually developing the economy.

In practice what is going on in the main is that foreign buyers are mostly just snapping up existing assets - it’s a simple transfer from a New Zealander to a foreign owner

One of the National government’s tactics in the area of foreign ownership is to fudge the issue by avoiding collecting comprehensive data.

In other words: if we have no data and there is nothing to see then there cannot be a problem.

Is this just ignorance, negligence or something more sinister?

Ladies and gentlemen, it is long since time for a change.

NZ First believes that it is the first responsibility of our government to protect and develop New Zealand’s land, housing, other assets and resources for the benefit of current and future generations of New Zealanders.

NZ’s productive land and other assets are not inexhaustible.

The losses are cumulative – growing year after year.

That is why NZ First has prepared a bill for a comprehensive foreign ownership register and it is ready and awaiting introduction to Parliament.

The government’s approach to foreign ownership is taking New Zealand down the path to poverty – the path that ends with New Zealanders becoming low paid tenants in their own land.

That is why we are continuing our resolve to demand action in three areas:

First, the government must the face facts. As NZ First has been warning, foreign ownership is now a massive problem. Unless the issue is fully acknowledged and confronted the government will remain stuck in denial.

Second, the government must back NZ First’s draft legislation to collect comprehensive and accurate data on foreign land ownership

Third, government must replace the toothless Overseas Investment Office with an agency with the independence and authority to properly vet foreign deals and ensure that they do deliver real benefits.

Tax havens and offshore corporates avoiding tax in New Zealand

Yesterday the Prime Minister, uniquely named in the Panama Papers as a leader turning a blind eye to Tax Havens, claimed he had no more responsibility for the Cook Islands than he had for taxation in Russia. In his inimitable way he said the Panama Papers made a mistake because the Cooks Islands used NZ currency.

That will take the prize for bovine scatology.

Three decades ago we entered an agreement with the Cook Islands on anti tax evasion measures.

You will remember the 1990s Winebox and how the Cook Islands flouted that arrangement and when found out promised to clean up their act.

Then in 2009 Mr Key’s government updated those commitments to require the Cook Islands government not to facilitate tax evasion structures.

All this whilst you as taxpayers were giving the Cook Islands aid, which currently runs at $25 million a year.

A Prime Minister who therefore says he has no responsibility for these tax evasion, proceeds of crime, and money laundering structures is simply guilty of the two sins: bluster and bluff.

Worse still, he condones overseas corporates paying a pittance in tax whilst making billions in New Zealand.

His weak argument is that if he were to act like Australia these international corporates would leave New Zealand.

Offshore-owned Tegel chicken paid .38 per cent tax last year.
If they beggared off someone else would be raising and selling chicken in NZ and the household supply of chicken would not dry up.

But their replacement would be paying tax in NZ and not importing grain through other Tegel-owned offshore operations so that it can shift its profits and tax elsewhere.

But that would require the PM to so something he has never done – stand up for ordinary NZ interests instead of being our number one salesperson on kowtowing to the global economy.

Conclusion

We are not all that far from the next election. Our earnings per person as a proportion of our GDP is falling not climbing.

More and more New Zealanders are now much worse off, and as our economy flattens out further, and it will, the gap between a small minority of rich and the great majority, who are not, will keep on growing.

I am asking you to decide now which side you are on, and when you have done so to join up, sign up, and commit your personal efforts and indeed a small amount of your money to set this country to rights, economically and socially.

But you cannot leave it for someone else.

Be certain of this: if you want to negative, nullify, and cancel out the power and money of the very few, and have a real say in your future, then you can.

So it’s over to you.

And I trust you are going to make a decision for yourself, your family, your community and above all for your country.

ENDS

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