Being tenants in our own land now OK by Key

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, January 26th, 2012 - 585 comments
Categories: assets, overseas investment - Tags: ,

When he was running for re-election, John Key said he opposed selling the Crafar farms offshore: “I am concerned about the risk that New Zealanders become tenants in their own land”. Now he has won what is very likely his last term, he doesn’t give a damn about the farms going into foreign ownership and our publicly-owned farming company literally becoming the tenant of the land.

It looks clear from Key’s pre-positioning that the Overseas Investment Office has approved Chinese government-linked Pengxin’s bid to by the farms and ministers will rubber stamp it.

The result would be our net international investment position (the money will owe offshore and the assets foreigners own in NZ – effectively what we owe to the rest of the world) would go up even further from its already dangerously high levels. Every year, $18m and more would flow out of this country as profits for Pengxin for being nothing more than landlords on our land. Every year, we would have to borrow more from overseas to cover this increase in our current account deficit.

This is what happened to countries like Greece – they got in a position where the assets they still owned wasn’t enough service their debts (although most of the debt they built up was public, here it’s private). Why on Earth are we going down the same path?

It’s not good enough for Key to glibbly comment that Labour sold farmland too. Yes, they did. And that was a mistake. Labour’s realised it. That’s why the overseas investment policy they announced before the last election is to reject all foreign applications to buy New Zealand farmland by default, unless substantial economic gains to New Zealand would result – reversing the current rules. That’s why Labour’s new leader, David Shearer, is leading the fight to keep these assets in Kiwi hands.

Labour has learned from the past and is now offering a real alternative. National is content to let more and more of our assets slip into foreign ownership, sending more of this country’s wealth overseas as profits for foreigners, and making us more heavily indebted to the rest of the world. In fact, not only are they content to do this, their one big policy this term is to sell at least $2 billion worth of public assets into foreign hands.

The grim irony of this is that, if you went to China and asked to buy some of their farmland or part of their electricity network, they would laugh at you. They’re not foolish enough to give up strategic assets on which their economy depends to people who have no vested interest in the success of their country and are only out to make a buck at their expense, so why should we be?

585 comments on “Being tenants in our own land now OK by Key ”

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  1. Dv 1
    26 January 2012 at 9:17 am

    The Higher price will be better for the offshore banks as they hold the mortgages.

  2. Uturn 2
    26 January 2012 at 9:22 am

    The irony of this is that New Zealand was stolen (outright and by stealth) from the moari by the overseas investors of the time and now it’s being given away to overseas investors by the decendents of greedy thick colonials. Ruling class? More like, Drooling class.

    • Jackal 2.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:50 am

      Exactly! Pengxin will probably start mining some of those farms because of the gold and other precious substances known to be there that China is desperate for. This goes against National’s policy of trying to catch up with Australia’s mining industry, and creating wealth for New Zealander’s through exploitation of the environment. Not only will we loose the farms, we will loose any benefit from primary production… then we will loose any claim to being 100% pure clean and green. Only a drooling moron would sign up for that.

      • Gosman 2.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:57 am

        So can a New Zealand farm owner currently decide to stop farming and mine the land without references to any other regulations or paying any royalties to Government?

      • Populuxe1 2.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 6:53 pm

        Um, no – not without red tape out the wazooh. Otherwise everyone would be doing it. Just because they own the land, doesn’t mean it stops being a part of New Zealand.

      • CnrJoe 2.1.3
        27 January 2012 at 7:14 am

        yr losing me with yr looseness Jack

        • Jackal 2.1.3.1
          27 January 2012 at 9:37 am

          There are reasons for my statement. In 2009 the National government moved to simplifying and streamline the consent process for anyone wanting to prospect, explore or mine. Although a record number of submissions and a mass protest halted the majority of changes to the Crown Minerals Act 1991, it is much easier to gain a permit now with National in power.

          There is no red tape out the wazoo, because Gerry Brownlee has purposefully worked to remove it. There is nothing to stop the owners of the Crafar farms applying to mine them after they have secured the properties, and with the large amount of mineral wealth there, mining is definitely on the cards.

          Although they must pay fees and royalties… these represent a very small fraction of the total value of the minerals that are extracted. In other words there is very little economic value for New Zealand, and especially so when you consider the environmental problems that could arise because of our largely ineffective RMA and ETS, both of which look set to be drastically cut back under a government run by a climate change denier.

          Considering Chinas track record, it’s not something I would gamble on. Better to lose a few million now (retaining the farms in New Zealand ownership) than to lose a long term income stream and potentially undermine our clean and green branding.

          • Gosman 2.1.3.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 10:15 am

            Ummmmm….your argument applies equally to any farm owner. There is nothing stopping them from APPLYING to mine. That doesn’t mean they automatically get permission to do so which is the implication you made in your post earlier on this topic.

            • Jackal 2.1.3.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 10:36 am

              Just in case you didn’t know already Gosman, National is pro-mining. My implication was that Pengxin would start mining because the farms contain mineral wealth, I initially said nothing about the permit process to do so.

              You’re creating a straw man out of nothing. Example: You implied a farmer couldn’t decide to stop farming and start mining because of the government permit process. This is off course untrue.

              With National, mining permits are a formality. As long as they can personally invest in the proposed environmental exploitation and there is no public outcry, they’re all too happy to rubber stamp the application. Greywolf anyone?

              Do you recal National witholding information from the public about mining on sensitive land prior to the last election? What kind of implication do you gain from that Gosman?

              • Gosman …
                27 January 2012 at 10:48 am

                I didn’t imply that at all. My point is that the Chinese owners are in exactly the same situation as ANY NZ farmer in terms of applying for mining. If the Government decides that it is a goer economically then they will allow the mining to take place. This could happen evenm if Crafer farms was sold to a NZ based organisation. The mining might even be carried out by a Chinese company. Ownership of the land is irrelevant in the whole debate about mining.

                • Jackal …
                  27 January 2012 at 11:03 am

                  My point Gosman, that you’ve completely overlooked, is that the Chinese have less regard for the environment… this applies to farming as well as mining. I’m not being racist in saying so, I’m merely acknowledging the environmental destruction going on in China. Ownership is not irrelevant within this context either.

                  • higherstandard …
                    27 January 2012 at 11:07 am

                    I think you’ll find that land in NZ is subject to NZ law rather than Chinese law.

                    (Excepting consulates)

                    • Jackal …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:04 pm

                      I never said it wasn’t. Are you saying that the current law can ensure that there is no environmental damage? The 90% of lowland waterways that are currently too polluted to swim in prove you wrong.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:09 pm

                      Jackal – the Chinese will likely run the farms better and more professionally than the Crafars ever did. That’s not the point of course. The point is that we are selling our farm land to foreigners and whether they run them better or worse than the average NZ farmer is another discussion.

                    • Jackal …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:29 pm

                      We could probably get Humpty Dumpty to run things better than the Crafars managed, so that’s not really saying much. My point is that people with a vested long term interest that is not just financial will take better care. Being that the alternative is the Fay consortium, it’s a bit of a rock and a hard place though.

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      27 January 2012 at 7:24 pm

                      Fair point, HS. (And if we’re going to be 100% brutally honest, our own dairy farmers have been less than considerate when it comes to using our rivers as open-air toilets for their livestock.

                      However, here’s a point to consider regarding Chinese abuse of their environment…

                      If a food product (eg; milk powder) is produced on an ex-Crafar farm and shipped back to China…

                      The milk powder is reconstituted in a local factory, using local water, employees, and machinary…

                      And somewhere in the process, a contaminant is added…

                      And the contaminated product ends up on the shelf of a Beijing supermarket, with “Product of New Zealand” stamped all over it…

                      And people get sick, or worse.

                      What does that do to our reputation, globally?

                      Our brand name (Clean & Green) is our trump card when it comes to selling our foodstuffs on the international markets. All it takes is for someone to throw a sack or three of “bulking agent” into the milk powder, or use dirty water, and our reputation will be flushed down the proverbial.

                      The same scenario applies to having our produce shipped of to, say, Europe, from a German-owned Southland farm. Imagine if that farm produce was contaminated by e.coli bacteria – as happened last year in Germany.

                      Imagine if NZ-grown apples or kiwifruit was involved. Spain’s reputation was badly harmed in that health scare.

                      It’s not just farmland we’re selling. It’s our reputation.

                      I think that’s worth guarding jealously .

  3. vto 3
    26 January 2012 at 9:23 am

    My vote went according to this exact and sole issue. And it will next time too. To the party that has a policy of only allowing people who live in New Zealand to own New Zealand land (which is nothing to do with “foreign investment”).

    Imagine the outcry when, not if, this policy comes to pass. Can only sell to NZers. All land will for the first time in a long time become affordable to the people of NZ.

    You may want to check out recent farm sales in Southland. There is a minor bubble going on there and near 100% of sales have been to Germans. Virtually no sales to NZers. With all the resultant effects.

    • muzza 3.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:31 am

      So you just wait to vote every few years, and leave it at that?

      Look – No party is going to float that policy, and then be allowed to implement it, it will have to be demanded back by the people. Waiting for the politicians to do the right thing, well I think we see how whats worked out right !

  4. muzza 4
    26 January 2012 at 9:25 am

    What we are seeing in broad daylight now, is the future of NZ!

    Public debt, private debt , it makes no difference does it, because when the debt cant be serviced any longer, well you get the vultures lining up to pick over the carcass….JUST LIKE GREECE!

  5. Gosman 5
    26 January 2012 at 9:35 am

    Please explain the difference between say a Chinese owned farm and an Australian owned one, or what about the difference between a Chinese owned farm and a Japanese owned brewer?

    Does anyone not to think to ask where the money the Chinese are willing to pay for farms are actually going? It isn’t as if they are getting this land for free is it.

    • vto 5.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:39 am

      Gosman, a question… are you happy to rent a home for your whole life and be a tenant? Or do you own your own home? And why.

      • Gosman 5.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:44 am

        That is actually a very good question because it highlights some issues around economics around irrational thinking. In terms of getting the best return on money it is sometimes better to rent than to own. Countries such as Germany have a much lower rate of home ownership than Anglo-Saxon countries like the US and New Zealand. It doesn’t cause them any issues. Why do you have a problem with renting?

        • vto 5.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 9:48 am

          But you didn’t answer my question. Could you please?

          And I will add one more… would you rather live in a tenant community? (think of an area of say Auckland which is mostly tenanted)

          • Gosman 5.1.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 10:05 am

            I’m currently renting after owning my own place. So in essence you could state I’m currently prefering to rent over owning.

            I don’t understand the tennant question. Would you please elucidate.

            • vto 5.1.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 10:11 am

              Tenant communities are weak communities. A community is much stronger when it is owned by the people who live, work and play on it. They have more at stake and take greater care over both shorter and longer term. This is a basic mantra of the right wing private property rights mantra.

              This is evidenced by, for example, looking at the variable strengths of communities around New Zealand – ones that are mostly tenanted and ones that are mostly owned. Where is most of the crime? Where is most of the transience? Where are the stable and strong communities?

              Perhaps you could now explain how having foreign landlords benefits us?

              • alwyn …
                26 January 2012 at 10:48 am

                You know, this really looks as if you are arguing against having any state housing. Our communities will get better if we sell the houses to people who want to live in them, rather than those who want to rent them.
                Are you really dissing all the state house tenants and labelling them as being an inferior group?

                • vto …
                  26 January 2012 at 11:00 am

                  Nothing of the sort. I think my points are pretty clear.

                  I note that nobody has explained the benefits of renting from a foreign landlord compared to owning.

                  Anyone? Gosman? King Kong?

                  • lprent …
                    26 January 2012 at 11:12 am

                    And especially for farmland. It isn’t like we are likely to get new technology or techniques.

                    Markets – well not really relevant. We are in the period of peak population growth worldwide and with diminishing agricultural areas per person. Quite simply for the next 20-30 years it will be a sellers market for food.

                    As far as I can see the only purpose appears to be to help on keeping funding a speculation boom in agricultural property. Of course when you look at the rate of private debt in this country focused almost entirely on property mortgages, you’d have to ask why would anyone want to continue that daft economic trend?

                    Gosman? QueenStreet? (Kong is seems to be a monkey emulator)

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 11:55 am

                      Actually your argument about overvalued farmland can be used to state the case for selling even more farmland to overseas investors so that New Zealanders will benefit in the long run.

                      If farmland is overvalued, (and I would agree with you that it probably is), then the market is going to correct this imbalance at some stage. This means anyone owning farmland is going to take a rather large capital loss.

                      The more foreigners owning farmland means this loss is not concentrated in the NZ economy and hopefully the NZers who sold the land at the higher value will have invested their returns in something that gives them a better return.

                    • Draco T Bastard …
                      26 January 2012 at 12:34 pm

                      Actually your argument about overvalued farmland can be used to state the case for selling even more farmland to overseas investors so that New Zealanders will benefit in the long run.

                      No it can’t as we would lose the income from the land and have no way to repurchase it.

                      This means anyone owning farmland is going to take a rather large capital loss.

                      Money is not a resource and so losing some of it doesn’t mean anything. Especially when the banks are printing it as fast they can.

                      The more foreigners owning farmland means…

                      That there’s a bigger chance that we’ll all be serfs to foreign over-lords.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 1:53 pm

                      DTB your logic is incorrect. Simply because New Zealanders won’t own the land and receive income from it doesn’t mean that New Zealanders won’t have incomes. You remind me of Zanu-PF yet again with their simplistic, (and wrong), slogan from the 2000 parliamentary elections – “The economy is land and the land is the economy”.

                    • lprent …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:03 pm

                      Gos: That is a weird argument… It is the two wrongs make a right fallacy.

                      However implicit in your argument is that it will get more difficult for longer for local farmers to gain their own property. Is that your desired result? It doesn’t seem like a viable long-term solution for farming in NZ bearing in mind that almost all of the farming innovation for the past 150 years has tended to arise from individual owners.

                      And in the end it still means that there is likely to be alienation of revenue from our local economy for no other reason apart from a current bubble in farm prices.

                      BTW: The only reason I am not a farmer (I did a year farming in 1977 whilst deciding) was because of a previous pricing bubble from National’s daft SMP scheme for electoral support. It meant that it was damn near impossible to figure out how to ever see a way of getting enough land to farm viably. I went into management, and eventually into programming instead…

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:22 pm

                      It isn’t the same as two wrongs make a right. It is actually a reason why running Capital Account surpluses all the time doesn’t really pay off in the long run. Imagine if the Chinese had invested all their surplus in the US property market pre crash. US homeowners basically sell their property to Chinese investors at a massive premium. The market crashes and where is the loss? Not much for the former US landowners, they made a nice healthy profit. It is with the Chinese who now have the value of their investment decreased and little chance of recouping their money via rent. This is just market economic in action, nothing to do with rights or wrongs.

                  • Gosman …
                    26 January 2012 at 11:57 am

                    See below –

                    In short you don’t take the risk of a massive fall in the value of your capital investment.

                    Lprent thinks Nz farmland is overvalued. Do you?

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      27 January 2012 at 12:32 am

                      Gosman, we’ve had this same argument on my blog and you simply couldn’t see the connection between ownership of farms and where profits ended up.

                      More than ever, I believe you are incapable of seeing the commercial dangers of selling our productive land-base to overseas investors (whether American, German, Chinese, et al) and losing profits in the process.

                      Quite simply; if a foreign owned farm earned, say, $10 million in a year, and 90% of that was repatriated to offshore investors – we’d be left with only $1 million.

                      Instead of earning $10 million – only $1 million would flow into the country.

                      Your sense of business is frightening, to put it mildly, if you fail to understand simple arithmetic and commerce.

                      And what is even more ironic is that left-wingers have to explain all this to you (and other right wingers).

                      On top of this is another issue; whatever our thoughts on Michael Fay, it is significant that – despite his considerable wealth – he cannot outbid a foreign investor.

                      The Chinese have $1 trillion-plus at their disposal.

                      They can buy up NZ many times over, and we’d be tenants in our own country, with no hope of buying our own land. At least with companies, New Zealanders can buy shares in, say, Westpac.

                      None of us have the resources to outbid the Chinese government to buy up significant tracts of land, and tie up our resources for their own agenda.

                      As for your statement; “In short you don’t take the risk of a massive fall in the value of your capital investment. ”

                      The Chinese are not interested in any possibible fall in their farming investment. They’re after food – not just profits. I refer you to this disturbing media report; http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6315003/Crunch-time-in-Crafar-farms-saga (Note comments by Chris Kelley, from Landcorp.)

                      I hope that had made it a little clearer for you?

                      (More on my blog, on this matter.)

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:09 am

                      Frank, your whole argument over repatriation of profits applies equally to any foreign owned business. For example Trademe is currently owned by Fairfax Media an Australian based company. Do you have a problem with this?

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:52 am

                      A private company or individual could buy out a NZ business and that would preclude NZers from purchasing shares in the company. Equally if the Chinese company buying farmland is listed then NZers could purchase shares in it. So once againthere is no difference.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:55 am

                      Equally if the Chinese company buying farmland is listed then NZers could purchase shares in it. So once againthere is no difference.

                      Don’t be stupid the Chinese don’t sell strategic assets they own like NZ farm land to foreigners (us).

                      They actually get the importance of maintaining control of these assets.

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:29 am

                      So the Chinese don’t allow foreign investment in companies that invest in other countries do they? That is weird because I was pretty sure you can invest in Chinese companies now. When did they put in this rule that no investment is possible?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:36 am

                      Don;t be a fucking moron; just try to buy Chinese farm land or shares in the Three Gorges dam. No frakking way.

                      You don’t understand the differentiation between strategic assets and general commercial assets Gos so I’m not surprised at your short term driven incompetence.

                    • mik e …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:28 pm

                      Jassen in 12 years time your argument falls down so why don’t the Chinese just lease the land idiot.
                      Because they have a long term plan for their country idiot while we have a short term plan from smile and wave.

                • Gosman …
                  26 January 2012 at 11:00 am

                  Just noticed you picked up on the very same thing as I except a bit earlier.

                  • vto …
                    26 January 2012 at 11:16 am

                    Gosman, again, what are the benefits in renting from a foreign landlord compared to owning?

                    State housing is a red herring and nothing to do with these points. State housing is a social service and they try to encourage home ownership anyway, thereby defeating your silly sideshow point.

                    Can you answer the question in line 1? Outline the benefits. Because none of you plonkers have yet.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 11:59 am

                      See above.

                    • Jassen …
                      26 January 2012 at 1:11 pm

                      Why the majority of businesses lease the land they operate on instead of purchasing the land? Having an OPEX of $300,000 a year as apposed to buying the land and warehouse for $3,500,000 is a lot more achievable. This is not rocket science.

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 2:47 pm

                      You miss the entire point. It is about renting from foreign owners, not just any owner. It goes to the strength of the community.

                      And anyway, this entire argument about “foreign investment” is all about business investment, right? Ok. So let the foreign business investors lease the land. That is what you advocate right there. Right? So there is no need for them to own the land – let them rent it from us. They are about business right? Not land speculation, right?

                      Tell me, why do they need to own the land when they can just lease it from us? Wouldn’t be anything to do with control or land speculation would it?

                      You see, this yawning hole in the argument for “foreign investment” exposes the true motive behind foreigners wanting to own NZ land. It aint about the business getting done on the land it is about the land itself. It is a rort.

                      Never let anybody confuse, intentionally or otherwise, land ownership with business investment. The two are entirely different. As you have just pointed out jassen. Thanks.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:48 pm

                      I’ve explained a possible benefit for NZers for allowing foreigners to own land. I have yet to see a cohesive argument why they shouldn’t beyond emotional nonsense about us becoming tennants in our own land and somehow losing sovereignty over decisions such as what can and can’t happen with the land. These arguments are nonsense as they would equally apply to a NZer owning a land. For example the Crafers weren’t exactly the most careful of farmers were they. Your whole argument VTO seems to boil down to you would prefer to see them leasing rather than owning. Well good for you. However by doing so you deny the current owners the right to sell the land for the highest value they can get for it.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:55 pm

                      “Emotional nonsense”?

                      We as NZers need to start getting a hell of a lot more emotional and passionate about this issue.

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:05 pm

                      Ok, gosmanyou keep sidetracking and tangentialising and not answering so I’m going to do the same. New issue…

                      Why on earth do you want New Zealanders to be paying the maximum price in the world that our land could possibly fetch by letting 6 billion people buy it? All that does is drive values up up up. And that actually benefits nobody.

                      Oh, except it does benefit the banks as everyone has to borrow more and more to pay more and more.

                      It is entirely better that land has a low value. That way less of our daily toil has to go into paying for the land more can go on eating and dressing and playing and children and other good stuff.

                      Example … you have an income of $50,000. You buy a house for $400,000 and borrow half of that at 10%. This means of your $50,000 annual income you have to spend $20,000 on interest payments (or 40% of your working day – probably 4 hours per day, just to pay the bank….

                      Now,… if that house is only $200,000 and you borrow half of that at 10% then this mean of your $50,000 annual income only $10,000 has to be spent on the bank’s interest payments (or 20%, 2 hours, per day). (or actually, and I’m sure you can see this, if the house is only $200,000 then you won’t need to borrow at all! Fancy that! Pretty damn fine don’t you think?)

                      Can you see that ?

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 5:26 pm

                      You keep ignoring the fact that a farm is just a business just as Trademe is just a business. Were you jumping up and down when Fairfax Media bought Trademe for hundreds of millions of Dollars? If not then ask yourself why?

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 5:53 pm

                      @ vto

                      NZ is to the world like Marton is to most Aucklanders. I don’t see Aucklanders bidding up the price of houses in Marton just for the hell of it. So why do you think there are foreign buyers in huge quantities slavering to bid up the price of houses in NZ in general? NZ is a very nice place but you are almost american in your fear of foreigners’ envy of NZ.

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 5:53 pm

                      Well there you go again gosman, ignoring the point and question I put to you.

                      And if you hadn’t noticed, I distinguish between foreign investment in business and foreign ownership of land. They are two compeltely different things?

                      What’s your IQ? What’s the highest qualification you have? I am seriously interested. Tell us.

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:00 pm

                      insider, so you doubt that foreign interest in NZ land has an effect on land values?

                      You may have missed my early point about the fact, for just one example, that virtually every single farm purchase in Southland in the last several months has been by foreigners (Germans as it turns out, not Chinese. Don’t mention the war ffs). So go ask yourself about the laws of supply and demand which the right claims to understand as it underpins everything they do, free market and all that.

                      If, instead of 50 sales over that period, there had been 5, what do you think the resultant values would have been?

                      Pretty damn simple equation.

                      Perhaps you could also explain to the audience how high land prices are beneficial as per my question above? Gosman is a lostman and never debates properly, at least you seem to try answering at times.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:04 pm

                      Does Fairfax Media not have ownership over Trademe? I thought they initially bought the thing completely from Morgan and his fellow investors.

                      If you agree they do have ownership of Trademe please tell me the difference between ownership of a business called Trademe and ownership of a business that happens to be a farm?

                      This should be easy for someone as obviously as intelligent and educated as yourself. I mean you have actually stated that they are COMPLETELY different things. Explain why.

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:17 pm

                      Man oh man gosman. I just said, as I always have, that I have no problem (but happy to be convinced otherwise)with foreign ownership of business (except for important areas like electricity that keeps old people warm in winter). I have a very real and serious problem with foreign ownerhsip of land. For all those reasons I have outlined since I first came onto this site some too long ago. I even swapped some correspondence with Michael Cullen on this exact issue when he was a boss.

                      So, go right ahead, sell your farm business to the foreigners. The business will just have to sit on a lease not an ownership (of course implied in that are reasonable lease terms which don’t act like outright ownership).

                      Got that?

                      Now, I have foolishly answered all your questions. Perhaps you could return the favour…

                      1. Outline the benfits of paying rent to foreign landlords as compared to NZ ownership.
                      2. Explain how high land values are beneficial.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:26 pm

                      You haven’t outlined why you think a farm business is any different to say an online market place in terms of ownership. All you have stated is you don’t think it is a good idea for people to lease farmland from overseas investors as opposed to say leasing from a NZ based investor. I have yet to see you explain the reason why this is a problem for farmland but not for say any other type of business.

                      So why is ownership of a farm different?

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:31 pm

                      No Gosman, your turn to answer my questions. They are just above. See them?

                      Though this game of yours is giving you a wee thrill isn’t it. Sicko.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:35 pm

                      You implied it was easy to explain the differences between selling a farm business to overseas people versus any other type of business yet you keep avoiding doing so.

                      Any questions you have asked me about this apply just as equally to other types of businesses do they not?

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:38 pm

                      I give up. I’m going to go and talk to some real people with real brains.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:39 pm

                      To illustrate my point I have altered your questions slightly –

                      1. Outline the benfits of paying cash to foreign business owners as compared to NZ ownership.
                      2. Explain how high business values are beneficial.

                      Tell me why my altered questions are any difference to your original about farm ownership.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:58 pm

                      I ask you to answer a simple question. A question you yourself seem to imply is easy to answer. Yet you don’t do so and it is somehow my issue. Very weird.

                      I actually have more respect for the position of someone like DTB on this as he at least is consistent in his view that foreign investment is bad no matter what area of the economy.

                      You on the other hand can’t seem to articulate why it is bad in farming but not in some other area of the economy.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 7:49 pm

                      @vto

                      Did the Germans pay significantly more than what locals had been offering on similar farms? The Germans may have been offering similar money but better terms (i bought my house the same way – bid the same as someone else but could make immediate cash settlement) or just a few thousand more – negligible on a multimillion scale. Meeting the market is not driving the value up. And remember this discussion started with the crafar farms- if anyone bid the market up it was them and they not only have gone bust as a result but had a poor record on welfare and pollution, which may have been connected. Where were they from again? Oh thats right, nz… The Chinese aren’t bidding the market up, they are paying below previous value.

                      I’m not sure asking for lower liquidity in the market is a recipe for success.

                    • Puddleglum …
                      26 January 2012 at 10:42 pm

                      Gosman, you keep talking about ‘farm businesses’ being no different from other businesses. But, as I understand him(?), that’s not vto’s point.

                      It’s not the ‘farm business’ it’s the land upon which it operates. Land is something quite different from a business – it is the spatial location upon which a business operates. This is why it is one of the first things that is usually privatised (e.g., as a result of colonialism – as in the case of Africa (Zimbabwe) that you obviously have a particular interest in).

                      Privatising land is the first step in establishing modern capitalist economies (the enclosures, the point of hut taxes in colonial times, dispossession of indigenous peoples from land, etc.). Land is unlike any other commodity as it represents the opportunity to occupy space in the world (space being one of the two dimensions that our universe exists within). Once you privatise that, people have to exist in a market economy.

                      That’s what makes land ‘different’. Certainly different from any business you may care to mention (TradeMe, etc.). The land is not a business. 

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:56 am

                      I dispute that land is any real difference to any other type of capital asset. This is something that Zanu-PF failed to comprehend when they too thought land was something special and had value in it’s own right away from a business. VTO might like to think it is special but unless he can explain the reason why farmland is any different to any other type of land it is merely his opinion.

                    • Jackal …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:22 am

                      Gosman… you are being a prized jerk here. The land should not be viewed merely as a business asset. You’re type of defunct thinking leads to exploitation of the environment and the people. By having less long term interest and running properties strictly to a business model to make short term profits often fails to uphold a duty of care for the land.

                      You seem to be saying that property speculation in the housing sector is OK and we should allow a similar system on an international scale with our farms. May I remind you what a disaster for the majority of New Zealander’s property speculation has been. Falling home ownership, 59% of houses not being maintained properly and some of the highest comparable rental prices in the world… just to name a few of the destructive consequences of your free market system.

                      Once again you’re building your argument out of what you think people are “implying” instead of what they are actually saying. This is actually troll like behaviour. Get back to me when you can show any benefit for New Zealand by using a privatization model for our farms.

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:42 am

                      Property speculation leading to market bubbles is irrelevant to the discussion here. Even it was your solution seems to be that we should stop someone participating in the market because they drive up the price. If they are stupid enough to invest in a bubble market then why should they be stopped from wasting their own cash? Sure they can be advised that they are likely to waste their money at some stage but at the end of the day it should still be their choice whether to invest or not.

                    • Jackal …
                      27 January 2012 at 1:14 pm

                      So you advocate a kind of speculative pyramid scheme, where people should be allowed to invest no matter the risks… risks that are often not divulged prior to the investment I might add.

                      The housing and investment bubbles are not irrelevant to the Crafar farms issue, because it’s exactly the same thing in a lot of ways. We have New Zealander’s being priced out of the market for one thing, because we simply cannot compete for the capital required.

                      If the New Zealand government allows it, private companies backed by overseas governmental interests will see the death of our locally owned farming industry… there will be less return and fewer jobs for Kiwi’s. Is that what you want Gosman?

                  • Frank Macskasy …
                    27 January 2012 at 11:11 pm

                    Frank, your whole argument over repatriation of profits applies equally to any foreign owned business. For example Trademe is currently owned by Fairfax Media an Australian based company. Do you have a problem with this?

                    I’m glad you asked me this, Gosman. It’s actually a fairly sensible question.

                    Yes, I do have a problem with the repatriation of dividends (profits), as they affect our Balance of payments; our credit rating; and the cost of borrowings (higher interest rates) from offshore.

                    Higher interest rates impact on all areas of our society and economy – including manufacturers and exporters who are the ones who pay for our imports.

                    Ultimately, they can ever impact on jobs. People stand to lose their jobs when interest rates rise. You’ve stated in the past that people losing their jobs isn’t a problem for you – but for the rest of us, it kinda matters.

                    Just a few points for you to consider.

              • Gosman …
                26 January 2012 at 10:59 am

                This seems to fly in the face of the policy of social housing though. Unless you are advocating the Thatcherite policy of allowing State house tennants the chance to buy their State house?

                • Puddleglum …
                  26 January 2012 at 3:43 pm

                  Why does it “fly in the face of the policy of social housing“?

                  People who need state housing can’t afford to buy houses (at least initially). By the state intervening in the rental market it can keep rents affordable and provide greater stability of tenancy – except when governments try to move state house tenants on.

                  Renting is a less stable form of occupancy (and therefore creates more transient communities) but renting from the state at least goes some way to alleviating that for those who can’t afford to buy.

                  Stability of tenancy (even in the private sector) is actually better regulated in the non-Anglo countries you allude to – once again, that supports vto’s point. 

                • mik e …
                  26 January 2012 at 9:30 pm

                  the Crafars never owned the land Westpac owned it

    • muzza 5.2
      26 January 2012 at 9:43 am

      ‘Does anyone not to think to ask where the money the Chinese are willing to pay for farms are actually going? It isn’t as if they are getting this land for free is it.’

      Gosman – Come on bro, you can’t be that thick surely!

      • Gosman 5.2.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:45 am

        Perhaps you would enlighten me then Muzza.

        • muzza 5.2.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 10:01 am

          Your comment seems to allude that the money for the purchase of crafer farms is somewhow going back into the NZ economy , that is what you implied (deliberately or not)..

          My point – there is no guarentee that any funds used to purchased the farms will stay in NZ or provide any benefit at all to this country, which is not even the point Gosman….

          Simple question – Do you want NZ’s assets/land/natural resources sold off with the high probability that they will end up in foreign hands?

          • Gosman 5.2.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 10:39 am

            It doesn’t bother me. The Greeks kept a large amounts of their assets in their hands via the state yet because they had to borrow overseas to fund their unproductive lifestyle they find out they really don’t have sovereigty over these assets after all. Zimbabwe nationalised pretty much all farmland and redistributed it to the ‘landless’ masses. Their economy imploded and they have to use other nations currencies now instead of their own. It matters not a jot that they thought they were in charge of their assets.

            • muzza 5.2.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 10:56 am

              Gosman FFS – Go do some reading about the derivtive fraud in Europe. Your comments are those of the FOX news retard!

              • Gosman …
                26 January 2012 at 11:03 am

                Ummmmm… I have worked with derivatives. I think I understand them a little bit better than most and probably an awfully lot better than you.

                The Soverign debt crisis has very little to do with derivatives, unless you are going to try and claim that a dodgy deal involving Greece and Goldman Sachs somehow proves that it was all about derivatives. That would just serve to highlight your ignorance of the matter not mine.

                • muzza …
                  26 January 2012 at 12:01 pm

                  “Ummmmm… I have worked with derivatives. I think I understand them a little bit better than most and probably an awfully lot better than you.”

                  Stop talking BS Gosman, and give us some evidence of your work then! as you like to ask others for evidence, I am now asking you…

                  You stated the Greeks were unproductive, and you say that the $26bn derivative fraud committed by the Prime Minister is not relevant, and find that they dont have sovereignty over the assets after all..So what else were the state sector defrauding the country for, if this is the Goldman Sachs owned ex leader who openly committed the derivatives fraud deal, who then passed over to an unelected GS Geneal in Papademos! Whats the link here Gosman, because its is very fucken relevant!

                  Did Greece get to vote on EU entry – Was Greece ever not going to implode based on finance models and the economics currently stealing entire countrys right now! You seem to be comfortable with this situation Gosman, can you explain why? You use Zim as an example, and again you show what a fuckhead you are , was Zim in the EU with a foreign controlled currency too moron!

                  • Gosman …
                    26 January 2012 at 2:02 pm

                    It is quite obvious that it is you who have little idea. There was no $26 Billion derivatives fraud involving the Greek PM. You are simply making this up.

                    • muzza …
                      26 January 2012 at 2:38 pm

                      http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2011/06/george-papandreou-accused-of-committing.html

                      Have a read then go through some shit yourself, and cross reference it!

                      Oh by the way a CDS is a derivative, just in case you were not sure!

                      Hows that learning disability working out for you dick head!

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:15 pm

                      Gawd! That just serves to highlight your ignorance Muzza. These derivative contracts aren’t really worth $26 billion. The net notional position of Greek CDS’s is only $5.6 Billion, (or at least was mid last year http://www.ifre.com/what-are-cds-really-worth?/632973.article)

                      If the contract was worth what you think it was then please tell me who the conter party is to this debt? Because at the end of the day that is how you get value from Dervivatives, when the trade is settled. No person is going to value these at $27 Billion dollars and they wouldn’t certainly settle for that amount.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:34 pm

                      By the way if you read that article I linked to you will see CDS’s only get triggered on a default of the underlying bonds. Beyond that they are essentially worth only what people are willing to buy and sell them for. It is similar, (although not identical), to stating that the insurance on your house is worth 1 million dollars when it is only costing you $1000 per year to get it from the insurance company. Unless there is an event that triggers the insurance than you don’t get the underlying value and even if you do the insurance company has all sorts of reasons why it doesn’t necessarily have to pay you the entire amount.

                    • muzza …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:42 pm

                      “Gawd! That just serves to highlight your ignorance Muzza. These derivative contracts aren’t really worth $26 billion. The net notional position of Greek CDS’s is only $5.6 Billion, (or at least was mid last year http://www.ifre.com/what-are-cds-really-worth?/632973.article)

                      If the contract was worth what you think it was then please tell me who the conter party is to this debt? Because at the end of the day that is how you get value from Dervivatives, when the trade is settled. No person is going to value these at $27 Billion dollars and they wouldn’t certainly settle for that amount.”
                      ________________________________________________________________________________

                      Gosman – You said I was making things up, I wasn’t, and proved it, you have proved nothing additional with your link!. The value of derivatives is largely uncertain (care to guess why?), and the 26bn may or may not be realised and if you were as clever as you claim, you would realise you said as much above “who is the counter party” Also thanks for stating that derivatives are effectively fraudulent, they are!
                      You tried to say the Greeks lifestyle was the reason for their loss of sovereignty, it wasn’t.

                      Fool!

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:44 pm

                      Yeah the former Greek PM sold a bunch of very valuable CDS owned by the Greek Post Office to his mates for fuck all money.

                      Max Keiser detailed it out at the time.

                  • Frank Macskasy …
                    27 January 2012 at 12:38 am

                    I thought you were in IT ?

                    Now you’re in “derivatives”?

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:07 am

                      I work in IT for banks Frank. I worked with the trading desks in a support role. I needed to understand the nature of the products to actually do my job. It isn’t too complicated to understand even for someone with as limited range of imagination as your good self.

                • mik e …
                  26 January 2012 at 9:41 pm

                  Gooseman said you have worked in derivatives it reflects your Character .
                  The banks that lent to these countries were delinquent in letting them borrow above their ability to pay a lot like our second tier finance companies most of their directors are facing jail time. These big banksters are still getting massive bonuses when they should be in jail, For defrauding the tax payers of the World including New Zealand to the tune of $88 million Dollars.

            • mik e 5.2.1.1.1.2
              27 January 2012 at 10:32 pm

              Gooseman that was through corruption on both counts.

          • dv 5.2.1.1.2
            26 January 2012 at 11:14 am

            the money from the farms will go to the overseas banks to pay off the mortgages. NOT into NZ economy.

            • Gosman 5.2.1.1.2.1
              26 January 2012 at 11:37 am

              Well the answer is obvious, nationalise the banks then.

              I presume you would acknowledge that the banks would likely use some of this capital to reinvest in NZ.

              • Colonial Viper …
                26 January 2012 at 3:46 pm

                No mate the big 4 banks are a net exporter of NZ financial capital, predominantly back to their Australian shareholders.

                • mik e …
                  28 January 2012 at 12:37 am

                  We have to find $ 3 billion + a year to make up for expatriated prfit otherwise our balance of payments ends up down the gurgler . then interest rates go up increasing bank profit margins then when our balance of payments improves our dollar goes making our exporters less profitable.Crazy system don’t expect the Americans Europeans or Chinese to be dumb enough to fall into that trap.

              • Frank Macskasy …
                27 January 2012 at 11:23 pm

                I work in IT for banks Frank. I worked with the trading desks in a support role. I needed to understand the nature of the products to actually do my job. It isn’t too complicated to understand even for someone with as limited range of imagination as your good self.

                “Limited range of imagination”?!

                *ouch* That hurt…

                *waits 5 seconds*

                Ok, much better now.

                It’s interesting that you work in IT, and claim to “understand the nature of the products” – yet you seem unable to understand the role played by repatriation of profits/dividends offshore, and their impact on our Balance of Payments?

                Care to explain that?

                Well the answer is obvious, nationalise the banks then. I presume you would acknowledge that the banks would likely use some of this capital to reinvest in NZ.

                Or – maybe not sell them in the first place?!

                Of course, we have Kiwibank, TSB, and PSIS (now re-branded). Government could bank with any of those three, and let a local bank retain profits?

                Nah. We still have that old “hankering” for “overseas is better”. It’s a hangover from the days when only foreign wines, beers, or music were any good. It only took 50 years before New Zealanders actually realised, ““Hey, our wine, beer, and music is f****n awesome!!

                DV,

                the money from the farms will go to the overseas banks to pay off the mortgages. NOT into NZ economy.

                Yup. Spot on.

          • Jassen 5.2.1.1.3
            26 January 2012 at 1:13 pm

            Muzza, why didn’t you stand on this moral platform when Labour sold off 650 000 Ha during their 9 years?

            • muzza 5.2.1.1.3.1
              26 January 2012 at 1:56 pm

              How do you know what I did or didn’t stand for! Never presume to know anything J.

              Really stupid question to ask based on the fact we no nothing about eachother!

            • Jum 5.2.1.1.3.2
              26 January 2012 at 9:11 pm

              jassen,

              I am against asset sales no matter the party in government.

              Why don’t you google CAFCA and they will tell you the facts of life about what happens to people and their countries when their assets, which they built and paid for, are sold by others that have no right to do so – gone once the 80s with Act, the 90s with Act and now the 10s with Act took over our communication assets, our transport assets, our power assets, our water/infrastructure assets and our land assets.

            • Frank Macskasy 5.2.1.1.3.3
              27 January 2012 at 11:14 pm

              Jassen, fair point.

              And one that quite a few folk will be taking up with our local Labour MPs/candidates in the very near future. (I can promise you that my local Labour MP will be hearing quite a bit from me on this matter.)

      • Draco T Bastard 5.2.2
        26 January 2012 at 12:49 pm

        Yes, actually, he can be.

    • happynz 5.3
      26 January 2012 at 9:55 am

      This is my understanding. Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong. A foreigner cannot own land in China. Indeed, a Chinese person cannot own land in China, but rather they lease it from the state.

      So, it seems fair play to me, if a Kiwi cannot go in and buy a farm in China, an overseas Chinese company should not be allowed to buy up New Zealand property. Kiwis can buy (assuming that they have the money) Australian farms, German farms, Canadian farms, and so on, but not Chinese farms. So, to me, there is a bit of difference in allowing Chinese firms to buy up property here.

      • muzza 5.3.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:13 am

        Happy – While what you say is true, I am not a fan of using the argument, because it implies that if the Chinese, in this case, were to open up land sales to foreigners, those who based there position on such premise, would then be left with having to accept the selling of NZ land.

        Better to just state a position of being for or against it, and use some other logic , as reason!

        IMHO

    • RJL 5.4
      26 January 2012 at 11:28 am

      The problem is the bad effect that foregin ownership has on the local (NZ) economy.

      The money that the Chinese (or whomever) pay will not go into the NZ economy. It will go into paying back a proportion of the Crafer debt. All that will happen is that some numbers stored on a bank server will change. An electronically stored number changing has no magic effect on the NZ economy.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.5
      26 January 2012 at 12:13 pm

      Local resources need to be owned by the local populace else that local populace will become serfs to the foreign owners. Of course, this is capitalism which brings about serfdom anyway so what we really need to do is to get rid of capitalism.

    • Matt 5.6
      26 January 2012 at 4:38 pm

      Answer: Eleven Years

      Question: How long will it take for Kiwis to pay the Chinese 100% of their purchase price back.

  6. sdm 6
    26 January 2012 at 9:44 am

    This seems to me that Labour is attempting to adopt an anti-Chinese position, akin to Winston of yesteryear.

    • Lanthanide 6.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:48 am

      What part of “default position to not sell farmland to overseas buyers” is specifically anti-Chinese?

      • Gosman 6.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:58 am

        Why restict it to farmland? Why not all land or even all businesses? After all the arguments are the same in all these cases.

        • Colonial Viper 6.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 3:49 pm

          Farm land is a good start because of its strategic value.

          Which happens to be why the forward thinking Chinese, the Germans and the Americans are lining up to buy, while idiot short sighted NZers are lining up to sell.

        • mik e 6.1.1.2
          26 January 2012 at 9:47 pm

          Goose man they Don’t make any more land the Chinese Know that simple fact you don’t. thats why they are buying our land.Its cheaper than invading us and they keep it they don’t sell because they know how valuable it is .
          Your just plain dumb Goose.

        • Frank Macskasy 6.1.1.3
          27 January 2012 at 11:25 pm

          Why restict it to farmland? Why not all land or even all businesses? After all the arguments are the same in all these cases.

          You already know the answer to that, Gosman. Or do you have a “limited range of imagination”?

      • Gosman 6.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 10:00 am

        Mainly because Labour didn’t seem to have a big issue when farmland was sold overseas prior to this potential large sale to a Chinese investor.

        • Draco T Bastard 6.1.2.1
          26 January 2012 at 12:54 pm

          It’s called learning from your mistakes. Something that the political-right seem incapable of as they keep repeating the same mistakes.

          • muzza 6.1.2.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 1:33 pm

            DTB – What party did Roger Douglas work again! Oh thats right, learning real well aren’t they!

            Don’t kid yourself, you can say anything you want while in opposition! No I am not a right winger because I have stated this!

            • Draco T Bastard 6.1.2.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 1:38 pm

              Which party is Roger Douglas not a part of now and which party did he help start?

    • Gosman 6.2
      26 January 2012 at 9:50 am

      Yes SDM. Those perfidious Chinks can’t be trusted with our land. Before you know it they will either be shipping it back to China land or over populating it with their billion plus people.

      • vto 6.2.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:53 am

        You wont succeed in trying to drag this debate into an anti-chinese race issue. This has been raised when the buyers don’t live in Zew Zealand – that is the criteria, be it Germans, Chinese, Americans, there are many many people. Race has zip to do with it.

        End.

        • King Kong 6.2.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 9:55 am

          Bollocks

          • vto 6.2.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 10:06 am

            Bollocks

          • muzza 6.2.1.1.2
            26 January 2012 at 10:07 am

            KK – if you feel this is a race issue – then can you give your position on selling of assets/land/natural resources !

            Here is mine – I don’t give a fuck where people come from, their colour, creed or sexual orientation, reglion, favourite foods or colours blah blah

            I don’t want NZ being sold off into foreign hands, EVER!

            Off you go!

            • King Kong 6.2.1.1.2.1
              26 January 2012 at 10:23 am

              Couldn’t care less about our land being foreign owned as long as the owners;
              1) Behave themselves according to our laws and regulations
              2) Employ our people (which immigration law should take care of)

              I dont understand this racist attitude you have where it is apparantly sacrosanct to work for Murray instead of Chin Tu Fat.

              Lefties absolutely hate the people who own this stuff now (farmers, the 1% etc) so the fact that all of a sudden you are jumping to their defence just looks like xenophobia to me.

              • vto …
                26 January 2012 at 10:26 am

                More bollocks

              • sdm …
                26 January 2012 at 10:42 am

                agreed 100%

              • thatguynz …
                26 January 2012 at 10:43 am

                Absolute bullshit and pure obfuscation. Where do you think the profits/produce of the land will be repatriated to? Let me make it easy for you – offshore. It doesn’t matter one iota whether the “offshore” is Australia, USA, Germany, Chaina or any other damn place.

                Wake up and don’t try to turn this thread into something that it is not.

                • King Kong …
                  26 January 2012 at 11:03 am

                  How about this then; Sell the land to overseas investors. See if there becomes an issue with profit/product repatriation. If there does put the screws on with new ridiculous transfer pricing and international fund transfer laws. No value to the owner now and sold back at knock down rates to the locals. New Zealand gets the money and the bag…fuck you Johnny Foreigner.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    26 January 2012 at 12:21 pm

                    If only we could do what we want to foreign interests without repercussions.

                    Pity we’ve signed up to various trade agreements and treaties, isn’t it?

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    26 January 2012 at 1:00 pm

                    How about this then; Sell the land to overseas investors. See if there becomes an issue with profit/product repatriation.

                    We’ve already done so, we’ve seen the problem (Increased poverty in NZ despite producing more than enough for ourselves), you RWNJs want to keep making the same mistakes.

                • insider …
                  26 January 2012 at 1:06 pm

                  So what if I owned a farm but spent all the profits on German cars, French champagne, Hawaiian holiday homes and American hedge funds? You’d be ok with that presumably.

              • muzza …
                26 January 2012 at 10:48 am

                The fact that you assume someone who does not want NZ land/assets or Natural resources in ANY foreign hands is a lefty , is idiotic, TRY AGAIN!

                “I dont understand this racist attitude you have where it is apparantly sacrosanct to work for Murray instead of Chin Tu Fat” – I’m not a farm related worker, so I have no interest as I would not be working on the land currently regarldess of who owned, it , but I still dont want it foreign owned, so your point is, again, fucken pointless – Trying to make it racist shows what a fuck head you are KK!

                1) Behave themselves according to our laws and regulations – Who will guarentee that!
                2) Employ our people (which immigration law should take care of) – Who will gaurentee that!

                Maybe try again, this time without using such rediculous racist ideas as a debate point, or that that as much as you can offer!

              • Gosman …
                26 January 2012 at 11:17 am

                The thing is this policy is not designed to benefit the farmers. It is designed to appeal to urban voters who are easily manipulated by this sort of rubbish thinking

              • Frank Macskasy …
                31 January 2012 at 1:24 pm

                2) Employ our people (which immigration law should take care of)

                I wonder how long it’ll be before our immigration law is tested in Court, as being a violation of the FTA?

                It might well be argued that the new owners of the Crafar Farms have a right to employ their own staff, from China, rather than locals?

                There are a number of Nats/ACT supporters who would welcome workers from overseas, to drive down wages and create an “open Labour market”.

            • Gosman 6.2.1.1.2.2
              26 January 2012 at 10:51 am

              So no foreign investment at all then? Even North Korea doesn’t follow that extreme logic. Thankfully you have less chance of implementing that policy than John Key being asked to give the key note speech at the next Mana party conference.

              • muzza …
                26 January 2012 at 11:01 am

                Gosman FFS yet again, you are showing you have the thoughs of a 2 dimensional peon!

                Just because I am against our land/assets and natural resources being flogged off to ANY foreigners, so that jobs can be moved offshore, assets stripped, people layed off, slave labour hired instead of kiwis, further attacks on NZ’s soverignty via corporatisation….does not hence mean that I am against all foreign investment!

                You should ask for your support job back on the desk bro, because you need to go learn some basic thinking!

                • Gosman …
                  26 January 2012 at 11:20 am

                  Good to see you aren’t agains foreign investment. So why are you against foreign investment in farm land as opposed to foreign investment in say a Brewer of beer?

                  • vto …
                    26 January 2012 at 11:24 am

                    That has already been explained gosman. Now how about you do some explaining of the benefits of renting from a foreign landlord compared to owning.

                    • Gosman …
                      26 January 2012 at 11:35 am

                      So you think someone owning any property in NZ shouldn’t be overseas do you? Interesting then because I know a number of people who rented their house out while they left NZ. Many of them don’t look like they are coming back for a while. Should they be forced to sell their house because they are no longer resident?

                    • vto …
                      26 January 2012 at 11:40 am

                      That is not answering the question.

                      You are avoiding it because you well know there is no advantage in renting from a foreign landlord over owning.

                      You are a bloody useless waste of time. Out.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      26 January 2012 at 12:23 pm

                      The advantage to renting, anything, is that the owner takes on all risk while the renter pays for the use of the asset. Normally the rent paid is supposed to cover the risk to the owner (and generate ‘a return’) but in practice it can’t sufficiently compensate the owner from all risks.

                      There is a clear reason for why allowing a foreigner to own farmland in NZ and then renting it back is safer than buying it directly: if the bottom falls out of the market and land prices correct back to where they should be, it is the foreigner that takes the majority of the loss, not the renter.

                      Now as for your example of people overseas renting their houses out: clearly a NZ citizen living in Australia with a rental property is vastly different from a German citizen and businessman buying up rural farming property.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 12:52 pm

                      Plenty of businesses rent their land from foreign landlords. How many companies operating in office blocks actually own them. Plenty of businesses sell their own properties then rent them back. I’m assuming those companies actually know what they are doing and are making decisions that serve their interests. Why do you think they are stupid?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 January 2012 at 1:56 pm

                      I’m assuming those companies actually know what they are doing and are making decisions that serve their interests. Why do you think they are stupid?

                      Dumb context.

                      Ask those businesses: would you prefer to own the building you are in or just lease it.

                      Or ask your residential tennants: would you prefer to keep renting or would you prefer to own your own house.

                      What do you reckon the answer will be?

                      The fact we have sold of large swathes of our residential and commerical real estate overseas does NOT make it alright to sell the rest of our country overseas.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 2:06 pm

                      So why have many of the Pak and Save supermarkets sold the land they developed to other people and then entered long term leases? Why have the banks sold most of their branches and done the same? They have obviously asked that question and concluded they prefer renting. Why is your genius lost on them?

                      Excatly how much of our residential real estate is owned overseas?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 January 2012 at 2:20 pm

                      Wow – you are making a case for us becoming a nation of renters. THis makes sense as you work on behlaf of the landlord class.

                      Those corporates sold the land off because it is more profitable for them to do so. But they didn’t sell their business off and then rent their business back, did they.

                      NB in a farm, the land IS THE FUCKING BUSINESS

                      You really are a business illiterate Righty

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:17 pm

                      I love how you make wild and unsubstantiated accusations to try and cover up your ignorant failures

                      “Ask those businesses: would you prefer to own the building you are in or just lease it.

                      …

                      What do you reckon the answer will be?”

                      Asked and answered http://www.bayleys.co.nz/Our_Services/Commercial_Industrial_Retail/News/Foodstuffs_supermarkets.htm . WHy was their answer so different from yours. Do you really think they are struggling under the yoke of being renters? Alternative realities maybe? Or perhaps they pay the bills and you don’t.

                      PS the land is no more the business of a farm than the machinery is the business for a factory owner.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      26 January 2012 at 3:52 pm

                      So your reply is an answer put up by land agents who profit from the sale of property. That’s smart.

                      Now answer my point.

                      In all your examples the land is not the business. A supermarket selling the land its on is not selling the business.

                      Selling farm land is on IS SELLING THE BUSINESS.

                      PS the land is no more the business of a farm than the machinery is the business for a factory owner.

                      LOL not, what a way to shoot yourself in the foot

                      What happens to factories when they sell their machinery? They end up CLOSING DOWN.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:09 pm

                      Last I heard big chunks of land are really quite an important part of running a successful supermarket. They don’t float in air. If the owner sells the land and then forgets to lease it back they have effectively sold the business and end up closing down – sorry that should be “CLOSING DOWN.”

                      Are you saying there are no farmers out there leasing the land they farm on and no factory owners leasing tools and machinery to run their businesses?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:37 am

                      Insider you fucking moron the land the supermarket is on is NOT the business; for a farm the land IS the business.

                      But of course you’re just being deliberately obtuse 🙂

                  • muzza …
                    26 January 2012 at 11:46 am

                    Again Gosman, nor did I say I was for foreign investment! I would want to look at it on a case by case basis, with the core criteria of “what will is add in a positive way to NZ”

      • mik e 6.2.2
        26 January 2012 at 9:48 pm

        Its sounds like your the Chinese govts Chief propagandist goose

      • mik e 6.2.3
        27 January 2012 at 10:34 pm

        Bring in the race card

      • mik e 6.2.4
        28 January 2012 at 12:38 am

        Racist incitement Goose stepper

    • Jackal 6.3
      26 January 2012 at 10:03 am

      Being that China has destroyed much of their productive land, I have no problem with being more prejudiced against them and other countries that have been environmentally self destructive.

      • Gosman 6.3.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:54 am

        How much is much and where is your evidence they have destroyed it?

        • Lanthanide 6.3.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 12:25 pm

          China doesn’t have a very good history when it comes to environmental protection, Gosman.

          • Gosman 6.3.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 5:16 pm

            Ummmm… neither did the Europeans when they industrialised. Parts of Europe became wastelands. Were they destroyed though? I’d suggest not.

            • Jackal 6.3.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 10:09 am

              That all depends on your definition of destruction. I’m not saying they destroyed their environment so it no longer exists, I’m saying they destroyed much of their environments organic structure through over utilization and pollution so it’s no longer fertile and cannot be used to grow crops etc. Do a google search if you need some evidence of this.

              • Gosman …
                27 January 2012 at 10:29 am

                I call BS. Id suggest the land is not unusable anymore than land in Europe became unusable as a result of industrialisation and over use. Land recovers. I might take time and/or a lot of inputs but you don’t ‘destroy’ land.

                • Jackal …
                  27 January 2012 at 4:15 pm

                  That’s a nice little fairytale you live in there Gosman, but unfortunately land can be destroyed. Once it becomes too polluted the natural recovery process you mentioned no longer works. It can be dug up and put through a few highly expensive processes, but why would you bother when countries like New Zealand are offering new land for a bargain… where the purchaser will have even less reason not to pollute.

            • mik e 6.3.1.1.1.2
              27 January 2012 at 10:38 pm

              The amount of bullshit you produce goose its on the industrial scale your mind is a waste land

      • insider 6.3.2
        26 January 2012 at 1:09 pm

        China is a massive food producer and exporter. Look at the origin of some of the tinned fruit and vegetables in local shops. Not bad for a country that has ruined its land.

        • Colonial Viper 6.3.2.1
          26 January 2012 at 2:23 pm

          lolz

          been feeding your new baby Chinese milk powder mate?

        • Matt 6.3.2.2
          26 January 2012 at 4:45 pm

          He shoots, he misses!

          Yeah I buy all my tinned melamine fruit and lead flavored toothpaste from China.

          • insider 6.3.2.2.1
            26 January 2012 at 5:45 pm

            Yeah that melamine simply leaks out of ruined chinese land, as opposed to being bought from a chemical plant and deliberately blended in. But don’t let reality of China’s export food trade get in the way of your good story.

            • Colonial Viper 6.3.2.2.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 5:49 pm

              insider – you’re a fucking joke and traitor to your own community. You are creating a fiefdom owned by foreign barons, land which will be worked by your children and their children as indentured labour.

              A new report on environmental pollution in China has shown that around ten per cent of the country’s farmland is heavily contaminated with lead, zinc, and other heavy metals.

              China’s Southern Metropolitan Daily reports that Wan Bentai, the chief engineer for China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that “in total about 10 percent of farmland has striking problems of heavy metal levels exceeding (government) limits,” according to Reuters. “In recent years, there have constantly been outbreaks of heavy metal pollution, and from January to February alone there were 11 incidents, nine involving lead,” he told a conference in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities.

              http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/tenth_chinese_farmland_polluted/

          • mik e 6.3.2.2.2
            27 January 2012 at 10:40 pm

            Contaminated garlic and brocoli

    • Hateatea 6.4
      26 January 2012 at 6:49 pm

      This seems to me that Labour is attempting to adopt an anti-Chinese position, akin to Winston of yesteryear.

      Why assume a negative? Surely it is equally valid to see Labour as Pro NZ ownership and pro Maori ownership. Not that I am a champion of anything to do with Michael Fay but the land trusts interested in the NZ consortium are farming trusts so it would seem preferrable (to me anyway) that they should be encouraged rather than discouraged. They also have traditional relationships with some of the area under offer

  7. just saying 7
    26 January 2012 at 9:48 am

    There is something almost poetic about Labour supporting Michael Fay again at this point in its history.

    If New Zealand’s productive land has become unaffordable for local farmers, the government must act to protect NZs long-term interests and buy the land and lease it out for as long as is necessary.

    • Gosman 7.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:51 am

      Whose money will they use to buy the land? Will they borrow this from the Chinese?

      • just saying 7.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:56 am

        Depends on the rate,
        Another cost benefit analysis.

      • Draco T Bastard 7.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 1:04 pm

        The government can print the money without interest.

        • insider 7.1.2.1
          26 January 2012 at 1:22 pm

          A bit like Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany?

          • Draco T Bastard 7.1.2.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 1:40 pm

            Nope, more like how the private banks presently print money.

            • Gosman 7.1.2.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 2:10 pm

              Basically like a giant State owned bank which would likely go bust and which the Government would have to bail it out. By the way can you name me any country in the world that has followed your prescription ?

              • Colonial Viper …
                26 January 2012 at 2:27 pm

                The US with their Colonial Scrip, the UK with their tally sticks, Libya proposed the gold back African Dinar

                Letting the private banking system control the printing of money via the issuance of debt is insane.

                NB its the *private* banks and financial firms which have been going bust Gosman, or have you not been paying attention?

                MF Global, Lehman Bros, Bear Sterns, AIG,…

                • Jum …
                  26 January 2012 at 11:41 pm

                  Colonial Viper,

                  Well said. Gosman really is losing it. All the rightwingers are really pushing this racist thing. They obviously know a lot about being racist. They also know a lot about being ageist, and are really, really good at misogynistic and child punishment policies.

                  ‘felix 39.4
                  26 January 2012 at 9:04 pm

                  There are four people bringing the nationality of the Chinese purchaser into this thread.

                  insider, The Baron, Gosman, and Wayne.

                  End of.’

                  Sucking little Imps.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                26 January 2012 at 4:02 pm

                The government can’t actually go bust which is why capitalists like loaning them so much money. Now, that doesn’t mean that there can’t be too much money in circulation but the government can, and should, control that through taxes.

                By the way can you name me any country in the world that has followed your prescription?

                Yeah, the old but nobody’s done it before, WAAAH argument typical from RWNJs which, as CV points out, is wrong anyway. The whole point is that the present economic system doesn’t fucken work and so we need to look at producing one that does which means new ideas – ones that may not have been tried before.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  26 January 2012 at 5:52 pm

                  Govt can also withdraw access cash from the economy via mandatory retirement savings and increasing bank reserve capital requirements.

                  All in all its dead easy to pull cash out of an economy if that is what is required in a given month.

          • mik e 7.1.2.1.2
            28 January 2012 at 12:50 am

            Inside T raider The US and Europe As well as the UK have all printed various amounts of money!
            :one to start the flow of capital again
            :two to devalue their currency to reduce imports increase exports
            :Corporate welfare the banks won’t so the govt has to corporate Black mail otherwise system collapse Banksters Know this so they hold out.
            :Banks before the collapse were aloud to print up to 90% of their deposits that now has been reduced to as low as 60% in some cases!
            Both Zimbabwe and the German weimar repuplic were isolated from the international community so had no income.
            God you should go back to troll school an learn some facts.

      • mik e 7.1.3
        27 January 2012 at 10:42 pm

        Our money that we have spent on their junk thats now filling up our landfill and is valueless

    • insider 7.2
      26 January 2012 at 10:00 am

      Problem is the Crafar farms weren’t that productive. They were marginal for dairy and so went under.

      • just saying 7.2.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:33 am

        Free range pigs, hens, sheep, goats, deer, llamas, cropping….

        Only the government can stop farmers from primarily farming for capital gains. Should they wait till we’re down to our last 100 farms?

        How close are we now?

      • felix 7.2.2
        26 January 2012 at 4:46 pm

        Yeah because there’s NOTHING that land could be used for apart from what the Crafars were doing.

        Fuck you guys are so slow. No wonder you swallow all this neo-lib bullshit so easily.

      • Matt 7.2.3
        26 January 2012 at 4:48 pm

        Oh that’s interesting, since Pengxin’s application states that they are:

        “targeting the farms being within the top 10 per cent in terms of performance in productivity and sustainability measures”.

      • mik e 7.2.4
        26 January 2012 at 9:54 pm

        Insider trading was the problem a bank loan shark lending delinquents delinquently for personal gain those loans wouldn’t go ahead these days because the banks want more info on your credit worthiness.Personal gain by bank salesman. Insider your just full of bull why don’t you moove over to whaleoil where they appreciate it.

      • mik e 7.2.5
        28 January 2012 at 12:58 am

        Bankers and wankers don’t make good farmers.But I bet you the loan manager for the crafars loans made some very good commissions on these dubious loans and should be in jail!

  8. King Kong 8
    26 January 2012 at 9:51 am

    Next thing you know they will be taking the farms they bought back to China. Sneaky bastards!

    Edit: Beat me to it Gosman

    • mik e 8.1
      28 January 2012 at 7:27 pm

      King Kong the Kluless its much easier to just make a bank transaction and take the profit missing link I suggest you change your name you make obese gorillas look intelligent.

  9. Uturn 9
    26 January 2012 at 9:58 am

    Is this going to be a thread full of Gosman denying the influence of money on politics, the denial of any political option other than free market capitalism and staging all his arguments from the perspective of the advantageous position? Thought so. Will it be going on long?

    • Bored 9.1
      26 January 2012 at 10:19 am

      Thanks UTurn, I was tempted to answer Gos and KK but after yesterdays efforts from TS I realised that the intractability of these nut bars is to be avoided. Getting through their craniums and leaving any indentation might require diamond edged tools.

    • Gosman 9.2
      26 January 2012 at 10:20 am

      Where have I ever denied that money influences politics?

      I make no apologies for my political perspective just as I wouldn’t expect you to apologise for being a leftist.

    • felix 9.3
      26 January 2012 at 11:57 am

      “Will it be going on long?”

      He usually ties himself in irreconcilable contradictions within 20 mins or so. Point one out and off he fucks.

      • Gosman 9.3.1
        26 January 2012 at 2:15 pm

        Yet to see any irreconcilable contradictions being pointed out other than people like myself pointing out the problems with making this simply about farmland as opposed to any sort of foreign investment.

        • felix 9.3.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 2:24 pm

          It’s not about investment Gosman, it’s about ownership.

          As you know.

          • Gosman 9.3.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 2:41 pm

            And yet noone has effectively pointed out why owning a farm is somehow different to owning a Supermarket, or Media outlet, or online Trading website. That is the inherent contradiction in this argument.

            The closest someone got was to try and argue that overseas farmers might be able to start using the land for something else like mining and take all the minerals for themselves. How rubbish is that argument?

            • thatguynz 9.3.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 3:22 pm

              Oh boy, you really do seem to need to be handheld don’t you Gos. To follow your lead, perhaps I could ask you some questions…

              1) Have food prices increased dramatically over the past year or so?
              2) Has the general standard of living for all NZ’ers (not just the top 5%) improved or declined over the same time period?
              3) Is the world population (and NZ’s for that matter) steadily increasing?
              4) Are there any studies that have hypothesized that food supply is likely to be stretched to feed the global population well inside the next 50-100 years?
              5) Would you suggest that food production is likely to become absolutely pivotal to both economic and societal survival?

              If you can answer those questions with any modicum of truth and fact and then still draw a conclusion that food producing land is best sold to offshore interests then I’m sorry – your ideology has blinded you.

              • insider …
                26 January 2012 at 4:24 pm

                1) Have food prices increased dramatically over the past year or so?

                Nope. About 2.9% last year, similar to the rate of inflation

                2) Has the general standard of living for all NZ’ers (not just the top 5%) improved or declined over the same time period?

                Did you miss there was a global recession on?

                3) Is the world population (and NZ’s for that matter) steadily increasing?

                Gosh that’s a hard one. I’ll go for yes, because I think the trend line over the last 10,000 years is pretty well established.

                4) Are there any studies that have hypothesized that food supply is likely to be stretched to feed the global population well inside the next 50-100 years?

                Bound to have been some nutjob like Atack or Allknowthetruth hypothesizing all over the place. We’re all supposed to be dead according to Malthus. Have I got news for him.

                5) Would you suggest that food production is likely to become absolutely pivotal to both economic and societal survival?

                If you don’t eat you don’t sheet; if you don’t sheet, you die. Everyone being dead is not good for the economy (unless your name is malthus).

                Your point?

                • Colonial Viper …
                  26 January 2012 at 5:57 pm

                  OMG you are an idiot. The wall is coming mate, and the end of industrial agriculture is not far away.

                  If you don’t eat you don’t sheet; if you don’t sheet, you die. Everyone being dead is not good for the economy (unless your name is malthus).

                  Yes because the economy is the most important thing at the top of the pyramid, the very pinnacle of the hierarchy which we should subordinate all else in society to. Not.

                  4) Are there any studies that have hypothesized that food supply is likely to be stretched to feed the global population well inside the next 50-100 years?

                  Industrial agriculture is over in 10-15 years, at which point productivity per ha. will plummet.

              • Populuxe1 …
                26 January 2012 at 7:18 pm

                “Would you suggest that food production is likely to become absolutely pivotal to both economic and societal survival?”
                 
                Well, I doubt we’ll be doing much exporting if there’s no oil. Nor will any Chinese (or anyone else for that matter) owners. If it really was that pivotal that we needed that land for food production we’d simply apply Eminent Domain and take the land back. Anyway New Zealand’s population is more or less static and we could certainly feed ourselves regardless. While in principle I’m against foreign land ownership simply because no other country permits it and therefore it isn’t reciprocal, I fail to understand your hysteria. It really is coming across as a bit racist.

                • thatguynz …
                  26 January 2012 at 7:22 pm

                  “I fail to understand your hysteria. It really is coming across as a bit racist.”

                  Absolute baloney. I can assure you I am neither hysterical nor racist and in fact you detract from your own argument by suggesting as much..

                  • Populuxe1 …
                    26 January 2012 at 8:56 pm

                    OK, fair enough. I apologise for the slur regarding racism, but your tone what getting a wee bit frantic nonetheless.

            • felix 9.3.1.1.1.2
              26 January 2012 at 3:55 pm

              “And yet noone has effectively pointed out why owning a farm is somehow different to owning a Supermarket, or Media outlet, or online Trading website.”

              Did I say there was a difference, moron?

            • Colonial Viper 9.3.1.1.1.3
              26 January 2012 at 4:02 pm

              And yet noone has effectively pointed out why owning a farm is somehow different to owning a Supermarket, or Media outlet, or online Trading website. That is the inherent contradiction in this argument.

              At least the Chinese understand the concept of hard productive assets with long term strategic importance. And value those assets enough to understand why paying top dollar for them is still a great deal for China.

              Even if NZers like Gos don’t.

            • Draco T Bastard 9.3.1.1.1.4
              26 January 2012 at 6:02 pm

              There’s no difference – it’s all bad. In fact, it’s that type of ownership model that is the cause of poverty and it’s been that way for at least 5000 years. Time we learned from the past and dropped the capitalist model.

  10. XChequer 10
    26 January 2012 at 10:23 am

    “During its nine years in power, Labour allowed 650,000ha to be sold; in 20 months National has approved the sale of 31,000ha.”

    Ahhh, so you only just NOW come to the conclusion that its bad to sell the land.

    • Bored 10.1
      26 January 2012 at 10:32 am

      Pleased you point that out: from my perspective Labour in 9 years failed to take a single brave position to roll back the neo lib economics introduced by their own RWNJ Roger many years previously. They also failed to repudiate the “free trade” treaties that underpin our position as a vassal state to international capital.

      The excuse I kept hearing was that “it was’nt possible, the consequences would mean electoral failure”. The result is that we remain “colonised” by foreign capital. The Chinese wont as KK suggests take the land away, they might just come here in a tour de force..

      • Gosman 10.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 11:24 am

        Has the Labour party changed it’s position on any of the Free trade treaties it signed while in government?

        • Bored 10.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 1:42 pm

          I don’t know where Labour is at…from where I see it they might claim to be “centre-left” which is debatable, you claim they are “left” which shows how warped your thinking is. You should get out in the real world a little more.

      • Jassen 10.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 1:29 pm

        Huh? Talk about talking around the answer.

        The question was “When did your moral high ground change?” Is the view of all of labour or only the few remaining stalwarts voting for them?

        • Bored 10.1.2.1
          26 January 2012 at 1:52 pm

          Talking around the question….no, if you read it you will note I damn Labour big time . Any “moral” position based upon how much you have sold is crap…you have still sold it.

  11. js 11
    26 January 2012 at 10:28 am

    Just a thought. Which will be better for the environment – management by Landcorp for Chinese landlords, or farming by a variety of NZ investors?

  12. insider 12
    26 January 2012 at 10:40 am

    Labour is philosophically bereft on this issue – they want to protect so called productive farm land by not allowing it to be sold, yet bang on about how we have to get out of relying on farming for our economic future. Surely if they want to protect productive land, the most productive land they should be protecting is that occupied by the manufacturers and knowledge workers, and scientists; after all that is the way Shearer wants to grow the economic pie. He said increasing dairy is not the way forward. If so, why does he want to ringfence so called ‘productive’ farmland? That’s a very backward view.

    • Carol 12.1
      26 January 2012 at 10:49 am

      I’m not very keen on the Labour notion of “growing the pie” when the future is about sustainability. But there’s also a difference between the concept of maintaining the productivity of the farming sector while securing the benefits for Kiwis, and “growing the pie” in scientific and manufacturing sectors.

      • muzza 12.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 11:25 am

        Carol – correct again. Growing the pie is a terrible phrase to have used, and indicates that the leaderhsip are beholden to failed economic models!

        Ive referred to such issues as continuity of agenda, that being you can see National had continued on where Labour last left off, and so it goes on!

        We are being soled out on all sides !

  13. Hami Shearlie 13
    26 January 2012 at 10:43 am

    The only profit will be for the receivers. China will bring in its own workers so not even jobs will be there for kiwis. Landcorp should own the farms, then all the profits will go to the Govt – essentially all kiwis!

    • Gosman 13.1
      26 January 2012 at 11:30 am

      Yeah the Government should nationalise all farm land immediately and then begin a massive land redistribution exercise by leasing the land back to the 99% who are oppressed by the 1%. Only then can we really reclaim our sovereignty and ensure economic prosperity. The land is the economy and the economy is the land! Now where have I seen this sort of thing before ….?

    • johnm 13.2
      26 January 2012 at 1:37 pm

      Hi Hami Shearli
      I agree with you. This Key Government slavishly follows the globalised free market impoverishment route. Selling the land to the Chinese means profits go to China and they can even import workers there, rather than kiwis(many ways the farms will be an extension of the Chinese not NZ economy). Locals will feel alienated when they sea local land owned by foreigners. yes the solution is for the Government to buy the land for all kiwis. same logic of selling off our Power Companies to make foreign investors wealthier. Poor New Zealand sold off by its greedy money worshipping profit obsessed elites.

  14. randal 14
    26 January 2012 at 11:30 am

    so this is what we get in return for cheap undies and t-shirts?

  15. Gosman 15
    26 January 2012 at 11:31 am

    What? Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in unproductive farms.

    • Colonial Viper 15.1
      26 January 2012 at 2:30 pm

      “Unproductive farms” lol

      You really don’t understand the future do you? Thank god the Chinese get it and are preparing for it. Exchanging worthless printed USD for food producing assets.

      Gosh you really are a simpleton. The Chinese are preparing for a long future while pakeha corporates just worry about making a buck today.

  16. beachbum 16
    26 January 2012 at 11:38 am

    I thought David Farrars article about Winston Peters and the Farm deal was very funny.

    A previous comment above….“During its nine years in power, Labour allowed 650,000ha to be sold; in 20 months National has approved the sale of 31,000ha.”

    If this is true does this mean Labour has had a change of policy?

    • Colonial Viper 16.1
      26 January 2012 at 2:31 pm

      Labour had a very clear election policy – land over the size of 5 ha. would be turned down for overseas sale, as the default decision.

    • DJL 16.2
      26 January 2012 at 9:04 pm

      20 months? Where does that number come from? Is that just a number of convenience perhaps. Just like the 650,000

  17. felix 17
    26 January 2012 at 11:46 am

    Anyone wonder why Gosman is so desperate to see NZ flogged off to overseas owners?

    • Gosman 17.1
      26 January 2012 at 12:57 pm

      I don’t care one way or the other who owns NZ farmland. So to try and turn this argument around and state that I want it to be sold overseas has no basis in reality. Much like many of your views felix.

      • felix 17.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 2:13 pm

        Only have to read a handful of your enormous number of comments today to see that that’s a lie.

        It’s obvious you think selling NZ to overseas owners is a good idea or you wouldn’t be bothering.

        • Gosman 17.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 2:22 pm

          I’d suggest this is only obvious for someone with an extremely narrow minded view of the world such as yourself felix.

          Your argument reeks of idiotic simplicity, much as I suspect the rest of your life does.

          • felix 17.1.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 4:01 pm

            Oh noez you’re so right.

            You’ve actually spent your entire day vehemently arguing on this page over foreign ownership because you “don’t care one way or the other” about it.

            What a silly goose I’ve been not to have seen that from the start.

  18. randal 18
    26 January 2012 at 12:07 pm

    he is being payed to spout the party line.
    if you read his posts he knows everything, done everything and been everywhere.
    he is some sort of guy.
    he just wants money so he can spend it and get stroked by shop assistants.

  19. Georgecom 19
    26 January 2012 at 12:36 pm

    All I seemed to hear from Key was “Labour this, Labout that”. Can one of the National supporters in this thread please have a quiet word with Key and explain to him that he is now the Prime Minister and responsible for making decisions.

  20. ropata 20
    26 January 2012 at 12:45 pm

    http://roger2011whowillwin.blogspot.com/2011/12/accomplice-award.html

    The Government was nominated for the Accomplice Award in its own right (in addition to accompanying both Sajo Oyang and Telecom). To quote the nomination: “for helping to create the conditions allowing the Rena wreck and the Pike River disaster through their policies of de-regulation, privatisation and the encouragement of sales to foreign transnationals.

    If, at the macroeconomic level, New Zealand’s 20 odd year adherence to the neoliberal agenda has been an abject failure, at the microeconomic level the tools of neo-liberalism have wrought havoc in the past 12 months. Whether it is Pike River, the Rena, the offshore fishing industry the underpinning problem, the cause of the problem is neo-liberalism and its dogmatic adherents.

    “Denying all notions of solidarity, cooperation, mutuality and participatory democracy, neo-liberalism affords primacy to the market; is hostile to collectivism (collective bargaining, worker-based health and safety initiatives), pursues a low wage economy and affords a privileged status to investors and their agents, management. Pike River: light-handed regulation, minimal standards, anti-worker (i.e. the removal of worker health and safety reps), managerial prerogative. Rena: flags of convenience, low wage labour, loss of cabotage. Fishing industry: flags of convenience, low wage labour, loss of cabotage”.

  21. Gosman 21
    26 January 2012 at 12:54 pm

    By the way how did Labour go in the provinces, (i.e. in the rural areas), in the last election?

    Do you think many Famers are going to swap their vote on this issue or is this all about pandering to the urban electorate?

    • The Voice of Reason 21.1
      26 January 2012 at 1:07 pm

      Labour now have twice the number of provincial seats than they had in the previous Parliament, Gossie. And they’ll have lot more when this Government collapses.

      • Jassen 21.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 1:37 pm

        So they went up from 1 to 2? That’s twice the number. That’s how statistics work isn’t it?

        What percentage of Rural vote did they get? How popular are they? As popular as a rifle at a Kennedy get together I’m afraid.

        • The Voice of Reason 21.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 1:46 pm

          You spoiled my fun, Jassen! Gossie isn’t bright enough to look up the results on the interwebs, so I thought I would have had him worried for days.
           
          There were some other good provincial results, though, notably in Rangitikei, where the Labour candidate carved thousands off the Tory vote. However, that result has caused a bit of angst in the commentariat, as it was Josie Pagani doing the good work there, and we all know that her hubby John is the devil incarnate.

      • muzza 21.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 1:38 pm

        Which of course will save this country eh voice!

    • Frank Macskasy 21.2
      27 January 2012 at 11:42 pm

      Irrelevant deflection, Gosman.

    • mik e 21.3
      28 January 2012 at 1:01 am

      Groseman what sort of famers are you talking about.

  22. prism 22
    26 January 2012 at 1:00 pm

    @Insider @ 12.52 pm under muzza at 11 ish am (No numbering to refer to).
    It’s such a pity that you can’t think around a problem, can’t see the big picture. I wonder if you will ever be able to challenge your own ideas and make room for wider concepts. In this case that it isn’t a good idea for large chunks of NZ to be owned by landlords in foreign countries.

    By the way Jamaica used to be a sugar producer largely owned by British absentee landlords.
    They were only interested in profit and their slaves were ruled by foreign mercenaries, and the conditions were worse than the slave working on massa’s plantation in the USA. Being poor is a slave like condition Insider and we are going along a path that is taking too many of us, down in living standards below what we could reasonably expect in a well-run country.

    • insider 22.1
      26 January 2012 at 1:20 pm

      Don’t be so patronising prism. Most of the foreign owned banks in NZ don’t own their buildings, even the branches they solely occupy. These have been sold off to local and foreign buyers. Many locally owned supermarkets don’t own their buildings. They too have been sold off. Amazing how these foreign and local people apparantly don’t have any “room for wider concepts” and came to the same conclusion that ownership wasn’t important to them.

      Amazing how people think that a foreigner paying NZers for land is bad but NZers paying foreigners for land is virtuous. Can you explain the miraculous ‘wider concept’ that fundamentally turns one of these processes to gold and the other to straw?

      • Lanthanide 22.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 1:32 pm

        “Amazing how people think that a foreigner paying NZers for land is bad but NZers paying foreigners for land is virtuous. Can you explain the miraculous ‘wider concept’ that fundamentally turns one of these processes to gold and the other to straw?”

        Clearly NZers being foreign land is good for NZ as a whole, but may not be good for the foreign country that used to own that land.

        Also NZ is a very small country with a small population very far away from most of our major trading partners. Thus investing in NZ land has a much larger impact on the country as a whole than investing in land in say Germany or France.

        • insider 22.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 1:50 pm

          It’s not clear to me that it is a good in and of itself. If I own a piece of contaminated and unusable land in Germany, how does that benefit NZ?

          NZ is a small population with relatively large land mass. What has the most economic impact; selling some bankrupt farms or selling Trade Me? Why is intellectual property not subject to the same scrutiny and logic as dirt?

          • felix 22.1.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 2:15 pm

            If only we were discussing selling off all the “contaminated and unusable land” in NZ then you’d have a point.

            But we aren’t, so you don’t.

            • insider 22.1.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 2:24 pm

              Clearly you think you have a point and it’s relevant; but you don’t so it isn’t

              • felix …
                26 January 2012 at 2:33 pm

                My point is that your unusable contaminated land in Germany is irrelevant to the discussion.

                As you know.

                If you wanted to compare apples and apples you’d have said “profitable, productive land in Germany”.

                But you didn’t, because you don’t.

                • Gosman …
                  26 January 2012 at 2:52 pm

                  Were the Crafer farms profitable?

                • insider …
                  26 January 2012 at 3:12 pm

                  IF you had read the exchange you would have seen Lanth say: “Clearly NZers being foreign land is good for NZ as a whole”. There was no mention of productive or profitable or any other qualifier. Ownership was the good, no matter what the state of the land, not profitability. It again illustrated the sloganeering and lack of thought that goes into this ‘no farms for foreigners’ line that many Standardistas take. It now seems you are ok with foreigners owning unprofitable land.

                  • felix …
                    26 January 2012 at 4:05 pm

                    “IF you had read the exchange…”

                    Oh noez Lanth WAS actually talking about non-productive, contaminated land all along but I was too stupid to notice! Thank fuck you were there to clarify that for him, you noble Samaritan.

                    “It now seems you are ok with foreigners owning unprofitable land.”

                    Interesting take, especially seeing as as haven’t said anything of the sort. Perhaps you should join Gosman in the remedial reading class.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:15 pm

                      Show where Lanth qualified what kind of land s/he was discussing. Should be easy, what with you being such a good reader and all. Stanine 9?

                    • felix …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:29 pm

                      I don’t have to dickhead, you’re the one who tried to redefine “land” to mean “contaminated and unproductive land”.

                      Not the other way around . FFS.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      26 January 2012 at 4:53 pm

                      Obviously I made no particular mention of the type of land being bought by the NZers. Clearly therefore I was talking about an apples to apples comparison and in general terms; so comparing foreigners buying up productive land in the NZ to NZers buying up “contaminated and unusable land” offshore is a complete distraction to the issue we’re trying to discuss.

                      Frankly, you’re a troll.

                    • insider …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:18 pm

                      Well if you call saying that contaminated and unproductive land can reasonably be described as ‘land’ (with form, subtance and title) is the same as saying it is the single and definitive type of ‘land’, then I might agree with you. But it’s not, so I won’t.

                      Whereas you seem to be saying contaminated and unproductive land just doesn’t count in a discussion about land ownership because it is some form of non land, and you were talking about ‘LAND’.

                      @ Lanth

                      Yeah it was ‘obviously clear’ given you made no mention of it. Obviously. The only thing obvious is that this is not about consistency or principles of ownership, it’s about petty nationalism and fear of the boogie man foreigner.

                    • felix …
                      26 January 2012 at 6:50 pm

                      Lanth is right, you are a fucking troll.

                      “The only thing obvious is that this is not about consistency or principles of ownership”

                      Guess what, insider? I am in favour of policies that give NZ a competitive advantage over other countries.

                      WOW what a concept. Must be a joke. Back to worshiping the gods of the non-existent global free market then.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      26 January 2012 at 8:21 pm

                      You took a reasonable statement from me that any normal person would make in this sort of argument and took a straw-man position on it and wasted all this time arguing over the straw man you created.

                      I’m not sure why you think you’re so clever for having done that.

    • muzza 22.2
      26 January 2012 at 1:49 pm

      Prism – What sort of BS statemements did you just make…Lets take a look.

      Your argument reads like this – “We must sell to whoever will buy our stuff because the country is getting poorer, and we don’t all want to end up poor” – You don’t understand basic concepts do you, you are already a slave, you just can’t understand the reasons why!

      Like Gosman using Zimbabwe incorrectly, are you worried that NZ will or will not become like Jamaica or the USA (plantations), you seem to contradict yourself.

      If we sell off our sovereignty, which is what we are talking about here via land and ability to self sustain, then one day the slave you currently dont think you are, will be all to obvious!

      • Gosman 22.2.1
        26 January 2012 at 2:34 pm

        I’m starting to suspect you might have a small learning disability Muzza.

        You not only make up stuff such as a $26 billion derivative fraud involving the former Greek PM but you fail to understand why I brought Greece and Zimbabwe situation in to this discussion.

        The reason was to highlight that taking control of ones assets such as land and/or key enterprises doesn’t guarrantee that you will remain sovereign.

        Both of those examples I gave followed variations of the policy I suspect you advocate yet are now being forced to give up sovereignty over key areas of their economy.

        In short your policies don’t guarrantee squat in relation to sovereignty.

  23. Karl Sinclair 23
    26 January 2012 at 1:16 pm

    For the first time in Greece a documentary produced by the audience. Debtocracy seeks the causes of the debt crisis and proposes solutions, hidden by the government and the dominant media.

    http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/debtocracy/

    Enjoy lieblings

    Always remember arbiter macht frei:

    Debtocracy is a 2011 documentary film by Katerina Kitidi and Aris Hatzistefanou. The documentary mainly focuses on two points: the causes of the Greek debt crisis in 2010 and possible future solutions that could be given to the problem that are not currently being considered by the government of the country.

    Aris Hatzistefanou, 34, is accustomed to uncomfortable reporting. A journalist since his teens, his long-running show infowar on Sky Radio was canceled just as his thought-provoking documentary, Debtocracy, was released.

    From the authors: The idea came about during a Sky Radio show on how the Ecuadorian president was responding to the country’s massive debt. He started a simple financial audit of sovereign debt, and came to the conclusion that other countries were using Ecuador as a slave, like Argentina and many other countries before. The administration forced a haircut of 70% on its creditors.

    Katerina Kitidi – editor in chief of TV XS – and I decided to produce the documentary. We faced a serious funding problem but, for obvious reasons, we didn’t want to ask any political parties, companies or – even worse – banks, so we resorted to crowd-funding.

    It worked very well, we collected 8,000 euros in just 10 days, an unprecedented figure for a country like Greece, facing a serious economic crisis.

    At the beginning this project was supposed to be a mere YouTube video. But because so many professionals offered their help (musicians, video editors), and so many people donated their money, it became a real documentary. The surplus was invested in promoting the movie.

  24. randal 24
    26 January 2012 at 1:17 pm

    farmers are going to swap their vote allright now that kweeweecorp has decide to subsidise overseas milk powder producers.

  25. randal 25
    26 January 2012 at 1:20 pm

    farmers are going to swap their vote allright now that kweeweecorp has decide to subsidise overseas milk powder producers.
    the nashnil gubmint is in for a big fright.

  26. The Baron 26
    26 January 2012 at 4:06 pm

    Ah time for some more good old fashioned racism and zenophobia eh!

    Despite the fact that we’ve been selling land to foreigners hand over fist for years, under administrations of all shapes, sizes and most importantly colours, all of a sudden Chinese interest makes it all too horrible to contemplate.

    You fine warriors of the left need to take a long hard look at yourself. Oh, Labour’s learned from the past alright – nothing like a bit of good old fashioned race hate and sino-scaremongery to get voters back to loving you. Its the late 1800s all over again.

    • felix 26.1
      26 January 2012 at 4:12 pm

      No I don’t think you’ll find anyone here singling out the Chinese except you, Gosman, and a couple of the other slow kids.

      • The Baron 26.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 4:23 pm

        Pfft, whatever Felix. So why then is it happening now? Labour well knows what is going to work, and a subtle little dog whistle like this is all needed to subtlely encourage a lil bit of old fashioned asian bashing. The racist fanbois like you will do the rest.

        It is disgusting and it needs to stop. Just like your continual hate towards everyone that has ever been inside a Brethren community. God, you guys have a long list huh.

        P.S. Weird that Labour is looking for the 5% of voters that NZFirst targeted a decade ago, but who am I to judge. Next stop: Shearer saying that he doesn’t like the look of “those people” down Queen Street. Start forming the lynch mobs Felix, you and your jackboots are about to be called up!

        • Colonial Viper 26.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 4:31 pm

          At least the Chinese understand the concept and value of long term strategic hard assets, unlike you.

          • The Baron 26.1.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 5:09 pm

            Ah, just like you understand the benefit of the changes Porsche have made to the suspension in the new models. LOLZ at all those poorer people who still have the old ones.

            But it doesn’t matter, cos you make up for the fact that you’re a prize hypocrite enjoying your obscene wealth by commenting profusely on a blog about, um, how horrible the wealthy are.

            Sounds like an awesome contribution, comrade! Back to the beach house for a martini?

            • insider 26.1.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 5:57 pm

              C’mon Baron, you don’t understand the agony of class treachery CV has to go through every time he puts it in gear. Have some sympathy man.

              • Colonial Viper …
                27 January 2012 at 12:58 am

                the agony of class treachery CV has to go through every time he puts it in gear.

                Uh its a 5 speed tiptronic, the computer changes the gears actually. I did want to option the 6 speed manual but the missus can’t drive stick. Which is a bit embarrassing really. Shame, but her folks were paying for it so I didn’t have much of a say.

        • felix 26.1.1.2
          26 January 2012 at 4:34 pm

          If you’re going to make that accusation then it’s on you to show an example of “asian-bashing” by myself or anyone else you’d like to level it at.

          Can you? Didn’t think so. I think an apology is in order.

          I’m not happy about anyone from overseas buying up NZ land and assets. Didn’t like it when Labour was in govt and I don’t like it now.

          ps Address your anger at Labour to someone else. I’m not Labour as any fool knows.

          • The Baron 26.1.1.2.1
            26 January 2012 at 5:10 pm

            Oh a non-aligned racist then. Ok, consider it fixed.

            The irony of you asking for an apology is not lost on me Felix. A new classic.

            • felix 26.1.1.2.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 6:31 pm

              lol what’s “non-aligned” racism? Do you mean I’m racist toward people regardless of their race?

              Like to explain how that works, Baron? Cos it sort of seems like you’re saying it has nothing_to_do_with_race_at_all.

  27. billE 27
    26 January 2012 at 4:22 pm

    “Despite the fact that we’ve been selling land to foreigners hand over fist for years, under administrations of all shapes, sizes and most importantly colours, all of a sudden Chinese interest makes it all too horrible to contemplate.” – Baron Man

    Has it ever occurred to you that ” the times may be changing.” The turn of the century usually brings in new thinking in a direct response to the failures of the end of the last century. Economies are not wild invisible spirit creators of wealth. Income projection , job protection, image protection all need to be weighed in the new century of hopefully middleclass growth and billionaire shrinkage. Look after our key industry , especially industries that stimulate the economy towards long term jobs and profits . Profits come from more people working and consuming.

    Bad time to be selling real estate at the least ; and longterm foolish economically.

    You need to have funds flowing nicely through the onshore population.It’s good for the N.Z working soul and of course the tax take. The more activity each citizen generates in an economic system the more the infrastructure clip on the ticket and more infrastructure. Think long term , like the Chinese. We have a competitive advantage of free speech.

    • The Baron 27.1
      26 January 2012 at 4:26 pm

      But it isn’t new thinking, BillE – its the weirdo protectionism of the 1970s and 1980s coupled with the type of racism not seen here since the end of the 1800s. The former led to ruin, and the latter was as disgusting then as it is now.

      I like it that you wrapped it all up in a layer of economics befitting a 13 year old, so some points for trying to talk with the adults at least. Hush now though please.

      • Colonial Viper 27.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 4:29 pm

        Protectionism is back in vogue made, corporates love protectionism like SOPA and shutting down sites which do a lot of legit business and back cloud up, like Megaupload.com

        BTW orthodox economics is bunk, its led the world to a dead end. They should close down every economics department in every NZ university until they can revamp the curriculum and take out all the neolib free market bullshit.

      • felix 27.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 4:39 pm

        Show an example of the racism in this thread you keep accusing people of or apologise.

        Tick tock.

    • insider 27.2
      26 January 2012 at 4:28 pm

      SO free speech is a competitive advantage but freedom of action, like say being able to sell your own land to the highest bidder, is not? Talk as much as we want but don’t try to do anything.

      • felix 27.2.1
        26 January 2012 at 4:43 pm

        Ah, there’s no off position on the genius switch eh?

        Since when does “sell land to overseas owners” equal “do anything”?

        Shit how do you handle speed limits on the highway? “WAAAAAH I CAN’T DO ANYTHING!”

        What other laws are restricting your ability to “do anything”? Must be hell in there buddy.

  28. Wayne 28
    26 January 2012 at 5:34 pm

    Whatever the benefits or otherwise to New Zealand from sales of agricultural land to foreigners, I don’t think anyone here could really place their hands over their hearts and swear that the reaction would have been the same if it was white Americans or Europeans, and not the Chinese who had bid for these farms.

    The issue of land ownership rules in China (where all land is leased – to Chinese and foreigners) is beside the point, and a red herring.

    If someone offered you a million dollars for your toyota corolla, would you refuse the offer because the offer came from someone who refused to sell his ford falcon to you? Of course not.

    The decision to sell or not to sell to the Chinese, should be made purely on the benefits or otherwise to New Zealand, and not on the colour of the buyer, or the laws in the buyers country of origin.

    If the Chinese offer is good for New Zealand, take it. If on balance it is not, refuse it.

    So far about 6 to 8% of foreign investment in NZ agricultural land is from Asian countries. This is 6 to 8% of the 1% of land in foreign hands.

    The issue, at this stage, is really a non-issue.

    • Matt 28.1
      26 January 2012 at 6:33 pm

      If someone offered me a million for the corolla so I could lease it back for $100K a year in perpetuity, I would indeed refuse that offer.

    • felix 28.2
      26 January 2012 at 6:40 pm

      “I don’t think anyone here could really place their hands over their hearts and swear that the reaction would have been the same if it was white Americans or Europeans, and not the Chinese who had bid for these farms.”

      Bullshit.

      I’m not at all comfortable with Americans buying up NZ land and assets. Or Europeans. Or Australians. Or Russians. Or anyone else who’s going to send the profits offshore.

      Why is that so difficult for you lot to get your little heads around? I suggest it says more about your own feelings than anyone elses.

  29. Wayne 29
    26 January 2012 at 5:40 pm

    “Show an example of the racism in this thread you keep accusing people of or apologise”
    ”
    No one individual comment or commentator can be shown to be racist.
    But the overall reaction of New Zealanders probably does have something to do with fear of non-white people. Because you know full well that if the buyers were white European (regardless of land ownership rules in their own countries), there would hardly have been an outcry.
    Look at Hong Kong. Most of the banks, the telecommunications companies are owned by and run by foreigners. Allan Zeeman, a German Jew, one of Hong Kong’s richest men, owns most of swanky Lan Kwai Fong, the most expensive real estate in Hong Kong.
     
    Opposing foreign land sales is not a racist position to take. But it is a position which many take for racist reasons.

     
     

    • muzza 29.1
      26 January 2012 at 5:57 pm

      Wayne a fucken moron can tell that the offloading of the countrys natural or man made assets is a bad idea!

      “If the Chinese offer is good for New Zealand, take it. If on balance it is not, refuse it.”

      Nice eutopia you live in Wayne – And since when does the public get to make in informed decision with full disclosure, or have their voice listened to…really?

    • felix 29.2
      26 January 2012 at 6:43 pm

      “No one individual comment or commentator can be shown to be racist.
      But the overall reaction of New Zealanders probably does have something to do with fear of non-white people. “

      Since you’re quoting me I’ll assume that’s addressed to me.

      The Baron is accusing me of being racist, not all NZers. So I asked him to show where I was being racist, not where the rest of NZ was.

      Am I typing too fast for you mate?

    • Jum 29.3
      26 January 2012 at 9:55 pm

      wayne,

      the most fear I have felt in a while was the possibility that john key would become prime minister of New Zealand, the day I saw an article in Metro? with a picture that told me back in 2004 the sort of creature that would one day have control over New Zealanders. Believe me, that wasn’t a compliment to the thief that would come in the night to steal our dreams. A Merrill Lynch follower then a Merrill Lynch/Bank of America man now.

      You could tell back then that key was ruthless; you could read that he was neo-conservative and would ensure working New Zealanders would one day be paupers in their own country. Selling to Anyone that can control the land, and send away the profit from it without having to provide any of the produce to New Zealanders in a known period of need for food and land is the sign of a greedy and stupid man.

      And he’s white and he was born in New Zealand. He is cunning; he is not intelligent and most certainly not empathetic to the people he controls. He is my nightmare.

      • Populuxe1 29.3.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:00 pm

        “And he’s white and he was born in New Zealand.” Well there you go, he’s obviously the antichrist. On behalf of every other white person born in New Zealand, you are an arse-hat!

        • Jum 29.3.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 10:44 pm

          populuxe1

          LOL twice! And many a true word on your part about the antichrist, supposedly spoken in jest!

          • Populuxe1 29.3.1.1.1
            26 January 2012 at 10:53 pm

            As much as I dislike the man, he’s just not interesting or charismatic enough to be the antichrist. But mindlessly racist statements I dislike even more.

            • Jum 29.3.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 11:56 pm

              populuxe1,

              what ‘mindlessly racist statement’? Me saying key is white? He IS white and he IS going to gobble up my children’s SOE assets as well as allow other private owners in to control and own valuable resources – that’s not racist – that’s theft.

              • Populuxe1 …
                27 January 2012 at 12:02 am

                Oh I see – you’re borrowing the right wing trick of pretending that you’re just describing him – I’ve heard it used to excuse Steve Williams’ outburst about Tiger Woods. Basically Key’s complexion has nothing to do with him being a prick, so yes – you’re being racist.

                • Jum …
                  27 January 2012 at 12:16 am

                  populuxe1,

                  There you go again; trying to tell me what I’m thinking and being too obtuse and too narrow in your understanding to pick up on the fact that I don’t want anyone of any colour stealing assets that belong to all New Zealanders. Now go away and stand in the corner and call yourself a thick prick – arsehat.

                  • Populuxe1 …
                    27 January 2012 at 12:19 am

                    Then why say such a stupid, nasty thing in the first place? It’s just an abuse of language.

                    • Jum …
                      27 January 2012 at 12:42 am

                      populuxe1

                      Firstly, you interrupted. I did not invite you to comment on my initial comment.

                      Secondly, how could I think of key in any other way than the very manner of how he has treated me and mine. I have not yet begun to sharpen my language. I’ll be more than happy to practise on you.

                      By the way, don’t you remember using the word ‘arse-hat’ attack on me first. Not to mention ‘antichrist’ then ‘prick’. I introduced the word ‘thick’ towards you. I thought that was eminently fair given your irrational posts.

                      Feel free to apologise at any time.

                    • Populuxe1 …
                      27 January 2012 at 1:35 am

                      I’ll have to reply here:

                      Firstly, you interrupted. I did not invite you to comment on my initial comment.

                      This is a blog. You do not get to pick and choose who responds. If you don’t like it, don’t post. We like to call it freedom of speech.

                      Secondly, how could I think of key in any other way than the very manner of how he has treated me and mine. I have not yet begun to sharpen my language. I’ll be more than happy to practise on you.

                      Bring it on – the general unpleasantness of your character is beginning to show anyway. Practice away.

                      By the way, don’t you remember using the word ‘arse-hat’ attack on me first. Not to mention ‘antichrist’ then ‘prick’. I introduced the word ‘thick’ towards you. I thought that was eminently fair given your irrational posts.

                      I am a New Zealander of European descent. I was offended to be lumped in with your fellow arse-hat John Key. If the arse-hat fits…

                      Feel free to apologise at any time.

                      Don’t hold your breath…

            • felix 29.3.1.1.1.2
              27 January 2012 at 12:21 am

              “he’s just not interesting or charismatic enough to be the antichrist.”

              That’s the funny thing about hell. It’s a lot more boring than you might expect.

              • Jum …
                27 January 2012 at 1:59 am

                ***Message to POPULUXE1

                **you said‘This is a blog. You do not get to pick and choose who responds. If you don’t like it, don’t post. We like to call it freedom of speech.’

                but you said earlier “Then why say such a stupid, nasty thing in the first place? It’s just an abuse of language”. You just proved that freedom of speech is only for you I see. Irrational thinking on your part yet again.

                **you said ‘the general unpleasantness of your character’ but populuxe1, that only appears when I’m dealing with ‘thick pricks’ like you who started the bad behaviour by calling me an ‘arse-hat’. You’ve shot yourself in the foot again.

                **you said ‘I was offended to be lumped in with your fellow arse-hat John Key’. Believe me populuxe1 you are much closer to him than you think.

                **you said ‘Don’t hold your breath…’ About you understanding what people were trying to say but instead deliberately making misleading and incorrect statements? No I won’t hold my breath that you will get any better.

                Until you improve, please feel free to apologise at any time…

                • Populuxe1 …
                  27 January 2012 at 2:23 am

                   
                  Oh this is just getting silly
                   

                  but you said earlier “Then why say such a stupid, nasty thing in the first place? It’s just an abuse of language”. You just proved that freedom of speech is only for you I see. Irrational thinking on your part yet again.

                  No, perfectly rational – you are free to say what you like, however anyone is free to comment on it.
                   

                  you said ‘the general unpleasantness of your character’ but populuxe1, that only appears when I’m dealing with ‘thick pricks’ like you who started the bad behaviour by calling me an ‘arse-hat’. You’ve shot yourself in the foot again.

                   
                  Um,no – if we must resort to such schoolyard formats, you started it by insulting my race and nationality without any particularly good reason.

                  you said ‘I was offended to be lumped in with your fellow arse-hat John Key’. Believe me populuxe1 you are much closer to him than you think.

                  Well now you’re just being nasty. Boohoo 🙁
                   

                  you said ‘Don’t hold your breath…’ About you understanding what people were trying to say but instead deliberately making misleading and incorrect statements? No I won’t hold my breath that you will get any better.
                   
                  Until you improve, please feel free to apologise at any time…

                  I do hope your training wheels come off soon. I am not making any such thing and you are utterly irrational in your fixation with me – flattering (in a tedious sort of way) it may be. I have nothing to apologise for. Now shoo.

                  • Jum …
                    27 January 2012 at 2:49 am

                    populuxe1,

                    **You said ‘No, perfectly rational – you are free to say what you like, however anyone is free to comment on it.’ And so I commented. Move on dear…

                    **you said ‘Um,no – if we must resort to such schoolyard formats, you started it by insulting my race and nationality without any particularly good reason.’ Umm, nooo – YOU decided I had insulted your race and nationality – you were wrong on both counts, but you decided to attack me in particular schoolyard bully fashion and I, of course, retaliated.

                    **you said ‘Well now you’re just being nasty. Boohoo :(‘ Well, populuxe, If your arse-hat fits John Key’s arse….hat, I rest my case you really are closer to him than you think.

                    **you said ‘I do hope your training wheels come off soon. I am not making any such thing and you are utterly irrational in your fixation with me – flattering (in a tedious sort of way) it may be. I have nothing to apologise for. Now shoo.”

                    —I will take the lead – someone has to and actually tell you to piss off. But I know you won’t be able to resist this terrible slight on your character. I’ll go and put t’kettle on – it’s going to be a bumpy night…

  30. Wayne 30
    26 January 2012 at 6:02 pm

    <i>While what you say is true, I am not a fan of using the argument, because it implies that if the Chinese, in this case, were to open up land sales to foreigners, those who based there position on such premise, would then be left with having to accept the selling of NZ land.
    Better to just state a position of being for or against it, and use some other logic , as reason!</i>
    This is an excellent comment. 
    The issue of whether or not China allows foreign land sales is irrelevant.
    Are those who bring this up, saying that if the Crafar land sales could be shown to benefit New Zealand, we should refuse the offer because China does not sell land to foreigners?
    And if China did sell land to foreigners, would these people then be happy to accept Chinese ownership – even if this did not benefit New Zealand?
    Of course not.
    To sell or not to sell —it is for the seller to weigh up the potential benefits and the potential pitfalls, and then on balance come to a sensible commercial decision. What goes on inside the potential buyers home should not really factor into the decision.
     
     
     

  31. Wayne 31
    26 January 2012 at 6:04 pm

    <i>Wayne a fucken moron can tell that the offloading of the countrys natural or man made assets is a bad idea!</i>
     
    No you are the fucken moron. I never said the farms should or should not be sold. I don’t have a position on that.
    I simply said two things:

    1. the decision should have nothing to do with rules applying to foreign ownership of land in China.

    2. If it was Europeans or Americans wanting to buy, this thread would probably not exist.
     
     

    • Colonial Viper 31.1
      26 January 2012 at 6:10 pm

      2. If it was Europeans or Americans wanting to buy, this thread would probably not exist.

      That may be so. Few made similar noises when Harvard bought a shit load of farm land.

      But now is the time to change that. No farm land should be sold overseas. 50 year leases, fine. But sold out right? No fucking way.

    • muzza 31.2
      26 January 2012 at 6:20 pm

      Scuze me Wayne I was not using that term in your direction it was generalist…

      1: Agreed, its too simplistic, and not relevant

      2: I would have started it up myeslf, that being true…but its hypothetical in any case, so we cant really give a sound response…

  32. Wayne 32
    26 January 2012 at 6:22 pm

    2: I would have started it up myeslf, that being true…but its hypothetical in any case, so we cant really give a sound response…

    Well then…..where is the thread you created to oppose the Harvard sale (mentioned by Colonial Viper above)?

  33. Eduardo Kawak 33
    26 January 2012 at 6:33 pm

    Anyone remember Hong Kong & Macau? 99-year leases, now look at these two places. The British and Portuguese made these places, but they never owned them, not now, not ever.

    Also, ask yourself, why won’t the Arabs sell you a piece of their inhospitable desert? Even if you wanted it, you can’t have it.

    For NZ, the damage is done. And in the case of banks and shopping malls et al, it’s probably irreversible. Might as well just become a state of Australia now.

    The Crafar Farms situation is representative of the wider scale selling off of New Zealand assets to foreign ownership of which both major politcal parties have been involved with.

    A referendum on foreign ownership is required. Only then can the madness start to come to an end.

  34. Wayne 34
    26 January 2012 at 6:35 pm

    Really wayne thats your attempt to illustrate your supposed racism..

    Don’t understand. Your sentence does not make sense.

    I ask you again. You said you would have started up a thread to oppose the sale of farmland to European or American interests.

    So I ask you. Much agricultural land has already been sold to Europeans and Americans.

    Where are the threads initiated by you to oppose these sales?

    Or are you simply talking shit?

    • Matt 34.1
      26 January 2012 at 6:41 pm

      There have been innumerable postings here against asset sales and no one knows who the buyers will be, so I’m pretty sure you lose. If some other tall poppy were lining up to buy Crafar there would inevitably be outrage, Particularly if that tall poppy were a first class (Kiwi) douchebag like Michael Fay.

    • muzza 34.2
      26 January 2012 at 6:55 pm

      Wayne, so far as I am aware, I am unable to contribute to this site, other than as a responder to the contributers articles. I am not under the impression that anyone can simply start a thread.

      I also have an issue with your attempt to use your response, in such a way that you are trying to paint me (my profile), and indeed people of NZ as racist, this is something I find rather distasteful!

      Try again shall we

      “Really wayne Thats your attempt to illustrate your supposed racism..” – Grammar is a bit shit, but that cant be your response…or mine.

      Allow me to break it down

      1: You said, this thread “would probably not exist” if it were American etc – No facts just a hypothetical from you!
      2: I said in response, I would have started one, myself that being true – Well Harvard has been funded heavily by JP Morgan Bank, who I despise, as they are pretty much the top dog in the bankers cartel, and you may have read earlier in this thread that I dont like cnuts! Again its a little theoretical, as I cant post articles.
      3: Your thinly vailed attempt to smear insinuated racism, which I despise as much as rasicim itself, illicited the response, read 4: below
      4: Really Wayne! Thats your attempt to illustrate (your) supposed racisim!

      Wayne, surely you can do better than what is no more than a Gosman level of response.

  35. Wayne 35
    26 January 2012 at 6:40 pm

    The British and Portuguese made these places, but they never owned them, not now, not ever.

    Macau was never leased. The Portuguese owned it outright – for about 500 years. Then offered it back to the Chinese in the 1970s. At the time, the Chinese could not be bothered, and the handover did not take place until 1999.

    In the case of Hong Kong, only the New Territories were leased. The rest was owned outright by Britain. Of course this ownership came about through the point of a gun.

    So really your examples are actually counter-examples.

    Because they show even though the Portuguese and the British owned those bits of land outright, the Chinese easily reasserted control, and some could argue to their benefit. And in these two cases, it was not simply title to the land, it was sovereign control (something of course which does not apply to the Crafar farms).

    So whats there to fear then from letting the Chinese own the Crafar farms? New Zealand can simply change the laws and get back the farms if they want to.

    • Colonial Viper 35.1
      26 January 2012 at 7:05 pm

      So whats there to fear then from letting the Chinese own the Crafar farms? New Zealand can simply change the laws and get back the farms if they want to.

      This is true.

      NB China is going to have a big mean blue water navy within the next 5-10 years.

      • Wayne 35.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 7:44 pm

        No New Zealand govt would dream of changing the laws to take land off foreign owners.

        If the situation arose where the Chinese started to play mean and nasty and do all the things that people here expect them to, the New Zealand government would have the sovereign right to do what she wanted with the land. Not that this is a probability, but it is a distinct possibility.

        There have been numerous cases around the world where multinationals have been dispossessed of their holdings in foreign countries. Of course the US is always ready to step in and enforce regime change to keep their influence. But China was never the imperialist power the US (and the West in general) were and still are.

        Chinese have a history of paying for what they take. Westerners simply go in and take stuff for free at gunpoint. Afterall that is what the West did to China for well over a century.

        That is the major cultural and civilizational difference between the West and China

        Interestingly Africans tend to trust the Chinese a lot more than the West when it comes to business dealings:

        The consensus prevails among African countries as well with regard to how they consider China’s fairness in the way it trades with its partners…….On average, in the continent, China is considered the fairest partner, with an average fairness score of 7.02 on a 0–10 scale, ahead of the US (6.61) and the EU (6.52).

        The original full report is here:

        http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/mar11/BBCChina_Mar11_rpt.pdf

        NB China is going to have a big mean blue water navy within the next 5-10 years.

        What? You mean with one or two antiquated aircraft carriers compared to about how many for the US?

        • Colonial Viper 35.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 10:21 pm

          NB China is going to have a big mean blue water navy within the next 5-10 years.

          What? You mean with one or two antiquated aircraft carriers compared to about how many for the US?

          You’re right of course, China will simply block NZ trade economically.

          • Gosman 35.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 9:06 am

            So? Don’t you thk they have a right to deny NZ exporters access to their market? I presume you think NZ should have the same right over their access to our market don’t you?

    • Populuxe1 35.2
      26 January 2012 at 7:30 pm

      Eminent Domain

  36. Eduardo Kawak 36
    26 January 2012 at 7:11 pm

    No New Zealand govt would dream of changing the laws to take land off foreign owners. Or force owners off at gunpoint. We’re not Zimbabwe, or the colonial British anymore.

    The British had to hand all Hong Kong, Kowloon and the territories back because they essentially had become one place. And seeing as they’d stolen most of it to start with and leased only a portion of it, there were left with no option.

    There was a Treaty of Waitangi situation between Portugal and China over Macau where translations of their agreements over soreignty were different. China never in its mind ceded soverignty of Macau to Portugal, only adminstrative authority.

    As you haven’t mentioned the Arabs, I take it there is no reply.

    But your answer to change the laws is hilarious.

    • Populuxe1 36.1
      26 January 2012 at 7:31 pm

      “No New Zealand govt would dream of changing the laws to take land off foreign owners.”
       
      Eminent Domain

  37. Descendant Of Smith 37
    26 January 2012 at 7:27 pm

    The racism argument is just a red herring.

    Many people have got upset over foreign purchases of land for years:

    I don’t think Shania Twain was Chinese:

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1002/S00242.htm

    There were significant numbers of Americans buying property after 9/11 helping push up coastal properties in particular

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sept-11-attacks/news/article.cfm?c_id=620&objectid=10750855

    Australian landlords buying rental properties in New Zealand

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/4206451/Why-Aussies-are-eyeing-up-NZ-property

    and so on and so on.

    Purchasing property adds little value to New Zealand and simply adds more buyers in the market pushing up prices and making land (including farms) unaffordable for the average and less than average New Zealander.

    In many cases it is simply a tax write-off or a speculative investment in the hope that it can be sold at a later date.

    Foreign investment should be in areas that actually produce something or improve something, in better system design, or science and technology, or plant.

    The less people in the market the more affordable land is for New Zealanders.

    There is often bleating about the over investment in property – the over investment exists because property in NZ is speculatively over priced.

    One day we might be like Hawaii
    :
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/punanipower/239047830/

    Of course all the righties will argue that these people are only in this situation cause they can’t get their act together, the same way they bash the rural people who have no jobs but can’t afford to move to the city – yeah bludgers they are. Fancy not being prepared to sell their freehold $48,000 home and move the to city where houses cost $350,000 plus. Losers.

  38. Eduardo Kawak 38
    26 January 2012 at 7:44 pm

    I give up. Eminent Domain is for the provision of roads, power stations and the like, not to take land off a foreign interest just because.

    • Populuxe1 38.1
      26 January 2012 at 7:46 pm

      None of that means that it can’t be applied as such, were it to be seen in the national interest.

      • insider 38.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 7:58 pm

        We dont have eminent domain in nz. The public works act dictates what govt can and can’t do around compulsory purchase of private land for roads etc. You are talking about nationalisation and there are plenty of nz precedents.

        • Populuxe1 38.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 8:05 pm

          Fair enough, insider. But would you put it past the NACTs to introduce such legislation? – they have proven fairly cavalier in that regard already. Yes, we can always nationalise the land – absolutely correct.

  39. Wayne 39
    26 January 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Descendant of Smith:

    Red Herring my ass. The level of upset over the proposed Crafar deal is on another level altogether.

    Lets look at the facts:

    1% of farmland is in foreign ownership.

    About 6% of this farmland is owned by Asian investors (let’s face it – the ones we are really worried about).

    So Asians own 6% of 1% of farmland.

    That is out of 1000 hectares of land Asians own about 0.6 hectares.

    I think talk of “creating a fiefdom owned by foreign barons, land which will be worked by your children and their children as indentured labour” is just yellow peril scare-mongering at its worse.

    • Populuxe1 39.1
      26 January 2012 at 7:52 pm

      I agree. +1 Nobody actually started calling Shania Twain rude names for one thing.

      • Descendant Of Smith 39.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 8:38 pm

        Yeah they did and reworked some of the lyrics in her songs as well.

      • mik e 39.1.2
        27 January 2012 at 10:56 pm

        The only persons that have called people Racist names on this site is Groseman and smirKey !
        We are talking about foreign investment in land the hot topic is the Crafar farms and the fact the Chinese govt has a long term plan because its not hamstrung by democracy like our country which doesn’t have any plan .

    • insider 39.2
      26 January 2012 at 8:00 pm

      Don’t bring facts into this Wayne. You don’t want to set a precedent. This is like a support group – its all about how you feel not any objective test.

    • Descendant Of Smith 39.3
      26 January 2012 at 8:12 pm

      I haven’t heard anyone personally make any mention of Chinese as being an issue in 30 years over foreign purchases of land.

      I’m old enough to remember the hue and cry over Duran Duran buying property in Queenstown.

      In that 30 years I’ve heard more people discuss this issue than I ever have over the internet and much more than on this site or in the media.

      I’ve heard NZ Chinese as well say quite clearly that if the foreign Chinese wish to buy land they should become New Zealanders (or descendants) like they have and live here.

      That doesn’t mean that there won’t be people who are a little xenophobic but the issues most talked about is the pushing up of prices and the inability to compete financially for those same houses.

      Yes we have a degree of historical racism in the country and in particular against Chinese. I’m not oblivious to that fact but affordability for the New Zealander to buy and live in their own home is the biggest issue.

      Of course if you are a landlord or a property owner it’s easy to trot out the racism as the key issue – cause you know if NZer’s can’t afford a home you have tenants, and if foreigners are in the market you are more likely to make capital gains.

      For those who can’t afford to buy a house or a farm racism is not even an issue.

      • Populuxe1 39.3.1
        26 January 2012 at 8:21 pm

        “For those who can’t afford to buy a house or a farm racism is not even an issue.”
        No but ageism is – Babyboomer realty greed is a bigger issue than foreign ownership.

        • Descendant Of Smith 39.3.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 8:31 pm

          Yeah can’t disagree with that. They have been busy pushing prices up as they competed with each other.

          Of course I think people should only buy one home anyway.

          Despite being able to afford a rental over the years I’m not ever buying one.

          I will not contribute to pushing prices up.

          One home is all I need to live in.

        • Carol 39.3.1.2
          26 January 2012 at 8:37 pm

          Ageism is overgeneralising about people of a certain age group.

          I’m a boomer who has never owned propoerty. And there are plenty of people way younger than me pushing up property prices. My landlord is probably boomer or older, is very good to me, and charges a very reasonable rent.

          I object to people of any nationality or race, who purchase property here in a way that undermines Kiwi wellbeing and the NZ economy.

          • Descendant Of Smith 39.3.1.2.1
            26 January 2012 at 8:42 pm

            I don’t think there’s any doubt that babyboomers own both as a percentage and on average more rental properties than the generation before them.

            Ask any real estate agent who have been their best customers over the last thirty years.

            It’s a generalisation but a valid one and not an over-generalisation.

            • Carol 39.3.1.2.1.1
              26 January 2012 at 8:52 pm

              Actually there is research that disputes this general belief, DOS, as reported in NZH on Friday May 14, 2010… at least as regards home ownership generally, I don’t know about ownership of rental properties:

              http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10644721

              Decreasing home-ownership rates could result in higher poverty rates for the elderly in coming years, a study of baby boomers indicates.

              The study, to be released by the Family Commission today, surveyed nearly 2000 people aged 40-64 and found home-ownership rates half what they are for those currently aged over 65.
              […]
              With the Government having suspended contributions to the Superannuation Fund from last year, Mr Waldegrave said the risk for older people was greatly increased.

              “You’ve got a group coming through that’s going to double those numbers and they’ve got twice as many renting.”

              Mr Waldegrave said the situation was likely to leave many more elderly people very poor and subject to higher market rents unless there was more planning for increasing home ownership, or more social housing for older people.

              • Descendant Of Smith …
                26 January 2012 at 9:02 pm

                No that doesn’t conflict. What that says is that baby boomers are less likely to own their own home.

                While not in that article this is partly because more baby boomers own rental properties making home ownership less affordable for the others.

                Those earlier generations often simply had a mortgage that they would pay off by the time they were sixty and a life insurance policy with an endowment payment for their retirement.

                When after the 87 crash and the period of high inflation occurred the commission that traveled the country to look at retirement and the impact found that these people did all the right things based on the advice they had been given over the years.

                They came unstuck because inflation ate their modest savings and life insurance capital payment up quite quickly.

                One of the things that helps retired people is keeping inflation down so their saving don’t disappear.

                While they owned their own property what most didn’t own was a rental property.

          • Populuxe1 39.3.1.2.2
            26 January 2012 at 8:46 pm

            But why does NZ culture dictate that you have to own your own home anyway? Strikes me as a particularly British Enlightenment mode of thinking . The French view was that the mere fact of being human conferred the right to a certain level of equal dignity, whereas the English (largely influenced by the Scots) interpreted it as being the universal right to own property. Of course the unspoken corollary of this the more property you own, the more equal you are (as in the saying).

      • Descendant Of Smith 39.3.2
        26 January 2012 at 8:24 pm

        “creating a fiefdom owned by foreign barons, land which will be worked by your children and their children as indentured labour”

        Can’t see a mention of Chinese in that statement and would understand that statement to be totally reflective of say the second sons of Englishmen setting up their estates in the colonies (primogenture meaning the first son got the English estate and second and subsequent sons got zilch) and needing workers to work their estates. There were Catholic Irish press-ganged to NZ to work here.

        Part of the egalitarian construct of New Zealand was to consciously ( by the working class) not set up the country with the fiefdom the English might have desired.

        Nothing to do with Chinese at all in my opinion.

    • felix 39.4
      26 January 2012 at 9:04 pm

      There are four people bringing the nationality of the Chinese purchaser into this thread.

      insider, The Baron, Gosman, and Wayne.

      End of.

      • Wayne 39.4.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:23 pm

        felix:

        The lead article sure brings up the Chinese.

        And if you can point to a similar thread expressing a similar level of outrage expressing the same sentiments through loaded words such as ‘fiefdoms’, ‘indentured labour’, even the military might of the foreign country concerned (refer Colonial Vipers mention of China’s apparent kick ass navy in a decades time), over the Harvard purchase of farmland, then I will accept your point that race has little to do with this issue.

        • Matt 39.4.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 9:30 pm

          Yeah, everyone’s been on pins and needles that you haven’t ‘accepted’ something, glad we have a road map out of this predicament.

        • felix 39.4.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 12:30 am

          I’ve already told you how I feel about Americans buying up NZ assets: I’m against it. Have been for many years.

          I think the problem here is that you, Gos, insider and The Baron can’t comprehend anyone having a reason to oppose overseas buy-ups except for racism.

          Says a lot about you, but nothing that wasn’t already pretty obvious.

    • felix 39.5
      26 January 2012 at 9:12 pm

      “About 6% of this farmland is owned by Asian investors (let’s face it – the ones we are really worried about).”

      Speak for yourself Wayne. Oh, you were? Goodo.

    • felix 39.6
      26 January 2012 at 9:22 pm

      Wayne:

      “I think talk of “creating a fiefdom owned by foreign barons, land which will be worked by your children and their children as indentured labour” is just yellow peril scare-mongering at its worse.”

      How?

      What does that statement have to do with the Chinese? Or Asians? Or any other race or culture?

      I think you’ll find you’ve scored an own goal there son.

  40. Warren 40
    26 January 2012 at 7:55 pm

    The DIFFERENCE between LAND
    and a BUSINESS such as Trademe,
    put simply:

    Land is finite. God aint creating any more of it. (Please assume from hereon that “land” in this post refers to productive arable land, and by “business” I mean those other than farming, fishing etc.)
    As the world population continues to grow, as it undoubtedly will, land will become more and more valuable. We cannot survive without food, we simply MUST have enough of it or we die.

    The vast majority of food, including all Dairy foods, require large amounts of land to grow on.
    There is on the other hand, no set minimum quantity of businesses that we require to live. The earliest humans made do with none at all. Their time was taken up with hunting and gathering a sufficient quantity of food to sustain them, leaving them little spare time for Derivatives Trading or selling their surplus mammoth tusks online.
    Businesses are luxuries.

    Food, which in todays crowded world is tied to the fixed quantity of land available to us, is not.

    Businesses such as Trademe, are essentially infinite. Some can exist entirely independent of land, while most others require very little relative to farming, particularly farming of livestock which is very land-intensive. Spot some gap in the market and away you go. There is no limit on how many gaps can be exploited. Sell Trademe off and there is no reason someone can’t just start another equivalent online auction site should the new owners decide to refuse to allow NZers access to it’s services anymore (as is their right as it’s owners), and make it an Australians-only site. It is not contingent on the availability of a finite resource.

    Here in the West, Business is focused on the short-term; the yearly balance sheet and the CEO’s annual performance bonus. Governments too are short-sighted, being focused on the 3 (or whatever) year electoral cycle. We are very poor at planning for the future as a result. Selling off profit-making, even strategic, assets for a short-term windfall looks good to our esteemed decision-makers under their short-term thinking.

    China is far more clever. They realise that the human lifespan is greater than just one or a few years, and think ahead 20, 50, 100 years, when productive land will be something that people will fight wars over. In acquiring for themselves the means of production of the world’s most essential resource to humans, food, they are cementing themselves a very strong position for the (their) future prosperity.

    In selling off our land, we are selling off our future, as well as our sovereignty, for a handful of beans.

    • Gosman 40.1
      27 January 2012 at 12:00 pm

      Actually I disagree. Land is not finate or at least not in the way you make out. Usable land is scarce it is true but the same can be said of pretty much any economic input. You just need to look at land in somewhere like New York to see this. What did this lead to? Well more land being created via the building of Sky Scrapers. The case for farmland is more complex it is true but it is hardly insurmoutable. There are lots of ways we can look to increase the amount of usable farmland. Indeed I have linked to an article about Brazil doing this in the past 20 or so years in a major way, (and no not in the Amazon basin).

      • mik e 40.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 9:38 pm

        with all the bullshit coming out of you gosman we can just face your rear to wards Australia and the ditch will no longer exist!
        Your obviously a National party MP running the party line a head of the govt decision!

      • mik e 40.1.2
        28 January 2012 at 12:28 am

        Groseman you must be Roger Douglas because he had a great idea along your lines he was a pig farmer at one stage and like you he decided to build up doing a multi story pig farm the end result was that the pigs all died.After he sold it to some mug.
        Just like Act with his resurrection getting dopey dinosaur Don & Dinosaur Don Nicholson to take over another right wing Disaster.

  41. Populuxe1 41
    26 January 2012 at 8:01 pm

    Do you perchance write bad melodramatic science fiction in your spare time, Warren? The land isn’t actually going anywhere, and should civilisation collapse and the Chinese pull back, it will still be there. They are not going to take it away in their pockets. If we really need it, we will simply nationalise it, although I somehow doubt that our long term survival is dependent on our ability to produce milk. Perhaps, if anything, the increasing cost of farm land will act as a much needed stimulus for the diversification of our economy away from primary production.

    • Matt 41.1
      26 January 2012 at 8:52 pm

      Yeah let me know how that goes, a guppy nationalizing property owned by sharks. Much easier than simply saying ‘no’ in the first place.

      And why on earth would NZ want to steer away from production for which it is almost ideally suited. Fertile grassland to support stock, a climate suited to growing commodity timber faster than just about anywhere else.

      NZ is good at scenery and agriculture, other than that it is but a speck on the map and no one else on Earth gives a shit about it. There aren’t enough Peter Jacksons to make it otherwise, so do try to keep from screwing yourselves too badly because no one is coming to the rescue.

      • Gosman 41.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:19 pm

        What happened in Zimbabwe when they nationalised land owned by foreigners, much of it protected under BIPA’s which are enforceable under international law? Did the Brit’s invade them?

        • Matt 41.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 8:03 am

          Christ, you and insider sure love typing Zimbabwe, couple of one trick ponies.

          Try typing ‘Norway’ instead, and what happened to their salmon exports when they dared to *gasp* award a Nobel to a Chinese dissident. China doesn’t have to invade to put the hurt on. Hell, they barely have to sneeze.

          • Gosman 41.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 8:42 am

            Yep that’s right. If we nationalise Chinese farmland it is likely they aren’t going to make it very easy for NZ exporters. Why do you think this is somehow something that is not good form from them? Surely you don’t think the Chinese should just sit back and shrug their shoulders and then allow NZ the same level of access to their market if we screw them over do you?

            • Matt 41.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 10:16 am

              I have no idea what you’re talking about, so we have that in common.

              It is easier to avoid mistakes than to remedy them. Hell, ask your mom.

    • Warren 41.2
      26 January 2012 at 8:53 pm

      Population growth is science fiction? Well I never.
      I said that land was finite, not that it was being sucked away through hyperspace by the evil Alpha-Centaurans.
      Please try to remain focused on factual statements not flights of fancy. Your post is essentially that of a troll. It adds nothing to this discussion which already suffers from an abundance of posts. I made an honest effort to clarify a point that has come up a multitude of times in this discussion but had not been clearly addressed. (See Gosman’s repeated refusals to get the point, you can’t miss them. They are legion.) If you are capable of doing a better job of it then please do so. OTOH if you can’t contribute anything positive then bugger off.

  42. Tombstone 42
    26 January 2012 at 8:57 pm

    What happens once we’ve sold everything off to foreign investors? What will be left for future generations such as my kids? At this rate it would seem nothing. Key is a disgrace and so are those who voted the bastard back in.

    • Populuxe1 42.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:04 pm

      Even if it’s owned by a New Zealand investor, it’s highly likely your kids aren’t going to get their hands on it either…

  44. Wayne 44
    26 January 2012 at 9:17 pm

    What will be left for future generations such as my kids? At this rate it would seem nothing. Key is a disgrace and so are those who voted the bastard back in.

    At what ‘rate’?

    How do you measure this ‘rate’?

    My guess is the ‘rate’, based on whatever metrics you wish to apply, has slowed under Key, compared to under the previous Labour government.

    And in absolute terms, 0.6 hectares out of 1000 hectares of farmland belonging to foreigners who are Asian, is really that much of an issue?

    China is far more clever. They realise that the human lifespan is greater than just one or a few years, and think ahead 20, 50, 100 years, when productive land will be something that people will fight wars over.

    Oh the sinister, inscrutable Chinese! So Europeans who have bought 94% of the overseas owned farmland so far are not clever?

    If you look at a map of the world, you will see it is Europeans, or those of European descent who own or control almost half the world’s landmass. Europeans it seems are no slouches either when it comes to acquiring land.

    Difference is of course, the Chinese are willing to pay top dollar for it.

    • Colonial Viper 44.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:56 pm

      If you look at a map of the world, you will see it is Europeans, or those of European descent who own or control almost half the world’s landmass. Europeans it seems are no slouches either when it comes to acquiring land.

      Ummmmm…this is a legacy of 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century colonial and economic expansion by European powers. No one ever said that the Spain or Great Britain were slouches when it came to acquiring new territories.

      The balance of power has now shifted. Where is Great Britain and Spain now?

      Regardless of that history, it is foolish of us to let foreign economic and colonial powers take over NZ land.

      • Wayne 44.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:04 pm

        Where is Great Britain and Spain now?

        Silly question. Transplanted into the Americas and Australasia.

      • Populuxe1 44.1.2
        26 January 2012 at 10:07 pm

        “Where is Great Britain and Spain now?” Well Britain is still clinging to the Maldives and a few other bits and pieces, as for Spain, according to the University of Wikipedia: “Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory.” OK, not great, but not too shabby. Let us not forget either that we still administer a number of Pacific islands and a fairly hefty chunk of Antarctica (Antarctica for the Penguins!)

        • Colonial Viper 44.1.2.1
          26 January 2012 at 10:18 pm

          Compare what the UK holds now compared to the land mass of India. You get the idea.

  45. Wayne 45
    26 January 2012 at 9:30 pm

    Really, how do you people suggest Key should act over this.

    There are a set of criteria and rules that are applied when evaluating proposed acquisitions. They are vetted by the Overseas Investment Office.

    If Pengxin ticks all the boxes, how can the government deny the application, and under what clause –what reason can they come up with, especially after approving the applications of European and American investors?

    If the government turns down the Crafar application, and Pengxin indeed meets all the criteria to buy the land, then it will be seen rightfully for what it is —a racially based decision.

    If the Labour government was in the same position as the National government is now, over this issue, they would likely be locked into approving the application as well (assuming it will be).

    • Descendant Of Smith 45.1
      26 January 2012 at 9:41 pm

      The government can deny it because the only point of having it go to government is for the exercise of the government’s discretion.

      If it was simply a tick in the box exercise it would not need to go to government.

      The exercise of discretion means that they consider all the information from the ticked boxes to public sentiment to legislative intention to national interest to political fall-out …. one way or the other, weigh it up and make a decision.

      The exercise of discretion is not the decision it is whether everything is considered in a fair way.

      They can say yes or no.

      • Wayne 45.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 9:48 pm

        Yes, but if it is shown that this ‘discretion’ is used against Asian investors a lot more, proportionally speaking, than Europeans, then that says something.

        And if you have had a whole lot of applications for European or American investors approved without so much of a whimper from the public, then suddenly the first major Chinese application hits the rocks, then questions are going to be asked.

        • Descendant Of Smith 45.1.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 10:07 pm

          I think I gave some examples of opposition by the public that had nothing to do with Chinese – it’s not hard to google others from over the years – in my lifetime there’s been plenty – Waiheke Island, coastal properties, forests, island properties, other South Island land – the list is pretty endless and the purchasers have been from across all the world.

          I think many of us have been consistent in opposing all such sales – for me it’s clearly about keeping prices down so NZer’s can afford to own and recognising that much of the value in properties is speculative and doesn’t actually produce anything of worth, and that ordinary people pay the price when these speculative prices drop – cause just like 87 the speculative landlords are out, and I know one landlord who when the last drop happened was sitting on $14 million dollars having sold at the top of the market waiting for the crash he saw coming.

          He even bought back some of the same houses he had sold for $50,000 less than what he sold them for.

          I’ve been pretty consistent since I saw the damage caused in 87 and it ain’t got nothing to do with race.

        • muzza 45.1.1.2
          26 January 2012 at 10:24 pm

          You must have some issues Wayne, you want to keep it alive kid, you need to let it go!

          http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6286635/Third-arrest-over-failed-Crafar-farm-bid

          If the media are not reporting the western purchasers who are , in fact criminal in their dealings, then that is fucked up, and it should be reported. Contrary to what you have been trying to ram down our throats today, Kiwis are not, by in large racist, in fact if anything most are too nice, but too fucken stupid to see whats going on, not just this issue either!

          Might be unfortunate for the current Chinese bid (can I use that word Wayne, or does that make me a racist), to have followed on from NDH’s criminally failed bid. One could argue that the media are inflaming the situation, or that they are just reporting the news, in the usual sub standard fashion, whatever the case the media are there to sell stories, like or not!

          Either way you can take your smears and F.O!

  46. randal 46
    26 January 2012 at 9:38 pm

    hell and I thought it was just a pestilential tablecloth full of worms and grassgrubs and drench so wingnuts could play at being the landed gentry allbeit covered in animal dung.
    just shows you how wrong one guy can be.

  47. james 111 47
    26 January 2012 at 9:52 pm

    Does 650,000 hectares of land sales in 9 years of Labour Government ring any bells. I guess people in glass houses shouldnt try and throw rocks.

    • McFlock 47.1
      26 January 2012 at 10:03 pm

      Did your mummy give you that line? Maybe you should have read the post you’re commenting on – particularly the last three paragraphs.
       

    • mik e 47.2
      27 January 2012 at 11:00 pm

      Jturd 350,000 hectares in 2 years nationals record I’m happy with neither party Turd.

    • mik e 47.3
      27 January 2012 at 11:33 pm

      J111 John key we don’t want to be tenants in our own land well it won’t be our own land by the time shonKey finally leaves for Hawaii!

  48. Wayne 48
    26 January 2012 at 10:02 pm

    Where was Michael Fay, the ‘Save the farms’ lobby group, a thread such as this one, when Americans and Europeans were buying farmland and vast tracts of forestry land?

    I’d like to see how you folks explain things away if the Crafar farms are picketed after the Chinese owners take over, but not a peep outside the Harvard and German owned farms.

    People will come to their own conclusions as to why this is so.

  49. Wayne 49
    26 January 2012 at 10:09 pm

    By the way it would be really interesting to find out how many of the people opposing the Crafar farms sale here, would, if an overseas investor rocked up to their door and offered a couple of a million bucks for their, say house council rated at 400 k, would refuse the offer.

    Come on. How many of you here will put your hands on your hearts now and say you would refuse such a hypothetical offer?

  50. Gosman 50
    26 January 2012 at 10:26 pm

    The only people making coherent sense from the left of the debate here are people like DTB who argues that all overseas investment is pretty much wrong and should be stopped. There are some trying to argue that farmland is somehow different from other type of land or businesses but I’ve yet to see someone explain exactly why. Let’s turn this around to say intellectual rather than physical capital. Singapore doesn’t have much farmland. However it does have a number of key businesses which it depends on it’s wealth for. Do you think Singapore should have a massive problem with foreign ownership in business?

      • McFlock 50.1.1
        26 January 2012 at 10:36 pm

        Hmmm. Trying to use poor human rights as a persuasive point for a RWNJ. It’s novel, I’ll give it that – but unlikely to be effective 🙂

    • McFlock 50.2
      26 January 2012 at 10:33 pm

      I’m sure being a global trading hub as an imperial legacy has nothing to do with it.
       

    • KJT 50.3
      26 January 2012 at 10:36 pm

      Please let’s talk about Singapore.

      Where most land is in State Ownership.
      There is massive State investment in business, including State ownership of a large proportion.

      No, they do not have a problem with foreign capital, because they re-invest in themselves.

    • Colonial Viper 50.4
      26 January 2012 at 10:45 pm

      Gos.

      Most land in Singapore is government owned. Get over it.

      • Gosman 50.4.1
        26 January 2012 at 11:08 pm

        Singapore doesn’t make it’s money from it’s land. It makes it money from it’s businesses. Whether or not land is State owned is irrelevant to the comparision of whether a country that get’s most of it’s wealth via business should be concerned if businesses are foreign owned or not.

        • McFlock 50.4.1.1
          26 January 2012 at 11:16 pm

          As I understand the deal before the OIO, it’s the foreign company that would own the land but a NZ business that would operate it.
           
          Which is the opposite of your Singapore example.
            
          Which makes me think you’ve not thought that one through.

          • Gosman 50.4.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 12:06 am

            The land ownership is irrelevant in my example. You, and others, seem to think owership of land is somehow different to ownership of say intellectual property rights. It isn’t. It is just another form of Capital asset. In fact ownership of intellectual property rights has more potential for being abused by foreigners. They can move the company offshore easily. You can’t move farms offshore very easily. You can’t asset strip farms very easily. They are only really valuable if you utilise them in the country in which they are based.

            • Colonial Viper 50.4.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 12:48 am

              The land ownership is irrelevant in my example. You, and others, seem to think owership of land is somehow different to ownership of say intellectual property rights. It isn’t.

              It isn’t different in your world because you are choosing to use a purely financial analysis and nothing else.

              Which is sorta stupid but I guess it reflects the 2 dimensional view you have of the world.

              • Jum …
                27 January 2012 at 12:59 am

                Colonial Viper,

                Another excellent point.

                The breadth of quality thinking in people is reduced by greed.

              • Gosman …
                27 January 2012 at 8:44 am

                Explain the specific differences between an overseas company buying ownership rights to Trademe and them buying a farm.

                • vto …
                  27 January 2012 at 8:59 am

                  ha ha ha

                  • Gosman …
                    27 January 2012 at 9:02 am

                    So you are obviously unable to do so VTO despite stating it is easy to know the differences between the two. Why are you incapable of articulating such a simple and easy to understand concept?

                    • McFlock …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:13 am

                      You can’t build an apartment block on intellectual property.
                      You can’t interrupt other people’s views with intellectual property.
                      You can’t pollute streams with intellectual property.
                      You can’t divert waterways away from neighbours with intellectual property.
                      You can’t store 5,000 containers on intellectual property.
                      You can’t drop intellectual property on someone’s head.
                      You can’t contribute to acid rain with intellectual property.

                      Getting the fucking point, Gosborg?

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:24 am

                      You can’t build a smart phone application just on farm property.
                      You can’t interrupt other people’s access of the internet just on farm property.
                      You can’t pollute the internet with dodgy illegal material just on farm property.
                      You can’t divert internet views away from other business just on farm property.
                      You can’t store 5,000 Gigs of data just on farm property.
                      You can’t drop farm property onto someones Facebook profile.
                      You can’t contribute to internet viruses just on farm property.

                      All your points can be rejigged to show the limitations of physical property. Essentially all you have done here is define what farm property is. You haven’t explained why a foreigner owning a farm in NZ is bad and a foreigner owning any other type of business in NZ is somehow acceptable.

                      Also all of those issue you mention about farmland apply equally to farm owners regardless of where they are from. The Crafers were NZ resident yet they didn’t treat the land very well did they?

                    • McFlock …
                      27 January 2012 at 12:00 pm

                      Firstly, nice slide by inserting the “just”. My point was that IP is in no way involved in those practises, rather than just not being exclusively involved.

                      You can’t build a smart phone application just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. Sit in a paddock with a laptop.

                      You can’t interrupt other people’s access of the internet just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. Sit in a paddock with a laptop that has internet access and launch a DNS attack.

                      You can’t pollute the internet with dodgy illegal material just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. Sit in a paddock with a laptop that has internet access and a webcam.

                      You can’t divert internet views away from other business just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. Sit in a paddock with a laptop that has internet access and launch a DNS attack.

                      You can’t store 5,000 Gigs of data just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. It’s called a zip disk, Gooslander.

                      You can’t drop farm property onto someones Facebook profile.
                      This is true. IP and real property are different. Well spotted. Polluting a FB profile does not cause the same harm as polluting a waterway.

                      You can’t contribute to internet viruses just on farm property.
                      Yeah you can. Sit in a paddock with a laptop that has internet access and switch off all your antivirus and firewall software.

                      All your points can be rejigged to show the limitations of physical property.
                      You wanted to know why owning land was more important to retain in local ownership than owning a business, and argued that IP and land were equivalent. They are not. They are different.

                      Essentially all you have done here is define what farm property is. You haven’t explained why a foreigner owning a farm in NZ is bad and a foreigner owning any other type of business in NZ is somehow acceptable.
                      Because the foreign owners are nowhere near the negative externalities their land use might cause, can be difficult to track down and hold accountable for those externalities, and by definition seek to extract more value from the country than the bring into it. We might need doctors or mining capabilities that some international suppliers have, but we can farm the land ourselves.

                      Also all of those issue you mention about farmland apply equally to farm owners regardless of where they are from. The Crafers were NZ resident yet they didn’t treat the land very well did they?
                      No. And they were held accountable. Under foreign ownership the likelihood is that a scapegoated manager will hold the personal liability, while the owners take the profits of the poor practises.

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 2:31 pm

                      Ummmmm… do you see that you have to add a laptop to all your stuff. On top of that you require software and an internet connection as well as the intellectual nous to do those things. The land that you do those things are incidental. I could do it in a plane over the ocean so long as I have the things I have listed. You don’t need farmland at all.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 2:42 pm

                      Ummmmm… do you see that you have to add a laptop to all your stuff. On top of that you require software and an internet connection as well as the intellectual nous to do those things. The land that you do those things are incidental.

                      meh, major wars are going to be fought over who has productive food producing rural land, not over who has laptop manufacturing.

                      Tech experts get no tech work done when they are short of food and water.

                      Still don’t get it Gos, you are blinded by the slave filled energy rich economy we currently live in.

                      All the shit you list smart phones etc. are strictly optional luxury items when it comes down to it.

                    • McFlock …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:37 pm

                      Ummmmm… do you see that you have to add a laptop to all your stuff

                      Ummm – I didn’t use “just”. You slipped that in, hoping nobody would notice that you were shifting the goalposts. You can’t even farm “just on farm property”. You need water, seeds, cows, all that stuff.

                      But you can’t do anything with just intellectual property. You always need something physical. You can do many things without intellectual property, though.

                      You can farm without intellectual property . You can’t run a business without physical property.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  27 January 2012 at 11:23 am

                  Explain the specific differences between an overseas company buying ownership rights to Trademe and them buying a farm.

                  The expatriation of profits from Trademe to Australia sucks for our balance of payments. In that sense both farm sales and the sale of TradeMe are the same.

                  • Gosman …
                    27 January 2012 at 11:47 am

                    Excellent! I admire your consistency CV. That is the guts of this issue. Are you happy with overseas ownership or not. All this discussion about farms somehow being different from other businesses is just an emotional red herring.

                    • felix …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:20 pm

                      Yesterday you said you didn’t care one way or the other about overseas ownership.

                      Why are you still here?

                    • mik e …
                      27 January 2012 at 9:51 pm

                      The Chinese are long term thinkers!
                      The National party are short term Quick buck thinkers!
                      The Chinese are able to put together a moon program!
                      We have Gooseman toeing the party line the Chinese communist Party line!
                      Were becoming more and more a commodity based economy supplying the advancement of China.While our country stagnates under a right wing Laissez fair[Do Nothing Govt borrow and hope retrench] while China with its long term plan cruises off into the sunset .While we won.t even be able to afford the rent.
                      Goose man you make lord haw haw look good your a traitor

        • KJT 50.4.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 9:12 am

          Bullshit.

          Singapore’s accounts are public. Look up the bit on land rents to foreigners.

        • mik e 50.4.1.3
          27 January 2012 at 11:36 pm

          Where is it going to do business out in the ocean in a kayak

    • felix 50.5
      26 January 2012 at 11:21 pm

      “but I’ve yet to see someone explain exactly why.”

      Actually there have been plenty of coherent reasons why, you’ve just chosen to ignore them all.

      It doesn’t help that you insist on using words like “investment” when many of us only object to “ownership”, which is a technique designed to ensure that you never have to acknowledge the majority of the comments refuting your views.

      It’s a boring way to argue, and awfully transparent, even for you.

      • Gosman 50.5.1
        26 January 2012 at 11:59 pm

        I call BS on that. I have given numerous examples of foreigners having got ownership of businesses. I have brought up the example of Trademe numerous times. I don’t believe the Labour party or anyone else were complaining about Fairfax Media buying that company from Sam Morgan. Tell me why an Australian based company buying the ownership of Trademe is fine but Crafer farms being sold to a Chinese based consortium is somehow selling our Sovereignty. That is what hasn’t been addressed by most people here.

        • felix 50.5.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 12:16 am

          A minute ago you were saying it hadn’t been addressed by anyone here.

          Now off you fuck and actually read the replies this time.

          • Gosman 50.5.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 9:01 am

            Where did I state this issue hasn’t been addressed at all? I stated that people haven’t been able to explain EXACTLY why foreigners owning farmland is bad versus owning any other type of business. The closest anyone has got is some wacky idea that producing food is somehow special and as there is likely to be an increase in demand we should keep NZ farmland in NZ ownership. Why keeping NZ farmland in NZ ownership would lead to better food security for us isn’t explained.

            • felix 50.5.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 4:16 pm

              I think you’ll find that I haven’t made that distinction anywhere Gosman, I don’t like overseas investors owning any productive assets here.

              btw I do understand where you’re coming from with all this. If your goal is to adhere to strict free-market principles and be entirely consistent and pretend that we’re operating in a global free market which simply doesn’t exist, then you make a good case.

              Thing is I’m not really that interested in strict adherence to a theoretical hypothetical philosophy. I’m interested in what benefits this country and its citizens and residents.

              “Why keeping NZ farmland in NZ ownership would lead to better food security for us isn’t explained.”

              Shouldn’t have to be explained. The ability to produce food is extremely important, not in a strict economic textbook sense of course, but in an “actually living in the real world” sense.

              Hope that helps.

    • mik e 50.6
      27 January 2012 at 11:04 pm

      Groseman The Government of Singapore owns most of the land and businesses so its not in the same position so like all your argument are mainly just half truths and lies.

  51. DH 51
    26 January 2012 at 11:53 pm

    If anyone is wondering why the Chinese offers is so much higher than anyone else it’s because they have cheap finance from the Chinese Govt. That was revealed in a recent press article.

    All business are valued on their earnings, where the difference in values arises is when certain parties have a different formula for working out the earnings multiple. In NZ we have high interest rates so the return on a business also has to be high for it to be worth investing in. Business is riskier than term deposits ergo it has to return more.

    Put simply; if our domestic interest rates dictate we need a return of 7% from a business returning $100,000 then a local investor will pay around $1.4million for the business. If a foreigner comes in with cheaper funding, and only needs a 5% return, they’ll pay up to $2million for the same business. (7% return on $1.4m is $100,000, 5% return on $2m is $100,000) That’s how investment works, it’s also why so much of NZs commercial property is now in foreign ownership.

    The Chinese bidders for Crafar have cheaper finance so they can pay more for the farms than a local buyer. That’s why local offers were less, no other reason. Their offer price isn’t a market rate like some economic luddites are claiming because the Chinese Govt are subsidising the purchase with low interest loans.

    • mik e 51.1
      27 January 2012 at 11:07 pm

      DH Also the Chinese govt keeps theThe only persons that have called people Racist names on this site is Groseman and smirKey ! Yuan down while our economy has and over priced currency it makes it even cheaper.

  52. Wayne 52
    27 January 2012 at 2:06 am

    That’s how investment works, it’s also why so much of NZs commercial property is now in foreign ownership..

    Exactly how much dude?

    Their offer price isn’t a market rate like some economic luddites are claiming because the Chinese Govt are subsidising the purchase with low interest loans.

    Really how is this relevant? If they can get cheap money that is surely their good luck?

    If I want to sell my car, all I am interested in is how much the buyer is willing to pay for it. Whether he got the money by working for it, or it was given to him by his rich girlfriend or rich Dad really is irrelevant.

    And what about New Zealand interests buying up land or businesses in other countries? Has Fonterra ever benefitted from government policies in New Zealand, or government assistance? Of course they have.

    In fact New Zealand as a whole for much of its history benefitted enormously from the UK. Britain basically subsidised our life style. Now that is no more.

    So we have to deal commercially with Chinese and Indians and Arabs. Which some people don’t like.

    • felix 52.1
      27 January 2012 at 2:20 am

      Speaking for yourself again Wayne (and Baron, insider and Gosman who have also bought race into the issue.)

      The rest of us are talking economic sovereignty and you still can’t see past skin colour. Disgraceful.

      • DH 52.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 6:08 am

        Yes it is a sovereignty issue. Any state involvement makes it a non commercial transaction, sadly those politically aligned are so beguiled by their own magnificence they’ll never see the economic reality. Farrer from Kiwiblog is babbling about the Chinese offer being a ‘market price’ when clearly the Chinese Govt are not a market participant. The market price of money is fundamentally intrinsic to the market economy and China is interfering in our market by subsidising the Crafar offer. No-one can compete except another state.

        I’ll give an obvious prediction; the involvement of the Chinese Govt will be quickly and vehemently denied. It breaches every market principle in the book & almost certainly is contrary to the free trade agreement.

        • felix 52.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 4:04 pm

          Funny* isn’t it how these “free market” right-wingers who preach small-govt and want our own state to stay away from all business dealings lest it impinge upon their precious freedoms…

          …are quite happy to do business with the Chinese govt who run a state-controlled economy and one of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

          *did I say “funny”? I meant to say “hypocritical and stupid”.

    • Descendant Of Smith 52.2
      27 January 2012 at 7:16 am

      “If I want to sell my car, all I am interested in is how much the buyer is willing to pay for it. Whether he got the money by working for it, or it was given to him by his rich girlfriend or rich Dad really is irrelevant.”

      That pretty much sums up the right wing attitude doesn’t up. The $ is more important than anything. Sell and be damned.

      • Wayne 52.2.1
        27 January 2012 at 11:25 am

        Well, have you ever sold a car before ‘descendant of smith’?

        Did you ask the buyer where he got his money from, and if say it was inherited from is rich parents you would refuse to sell?

        Anyway looks like the sale has gone through.

        • Colonial Viper 52.2.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 11:34 am

          Nah mate would you buy a diamond necklace for your wife if you knew they were blood diamonds?

          Would you buy investment products predicated on poor people losing their homes for you to gain?

          What if you owned shares in an electricity company on the other side of the world in a foreign land you were never going to visit, would you care if they were squeezing their local customers dry so you could get your dividend?

          No didn’t think so.

          • Wayne 52.2.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 3:07 pm

            Different issue.

            We are talking of funds subsidised, perhaps, by the government.

            Fonterra has holdings overseas. It has farms in China from which it reaps profits. Fonterra owns land outright in South America, for which it reaps profits.

            Fonterra has never been subsidised by the NZ government? In fact it originally was wholly government owned was it not?

            Is that an unfair advantage to South American investors who would have competed with Fonterra for farm land in South America?

  53. Jenny 53
    27 January 2012 at 2:40 am

    Since New Zealand is the only country in the history of the world, to have a Head of State who’s preferred place of residence is in another country, then matters of sovereignty could easily be a bit beyond his understanding.

  54. vto 54
    27 January 2012 at 9:03 am

    Bloody deceptive politicians. John Key at it again on the Crafar Farms trying to imply that opposition to the sale is because the purchaser is Chinese. He knows full well that the reason for the opposition is foreign ownership, not a particular type of humanoid.

    Lying shithead.

    He also says “if we saw lots of land being sold to foreigners then we would have to look at the rules, but we are not really seeing that”. So what does “not really seeing that” mean? That they are seeing at least some of that?

    • Gosman 54.1
      27 January 2012 at 9:39 am

      Someone provided you with the figures above about how much of our farmland is in overseas ownership. I think it was around 1% or thereabouts.

      Now how about you explain why a foreigner owning a farm is bad but them owning Trademe is fine.

      • vto 54.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 9:56 am

        Go away gosman. I have answered that and other questions of yours but you have made no attempt to answer mine. Not interested.

        • Gosman 54.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 10:33 am

          I have answered your question by stating on numerous occasions that I don’t think there is a blind bit of difference economically, (beyond managing the risk of capital value rising and falling), between leasing land and owning it and whether the person who ultimately owns the land is overseas or not.

          Now perhaps you would show me where you have answered my question about the difference between overseas ownership of a farm versus any other type of business.

          • Draco T Bastard 54.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 1:15 pm

            I have answered your question by stating on numerous occasions that I don’t think there is a blind bit of difference economically…

            That’s because you’re stupid and think that money is the economy. It isn’t. Physical resources such as farms are. Give away the physical resources and we give away our economy.

        • Gosman 54.1.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 10:44 am

          I’ve also explained the reason why overseas investors causing overvalued land prices may actually be beneficial to New Zealanders. In short I have already anserwed the questions you asked. It is all up there in replies to people like lprent.

      • fender 54.1.2
        27 January 2012 at 4:14 pm

        I can’t believe your brain is still stuck in this farmland vs. trademe argument Gosman.
        Farmland is a finite resource.
        Cyberspace is infinite is it not?
        I’ve got some jumper leads you can borrow to jumpstart your brain.

    • Wayne 54.2
      27 January 2012 at 10:17 am

      ‘lots of land’

      What is your definition of ‘lots’?

      At this stage 1% of agricultural land is owned by foreigners.

      Is that a ‘lot’?

      • Draco T Bastard 54.2.1
        27 January 2012 at 1:16 pm

        What is your definition of ‘lots’?

        Any. Selling off our resources is selling off our economy.

        • Colonial Viper 54.2.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 1:54 pm

          Maybe Wayne would like to sell off 1% of the area of his home property. But it has to be the productive 1%, it can’t be some dingy old corner, its got to be smack bang in the middle of his kitchen. So out of a 800m2 property Wayne can give up 8m2 of his kitchen.

          Not much eh Wayne? Just 1% after all. And every time you move through that part of the kitchen or cook anything there, I get to clip the ticket on it and you have to pay me a fee.

          Fair enough mate? I hope your wife does good food, I’m looking forwards to trying it out.

          • Wayne 54.2.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 3:24 pm

            Well you are wrong Mr Viper.

            The 1% is 1% of farmland. So yes, if I had a large enough bit of good land, I would be happy to sell it for a decent price.

            I bet you would too. I bet if some foreigner offered you 10 million for your house, you would sell too.

            I can hardly imagine you saying, “no, I’m not going to sell my house, because the average kiwi can only afford to pay, say, 500,000”

            Or am I wrong.

      • vto 54.2.2
        27 January 2012 at 2:20 pm

        Wayne don’t ask me the definition of “lots”. It was John Key that said “if we saw lots of land being sold to foreigners then we may have to look at the rules, but we are not really seeing that”.

        Get Key to outline what he was actually saying there. What is his “lots”? And what does he mean by “… not really seeing that”? That implies they are seeing something – so what is it they are seeing? What is that something?

        And anyway, in some areas it is way way way more than 1% – that figure is a deception. Nearly all recent farm sales in Southland over the last few months have been to foreigners, something like 80% of sales. The view here needs to be accurate and detailed. And you cannot trust a politician to give the right number – the 1% number came from Key and I simply do not believe him.

        In fact, go ask Key a detailed question about those farm sales in Southland… And Bill English will know all about it, betcha. Ask him too.

  55. randal 55
    27 January 2012 at 10:08 am

    vto, I think we know who is going to get the rob of chief rent collector.

  56. higherstandard 56
    27 January 2012 at 10:23 am

    Why don’t we just enact legislation so that foreign nationals are only able to leasehold agricultural and horticultural land for a period of x years rather than freehold it ?

    Would that make everyone more comfortable ?

    • Colonial Viper 56.1
      27 January 2012 at 11:31 am

      Yep that’s the way to do it. 20 year and 50 year leases would be most fair. And the Chinese would actually respect us for having some nous.

      At the moment we’re just another bunch of dumb, short term thinking, profiteering capitalists in the US style.

      • higherstandard 56.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 11:57 am

        The depressing thing CV is once again it just points to the lack of rigourous thinking and problem solving amongst the politicians over the last several decades.

        I suspect the Chinese will actually be pretty good landlords/owners and certainly better than the Crafars but if we hand a clause in the legislation regarding lease holding in relation to foreign ownership it would take all the heat out of the situation and would serve to ensure a reasonable duty of care is taken by the owners.

        • muzza 56.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 1:37 pm

          One can speculate as to why the lease option was not , or at least appears to have not been an option…

          NZ needs this to be an option going forward, it can’t surely be the fact that short termism, and stupidity are the only factors..

          • Colonial Viper 56.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 1:48 pm

            NZ already has a model to base a long term leasing option on, and that makes it even more frustrating. Crown pastoral leases. Works and works very well in many many cases. A few adjustments, sort out the land valuation process, and at least we can kick the bloody can down the road if nothing else.

            But it seems we’re too stupid and that our “leaders” are leading the country to god knows where but it sure ain’t looking like the land of milk and honey for all.

            • muzza 56.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 1:55 pm

              Good info CV, thanks.

              I think those with a brain and some understanding of goings on, know that the writing has been on the wall for some time now, and the next time a politician opens their mouth about prosperity, needs to have it nailed shut!

              The people are too stupid, and those we vote in, are marching to a differnet drum!

            • insider 56.1.1.1.1.2
              27 January 2012 at 2:13 pm

              Sharemilking’s another though maybe not long term. Farmers have been leasing each others land since forever. I don’t think anyone is saying leases are strange and terrible things, only that it should be a matter of choice.

            • Wayne 56.1.1.1.1.3
              27 January 2012 at 3:10 pm

              But that simply was not an option here.
              The creditors (mainly Australian I think) wanted their money back.
              So the farms had to be sold. The Chinese group met the criteria of the OIO.
              These criteria are, incidentally, more stringent than those under the previous Labour government.
              So what more can be said?
              You need to change the rules, change the law.
              So it is no good simply beating up on the Nats for approving the sale this time round. Labour would have had no choice but to do the same.

              • felix …
                27 January 2012 at 3:42 pm

                Doesn’t matter whether it’s National, Labour, or the McGillicuddys so you can drop that bullshit right now.

                However you’re correct to identify the problem of the foreign-owned banks calling the shots in our country.

                Baby steps, but you’re getting there.

              • Colonial Viper …
                27 January 2012 at 3:52 pm

                Labour would have had no choice but to do the same.

                Its a lie that those in Govt cannot exercise their power to make the correct choices for the long term good of the country.

                National chooses not to exercise this ability for instance, Labour would. Labour has a policy of not approving for sale any block of land over 5ha. in size.

  57. randal 57
    27 January 2012 at 10:34 am

    maybe, if it doesnt involve the tame poodles at kweeweecorp barking on command.

  58. mickysavage 58
    27 January 2012 at 12:02 pm

    And the application has been approved.

  59. Observer 59
    27 January 2012 at 12:47 pm

    Any person born and educated in New Zealand would want our land to remain in New Zealand ownership. The same holds true for Chinese people, Japanese, British, German, French and all other lands. The reason for it is that the land you are born and educated within offers you protection and is interested in your welfare. Wants you to do well too, and be prosperous. Wants you to energetically, put back into your own Country.

    It is understandable that for financial reasons, foreigners want our cheap productive land, and wish to ship the profits of production back to their homeland. They do not have the family, the supportive, or the emtional bonds to the Land that New Zealanders have.

    In turn, New Zealand people do not have the family, the supportive or the emotional bonds to a China, or a United Kingdom, or a France.

    Additionally, New Zealanders are increasingly mindful that many of their key services already belong to overseas corporations. Almost the entire Banking and funding services for instance.

    Many of our very basic goods are imported, from foreign suppliers and manufacturers. Even basic foods including meat, vegetables and groceries. Even car parks by the dozens do not belong to New Zealanders.

    Forget the brain drain, for the wealth drain from New Zealand is staggering. As a result, people are realising that to a dangerous level, we are losing control of our home land.

    Therefore, it is courageous and correct to assume that any commentator writing on here who promotes the land and wealth stripping of New Zealand is a foreigner. They are not committed to the prosperous progress of our homeland. Rather, they are committed to themself, and to some other homeland.

    • Wayne 59.1
      27 January 2012 at 3:26 pm

      Therefore, it is courageous and correct to assume that any commentator writing on here who promotes the land and wealth stripping of New Zealand is a foreigner.

      Wrong.

      They are not committed to the prosperous progress of our homeland.

      Wrong again. I hardly imagine the Chinese will be worse for the animals and the land than the Crafars themselves proved to be.

  60. Matt 60
    27 January 2012 at 1:08 pm

    No, they could also just be stupid or corrupt. And not every foreigner is indifferent to NZ’s well being. I’m a foreigner and I am appalled at the stupidity of some of NZ’s leadership (and some of the proletariat too, yeah I mean you Gooseman)

    • Observer 60.1
      27 January 2012 at 1:39 pm

      Hi  Matt.  Your point is so worth making. Obviously too, you care about this Country. Thanks.

      • Wayne 60.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 3:20 pm

        Again I pose the question.

        How many people here would refuse if some foreigner appeared at his or her door offering 10 million bucks for his or her house?

        Observer and Colonial Viper and Muzza. Would you refuse. Hand on heart. Yes or No?

        • vto 60.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 3:32 pm

          completely and utterly irrelevant

          • Wayne 60.1.1.1.1
            27 January 2012 at 3:39 pm

            Not really.

            Because you are asking the farmers not to sell the highest bidder if the bidder is foreign.

            Yet you are implying you would consider it if say Pengxin group offered you a 10 million bucks for your house?

            • vto 60.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 3:44 pm

              Wayne, perhaps you could explain how high land values are beneficial. To anyone.

              • Colonial Viper …
                27 January 2012 at 3:49 pm

                High land values tend to increase the size of the mortgages applicable to all nearby farms which are sold. Higher levels of debt tend to be very profitable for the Australian banks who do the vast majority of rural mortgage lending.

                • vto …
                  27 January 2012 at 3:58 pm

                  Tick on that one CV. It is clearly beneficial to our ponzi scheme banking system to have increasing values because it means they can sell more of their “product” i.e. debt.

                  But I cannot think of a single other benefit.

                  Can anyone esle? Wayne? You’ve gone strangely quiet…

                • Gosman …
                  27 January 2012 at 4:03 pm

                  Trouble is you are thinking of it from a buyers point of view. The money from any sale goes to the seller which tends to be a NZer. If they have sole for a large capital gain then they will pay off their loan and take the surplus. The Bank doesn’t get this surplus.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    27 January 2012 at 4:52 pm

                    The trouble is you think that high land values just affects the single farm sold; it doesn’t. It affects all farms in an area and consequently increases the mortgages required for young farmers trying to buy their own farm

              • Gosman …
                27 January 2012 at 3:58 pm

                High land prices are beneficial to those who are selling the land to make a capital gain. As the vast majority of these in terms of New Zealand farms are New Zealanders then New Zealanders benefit. Unless the new owners of the farms can get better returns out of their farms than the previous oweners they are at a risk of buying when the market is high, getting little return on their investment, and then selling when the market starts to fall inevitably. NZ as a whole therefore benefits by spreading this depreciation risk to foreign as well as domestic owners.

                To put it another way for you – If a farm has a 5% return on a 1 million dollar investment and an overseas buyer drives up the price to 2 million dollars then the return falls to only 2.5% unless they can get great productivity from the business. On top of that the NZ seller, and therefore the NZ economy, has benefited by the extra 1 million dollars. If the price then falls to be only 1.5 million dollars at the next sale then the overseas investor has lost 500,000 dollars yet the NZ economy hasn’t lost anything.

                • vto …
                  27 January 2012 at 4:01 pm

                  Oh what an intricate web we weave,
                  When we first start to deceive.

                  In your case Gosman, it is a self-deceive. Pity.

                  • Gosman …
                    27 January 2012 at 4:05 pm

                    Care to explain what is wrong with that analysis? It is consistent with standard economic theory. You may not agree with that theory but that is an entirely differnet argument.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:07 pm

                      It is consistent with standard economic theory.

                      Standard economic theory ignores the presence of money, debt and the costs of debt servicing in the economy (the theory assumes that they all equal out in some kind of equilibrium), and you are an ass for continuing to tout it.

                    • Gosman …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:15 pm

                      Well until someone seriously decides to push your alternative theory CV I prefer to follow the standard model which pretty much every main stream party in NZ, (and around much of the world), push policies which fit in with it. You might like to think you have discovered a magical elxar of economic prosperity for all time but I’ll reserve judgement until I see it in action someplace real.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      27 January 2012 at 4:53 pm

                      Any political party which follows the orthodox economic model promulgated by the Chicago school will lead the country to failure.

                      Check out Prof Steve Keen’s debt deflation blog to learn more about alternative approaches to neoliberal economics.

                    • mik e …
                      27 January 2012 at 10:03 pm

                      Your theory proves how our economy is still largely based on Commodities.
                      It also proves that Most farmers are farming for capital gain tax free.
                      Two things highly detrimental to the long term prosperity of this country.
                      It just proves that their is no long term plan from the right for a brighter future.
                      The Quick buck mentality that Brian Gaynor so often points out.
                      No economic plan like China has.
                      Just more spin and lies one and the same.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  27 January 2012 at 4:05 pm

                  High land prices are beneficial to those who are selling the land to make a capital gain.

                  Except that capital “gain” tends to be from a big fuck off mortgage the buyer has taken out where the real party which gains is the bank selling the excess debt.

                  And hence you have the whole phenomenon of the property asset bubble where all the so called “gains” are actually fueled by ever increasing mortgages.

                  • Gosman …
                    27 January 2012 at 4:19 pm

                    That is not the case in the example of the Crafer farms. Unless you think the Chinese company is mortgaged to the hilt to buy the farms. In which case this is even more beneficial for NZ as a NZer is no longer having to worry about the debt servicing. This lies with the Chinese investor. We have therefore exported the credit risk offshore. Another bonus of this sale.

                    • mik e …
                      27 January 2012 at 11:48 pm

                      And the profit from the farm!
                      and the profit from the interest from debt thats no longer taxable in NZ

        • Matt 60.1.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 3:57 pm

          Again, if anyone offers me ten million for the house so I may lease it back for a million a year, that would be a profoundly unattractive deal.

          You know the old poker adage, if you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s probably you.

          • Gosman 60.1.1.2.1
            27 January 2012 at 4:12 pm

            Depends. The 1 million a year obviously supposes a ROI of 10% and reducing, (depending on inflation). If you can invest that $10 million in something that offers a rate greater than that then it isn’t a stupid deal.It is the same mistake people make who prefer to pay high rates of interest to ‘own’ their own home rather than renting a comparable house for much less.

            • Matt 60.1.1.2.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 4:34 pm

              Penxin is shopping for properties based on long term yield rather than capital appreciation, just read their application. The Crafar purchase is brilliantly good in those terms, especially if you can pay for it with cheap (Chinese) government financing. If the deal were flipped, which is how it should be, and NZ owners were looking for someone to lease the farms, Penxin wouldn’t be anywhere near it.

              Look around the table.

          • Wayne 60.1.1.2.2
            27 January 2012 at 4:20 pm

            Again, if anyone offers me ten million for the house so I may lease it back for a million a year, that would be a profoundly unattractive deal.

            Come on. That is not what is being asked.

            I’m simply asking. You want to say go on an overseas trip say. You want some jingle in your pocket.

            The maximum the local market will pay is say 500000. Some overseas investor says offers you twice as much.

            What offer you going to take.

            Please stop prevaricating.

            • Matt 60.1.1.2.2.1
              27 January 2012 at 4:37 pm

              Blow me, you don’t dictate the terms of the discussion. The question about Crafar that matters is whether you want to be the owner or the sharecropper.

              In eleven years Kiwis will have given the Chinese all of their money back. Well played!

            • Frank Macskasy 60.1.1.2.2.2
              27 January 2012 at 6:00 pm

              Basically, what you’re asking, Wayne, is whether we are prepared to prostitute ourselves for bags of cash. That about sums it up, doesn’t it?

              Let me pose this question for you; what is your price for, say, a body part? Say, a kidney?

              And of course, there are some societies that sell children for money.

              You can figure out the rest…

              • Wayne …
                27 January 2012 at 7:08 pm

                Your question is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

                Would you sell your property to an overseas buyer over that of a local, if the overseas buyer paid shitloads more cash than the local? Yes or No.

                If yes, then you are a hypocrite for demanding that others not do what you yourself would do.

                • RedLogix …
                  27 January 2012 at 7:30 pm

                  Would you sell your property to an overseas buyer over that of a local, if the overseas buyer paid shitloads more cash than the local? Yes or No.

                  This question is merely posing a variation on the principle that what’s is good for an individual is often not good for the community at large. There are many situations where their interests are 180 deg apart.

                  It’s why most laws exist.

              • Gosman …
                28 January 2012 at 4:15 pm

                Land is not the same as a body part. Stop using irrelevant emotional arguments. It just makes you look irrational. Not difficult to achieve on your side agreed but perhaps you should stick to debating the merits or otherwise of foreign investment rather than trying to resort to scare tactics.

        • muzza 60.1.1.3
          27 January 2012 at 4:21 pm

          Wayne, what part of productive farm land, is different from residential property, do you not understand?

          Your question is a nonsense in every respect!

          How do high property prices benefit the country Wayne?

          • Gosman 60.1.1.3.1
            27 January 2012 at 4:31 pm

            I’ve explained how high property proces can benefit the country above. That is not to state they don’t have a negative. Like everything there are pros and cons.

            • vto 60.1.1.3.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 4:37 pm

              That’s just a nonsense nonsenseman.

              So a seller gets a high price. The next buyer then has to pay the next higher price.

              As I said yesterday and which you ignored (lordy knows why I have re-engaged with you) it is of no net benefit to country. I explained it thus…

              “Why on earth do you want New Zealanders to be paying the maximum price in the world that our land could possibly fetch by letting 6 billion people buy it? All that does is drive values up up up. And that actually benefits nobody.

              Oh, except it does benefit the banks as everyone has to borrow more and more to pay more and more.

              It is entirely better that land has a low value. That way less of our daily toil has to go into paying for the land more can go on eating and dressing and playing and children and other good stuff.

              Example … you have an income of $50,000. You buy a house for $400,000 and borrow half of that at 10%. This means of your $50,000 annual income you have to spend $20,000 on interest payments (or 40% of your working day – probably 4 hours per day, just to pay the bank….

              Now,… if that house is only $200,000 and you borrow half of that at 10% then this mean of your $50,000 annual income only $10,000 has to be spent on the bank’s interest payments (or 20%, 2 hours, per day). (or actually, and I’m sure you can see this, if the house is only $200,000 then you won’t need to borrow at all! Fancy that! Pretty damn fine don’t you think?)”

              Are you an accountant?

              • Gosman …
                28 January 2012 at 4:09 pm

                If the buyers of the land are from overseas then the risk taken is not New Zealand’s. I’ll put it another way for you. If New Zealand had voted for Labour sufficiently at the the last election so that they formed the current Government, (thank goodness that didn’t happen), and they decided to borrow money and use that to restart investment in the NZ Super fund and that money was spent on shares in Wall Street the risk is ours not the US’s.

              • Gosman …
                28 January 2012 at 4:11 pm

                You are ignoring the fact that NZ is benefiting from the increased value of the farm land that is bought by foreigners. Hence if a foreigner bought the house at 400,000 rather than 200,000 the NZer is wealthier by 200,000 and the foreigner takes the risk about servicing the investment.

            • Frank Macskasy 60.1.1.3.1.2
              27 January 2012 at 5:53 pm

              “I’ve explained how high property proces can benefit the country above.”

              *sighs*

              *shakes head in dismay*

              Gosman, are you aware that the financing of land sales, whether residential, commercial, or rural, is funded by bank mortgages?

              Are you aware, Gosman, that bank mortgages are (mostly) financed through private borrowings from overseas?

              And are you aware that when someone leverages more money against a property, than the previous owner, that that money is borrowed from overseas?

              So, if you’ve understood those previous questions, do you comprehend that our property speculation is therefore funded from overseas borrowings? In essence, we are using other peoples’ savings to fund our property speculation – and those “profits” is money borrowed from overseas?

              Take your time. Have a think on what I’ve written.

              Then ask yourself if it is a productive use of money, and whether the massive $70+ billion debt we owe to overseas banks is a good thing for our country.

              And ask yourself if the massive debt incurred through the use of non-productive money, is fair on other businesses who play little or no part in this huge debt?

              Again, take your time.

              • Gosman …
                28 January 2012 at 4:06 pm

                Ummmmm…Frank I answered this little red herring a while back The point I made was that foreign purchasing of NZ land isn’t usually via a mortgage and even if it is it will be the foreigners taking the loan out not NZers. This reduces the credit risk for the country as a whole. While not surprised you don’t understand basic economics, (I mean you didn’t understand the difference between the Balance of Payments and the Balance of Trade for goodness sake!), I do find it tiresome having to explain this to people like you sometimes.

                • McFlock …
                  28 January 2012 at 4:30 pm

                  So company A buys asset cash down. Their purchase incrases property values. Everyone else pays more. Some of them on credit.
                   
                  Frank’s point still stands. And that’s if a particular purchase is credit-neutral or positive between the buyer and the seller.
                   

            • RedLogix 60.1.1.3.1.3
              27 January 2012 at 5:57 pm

              Gosman;

              I’ve explained how high tulip bulb prices can benefit the country above. ….

        • Descendant Of Smith 60.1.1.4
          27 January 2012 at 5:00 pm

          Me.
          I don’t give a shit what someone wants to pay for my house. I bought it to live in long term.
          I have no interest in having a even more over-inflated value paid for my perfectly adequate housing. I have little need for a bigger house and have no desire to do more housework than I do now.
          While not a ridiculous amount like $10 mill I have been offered more for my house than it’s market value and have turned it down.
          Equally I have the courage of my convictions and wouldn’t be a hypocrite.
          I would also never sell my house to someone who wants to rent it out or to someone who is not a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident.

  61. Wayne 61
    27 January 2012 at 3:37 pm

    The fact is Shearer is a blowhard.

    If he was in Key’s position he would have had to do exactly the same.

    If the criteria are met, then the land is sold.

    Change the rules if you don’t like it. But under National at least the rules are more stringent than under Labour.

    As a matter of fact I don’t like Key either. But he does have a point that if the application had been rejected, it could have been open to challenge in the courts.

    So rejecting it would have been a waste of time. And at the same time would have pissed off our main trading partner for no good reason.

    • Colonial Viper 61.1
      27 January 2012 at 3:46 pm

      The fact is Shearer is a blowhard.

      If he was in Key’s position he would have had to do exactly the same.

      One small detail: Labour has a policy of turning down all land sales over 5ha. as the default decision.

      Even National voting farmers think that Key’s Crafar farms decision is borderline.

    • Frank Macskasy 61.2
      27 January 2012 at 5:01 pm

      “But under National at least the rules are more stringent than under Labour.”

      In what way are the rules “more stringent” underNational? The reason I ask is that I’ve written to John Key anf Bill English on precisely that issue: in what way has National tightened the rules for foreign acquisition of farmland?

      I have recieve no answer whatsoever to that question.

      If you have any details, I’d be quite interested.

    • DJL 61.3
      27 January 2012 at 8:44 pm

      Key was the one in TV before the election saying it would be bad to be tenants in our own country bla bla bla. Now you and he are making excuses.

  62. Wayne 62
    27 January 2012 at 3:41 pm

    Colonial Viper:

    If Pengxin group offered you 10 million bucks for your house and land today, you would refuse?

    Yes or No?

    • Colonial Viper 62.1
      27 January 2012 at 3:43 pm

      The answer is yes I would REFUSE, although $10M is somewhat higher than the GV it is an offer which seriously undervalues the long term subdivision potential of where I am living currently.

      • Wayne 62.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 3:55 pm

        which seriously undervalues the long term subdivision potential of where I am living currently.

        Ha!

        So there you go. Your decision is purely commercially based.

        What if the the long term potential was say 5 million in today’s terms. Would you sell then, if the overseas buyer offered 10 million?

        • mik e 62.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 10:14 pm

          The right wing trolls have been seriously schooled up on their propaganda before the press release obviously The National party held this decision back so they could have their spin machine on over time.

        • mik e 62.1.1.2
          28 January 2012 at 12:16 am

          Talk about blow hard Geeze Wayne no body would offer that sort of price so that blows your argument ,
          But shows that farmers are farming for capital gain.
          Which is why so many of our farms are poorly managed
          Slave wages workers are put on salary and work for $7 an hour on the majority of Dairy farms.Thats no bulls hit I’ve done a survey on the issue nothing has changed since last year.
          salaries haves increased but farmers are expecting more hours to cover increase,

          Pollution is prevalent up to 80% of farms are neglecting their systems through burning out workers not employing enough staff and poor management skills.Fonterra are spinning their way around the problem with bullsit.

          Animal Welfare is being neglected seriously Cows being beaten with 2 inch steel or plastic pipes Reports made to Fonterrea hotline ignored.poor feed and shelter in winter Cows continually running noses while pregnant with next seasons calves in muddy paddocks with little or no feed, no shelter belt they waste grazing area.Bacterial infections left untreated ingrown horns.
          I make a point of Driving around Dairy farms checking up on the state of animals who’s spreading effluent properly. stopping to talk to dairy farm workers.

          All Dairy Farm Workers I’ve spoken to have the same Story not one has a different story its a National Disgrace.

    • felix 62.2
      27 January 2012 at 3:46 pm

      Why don’t you try phrasing your scenario as a realistic proposition?

      Might make you look like you’re taking the whole thing seriously.

  63. Observer 63
    27 January 2012 at 4:38 pm

    Wayne. In spite of your certainties now, I get the feeling that you will be among the first to kick your Homeland in the teeth when it becomes totally beholden to foreign owners and overseas suppliers.

    You will feel so euphoric.

    But I am glad you think foreigners will make good farmers. I hope they do too. It will take only a single serious bovine disease to bring our country to its knees – and have to face up to a long period of recovery.

    In spite of your “lets flog it off” breeziness, I am unashamedly pro my Homeland. So are people around the world Wayne.

    • Wayne 63.1
      27 January 2012 at 4:58 pm

      Oh for fucks sake…a serious ‘bovine’ disease —are they importing infected cows from China?

      And Landcorp is managing the farms.

      Totally beholden to foreign owners —-what? At about 1% of farmland.

      Your panic is rather premature.

      In any case, I agree that the laws should be changed if New Zealanders are against these sorts of sales.

      But at the moment, under the current laws, the current regulations, the government had little choice but approve the sale. A Labour government would have done the same.

  64. vto 64
    27 January 2012 at 4:57 pm

    This issue has generated 460 comments in two days. It is serious and of genuine concern to people. Years ago I suggested to people around me that it will be a political game-changer and that seems to be coming to pass.

    I predict that the laws will change in the next couple terms to reflect the desire by the majority of New Zealanders to own their land themselves and not be tenants to absentee foreign landlords.

    Betcha.

  65. Wayne 65
    27 January 2012 at 5:00 pm

    This issue has generated 460 comments in two days. It is serious and of genuine concern to people. Years ago I suggested to people around me that it will be a political game-changer and that seems to be coming to pass.

    Yeah. Funny that. Were there 460 comments in two days over the following:

    * United States to acquire 25,306 hectares of farm land

    * Germany to acquire 6,834 hectares of farm land

    * Switzerland 9,727 hectares of farm land

    * Australia 3,861 hectares of farm land

    * United Kingdom 22,600 hectares of farm land

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10781521

    • McFlock 65.1
      27 January 2012 at 5:19 pm

      Holy shit. No, but probably because nobody knew we were being sold overseas at 3 times the rate Labour did even before they realised it was a dumb thing to do.

      The only one that springs to mind in the last few years was the Shania Twain purchase, mostly because there was a rucus about that one. But then that was probably racism against Canadians.

    • Frank Macskasy 65.2
      27 January 2012 at 5:44 pm

      Actually, I’ve blogged on the issue of Germans buying up half of Southland…http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/how-to-lose-5-3-billion-dollars-without-any-effort-at-all/

      I also contacted Chris Kelly from Landcorp, about foreign land acquisitions. The exchange was quite interesting; http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/?s=Chris+Kelly+landcorp

      • vto 65.2.1
        27 January 2012 at 6:03 pm

        Three things Frank..

        1. Gosman clearly has a barrow to push on this issue. He must have something at stake. Conflicted.

        2. The cartoon in the Landcorp post is brilliant.

        3. It is obvious that this government corrupted the process around this application to push the decision past the election. Lying deceptive #@*&s. They deserve nothing but contempt.

        Well done. Keep throwing bricks at the pricks.

        • Frank Macskasy 65.2.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 7:06 pm

          Cheers for that, vto. 🙂

          And yes, I’ll keep at it. Even Cactus Kate was moved to make a post on my Blog (quite a sensible one, despite disagreeing with her).

    • RedLogix 65.3
      27 January 2012 at 5:50 pm

      At what point do you STOP selling our land Wayne? When we’ve sold 2%, 20% or 98%?

      And when you only have 2% left in NZ ownership, would it still be ‘xenophobic’ to sell those last fragments too?

      • sweetd 65.3.1
        27 January 2012 at 6:11 pm

        At what point do we stop buying overseas land?

        Don’t hear much from the anti land sellers about Fontera’s farms in Australia and South Smerica? Do we sell those back again?

        • RedLogix 65.3.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 6:17 pm

          Yes. No problem with Fonterra leasing land if necessary.

          Wealthy countries buying up existing assets in less wealthy nations is essentially a form of neo-colonialism. We’ve already seen how that played out when Europe did it to the rest of the world in the last century.

        • Frank Macskasy 65.3.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 7:13 pm

          Sweetd – good question.

          My answer is in two parts;

          1. If Fonterra’s “mission” is to help a developing nation to upgrade it’s own dairy industry (perhaps as a JV, without the need to buy land), then I’m all for it. It’s a practical, 21st century version of the old adage, “Give a persona fish v.s. teach a person to catch fish”.

          As the nation devvelops, any JV operation should be divested back to locals.

          That is the best, most efficient use of our resources to give aid to developing countries.

          2. Policies of land sales, in other countries, are the prerogative of their governments. Having said that, I have heard that certain, powerful, wealthy nations are buying up land cheaply in Africa, for their own purposes. This is a 21st Century version of imperialism.

          We should have no part of that.

          My 5 cents + gst worth.

  66. Descendant Of Smith 66
    27 January 2012 at 5:18 pm

    1. Many of the comments oppose the sale of land to anyone
    2. Many of the comments are repetitive right wing trolling and not worth having the epithet comment attached to them so 460 is a simple over valuation. The number has been pushed up by righties outbidding each other to see who can be the most stupid
    3. This particular sale is topical because it’s been dallied over for so long
    4. You ignore the discussions over the years on this site about the same issue

    • RedLogix 66.1
      27 January 2012 at 5:40 pm

      A pretty good summation DoS.

      The only other item I’d add is that this particular transaction is backed by the Chinese government; a factor that takes it beyond the ordinary purchase of land by private indviduals or corporates. That introduces a strategic element that is of concern as well.

      And yes this issue has been quietly gathering steam for years; many people have long opposed this gradual process of NZ’ers becoming tenants in their own land… it’s largely a matter of historic accident that this particular sale has been of sufficient symbolic weight to so strongly crystalise public opinion.

      • Jum 66.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 6:47 pm

        RedLogix,

        I’ll add this to wayne’s statement: ‘In the last two years, consent was granted for overseas persons to acquire 357,056 hectares of agricultural land.’ The Crafar sale adds approximately 7,893 hectares more sales all within NAct’s time.

        We also know that more land is sought (not letting the grass grow under their feet are they) ‘Jan. 27 (BusinessDesk) – Jiang Zhaobai, the Chinese businessman purchasing the Crafar farms, is also a shareholder in a company seeking to buy land for a development in New Zealand.’ Will the Chinese government help with the purchase price for that too?

        At least, they are starting something new which I thought foreign investment was meant to be about which is to add to New Zealand employment and value, not just to swap NZ ownership for foreign ownership and control and remove even more profits from NZ.

        And it’s back to the ‘must BUY’ not lease dilemma.

        http://business.scoop.co.nz/2012/01/27/crafar-farms-buyer-also-seeking-to-buy-development-land/

        When we remember the story behind the Crafar farms being one of cruelty to animals which 99% of Kiwis are very unhappy about and then the Greens highlight the fact in some very good media statements and we learn that Key and Co were intending to just sign off on Crafar farm sale to a shonkey foreign business, it changes the perception key is making of his government putting in place such ‘strict’ rules around foreign ownership of valuable assets – in this case the top quality productive farmland.

        When the headlights focused on smith and key they were very quick to say they were looking at them but we know from the documents of the time that Greens highlighted, there was no such worry before the public were alerted and election campaigns and dead fish surfaced. Key was forced to overhaul the OIO guidelines because of some Kiwis. Long may they continue to watch and publicise the users and abusers of all New Zealanders’ naive trust. CAFCA is one of the groups. Google them, often, donate some money – help them help us to remain owners in our own country.

        When Key doesn’t want Kiwis to know something his minions work very hard to ensure he gets what he wants. It’s difficult to find information when Key doesn’t want you to have it.
        – “of course we would love to see wages drop”
        – approx. Peter’s old voters’ll be dying off soon…

        Key will rake it in in terms of money and influence and rewards through this and the TPPA. He made a small monetary sacrifice in return for huge financial, political, powerful rewards.

        As for the huge number of posts – there would have been very few – all the rightwingers would have been keeping very quiet about the sell off of New Zealand best quality productive farmland. But they got caught.

  67. Observer 67
    27 January 2012 at 6:11 pm

    Wayne – Yes, I take your point about there being only 1% of farmland – as far as we know – in foreign hands. But, I want this nipped in the bud.

    If I seem over conservative, then so be it.

    I agree with you that the law needs to be clear cut. Beyond farming, wealth producing businesses also should have a very high percentage of New Zealand ownership. The law needs to be clear about that too. Otherwise, we will be increasingly just a cardboard cutout of a nation.

    I am not as sure as you are, that serious bovine disease is an impossiblity in New Zealand.

    Thanks for the conversation Wayne. It’s good.

  68. Jackal 68
    27 January 2012 at 6:19 pm

    John Key effectively says that anybody who opposes the sale of the Crafar farms to the Chinese is racist… what a manipulative snake. Hopefully he will spin himself out of power before the three years is up.

    • fender 68.1
      27 January 2012 at 8:22 pm

      Yep as much as we would hope and deserve to have an intelligent deep thinking person as PM, we get a twit who could quite easily be Wayne or Gosman.

  69. vto 69
    27 January 2012 at 7:00 pm

    “We’re a country that’s strapped for capital” says John Key…

    Wel, heelllooooooooo ……… perhaps that is because so many assets are owned overseas, and have been since colonial times. Perhaps if we actually owned more then we would have more money.

    For fucks sake – what a bloody drongo. I thought he was meant to be smart about money?

  70. Frank Macskasy 70
    27 January 2012 at 7:14 pm

    “We’re a country that’s strapped for capital” says John Key…

    *facepalm*

    God, where do I start…

    Truly, the inmates are running the asylum.

  71. randal 71
    27 January 2012 at 7:27 pm

    well there always seems to be enough to buy new aeroplanes for air new zealand and hardly davisons for the lardasses and expensive imported stainless steel for boy wacer exhaust pipes and unlimited overseas travel for gormless kayonedoubleyewones to go roaming the planet for no good reason except to waste money but no money for enterprises that offer a return on investment.
    answer that.

  72. Jum 72
    27 January 2012 at 7:40 pm

    Just heard Key on tv3 informing New Zealanders that they are all racist if they are angry about more and more of their land being sold off overseas – land which is the basis of food security.

    What a snake.

    Just watched Williamson playing the same race card on tv1.

    Definite strategy by the government and its inmates running the same line on here.

    However, I think about now the ‘cents’ will drop and Kiwis’ll realise what pawns they’ve become in Key’s game to sell off 220 billion dollars of assets that belong to all New Zealanders – how much will have gone before people actually do something about it, though.

    They could start tomorrow at Downtown Britomart – isn’t there a Support the Occupy people happening then? Those people are getting the truth out about what life is like in New Zealand for an increasing number of people facing poverty and issues of freedom.

    Make it clear idiot girl on Breakfast can’t say you are just watching not supporting the Occupy Auckland people like she did yesterday as her eyes sparkled with undisguised satisfaction while she watched Penny Bright being dragged away.

    • RedLogix 72.1
      27 January 2012 at 7:55 pm

      Yes… Key can prevaricate all he likes. The end result is the same… more Kiwi assets in the hands of non-New Zealanders.

      We already know that too many of New Zealand assets are owned overseas; it’s our single most persistent structural and social weakness as a nation. Yet Key’s ONLY visible strategy can ONLY make this worse.

      Slowly but surely, more New Zealanders are starting to see Key for what he is.

  73. DH 73
    27 January 2012 at 8:25 pm

    Two points to ponder on. One, foreigners own more than 1% of the entire NZ land area let alone farmland. 1% of NZs land area is 269,000 hectares. (NZ total land area is 26.9 million hectares)

    Two. The conditions of the Crafar deal. Where did they come from? The OIO weren’t there to negotiate a deal they were there to say yay or nay and yet the new deal is very obviously tailored to get approval. How did it come about?

    I’d attack the 1% people, it’s being used to play down the importance as if to say it’s insignificant . But first do yr homework & try to get the actual figures which I suspect is well over 10% now. Also consider that forestry is cutting rights which give control of the land but not ownership so that’s not included.

    • RedLogix 73.1
      27 January 2012 at 8:29 pm

      I’d attack the 1% people, it’s being used to play down the importance as if to say it’s insignificant . But first do yr homework & try to get the actual figures which I suspect is well over 10% now.

      Yes… Id’ wondered about that. 1% of what? The actual productive farm area is only a small fraction of the total area of NZ. The highly productive farm land capable of dairying is a fraction of that again.

      So yes I’m very dubious about the 1% number.

      • Jum 73.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 8:36 pm

        http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1201/S00125/crafar-farms-sale-surprising-only-in-that-it-took-so-long.htm

        CAFCA say 7% and rising.

        And just like everything else in New Zealand, such as fruit and vegetables foreigners cherrypick the best quality productive land and leave the rubbish for Kiwis.

        The worst thing is the way Key smirks during interviews when he’s accusing New Zealanders of being racist or that Labour is to blame for everything – Key knows that no one can stop him getting whatever he wants and bringing New Zealand and New Zealanders down.

        • muzza 73.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 8:51 pm

          “Prime Minister John Key is downplaying comments from Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson that opponents to land sales to foreigners were sometimes being racist, saying it was a case of humour backfiring”

          http://www.3news.co.nz/Key-downplays-Williamson-racism-comments/tabid/419/articleID/174102/Default.aspx

          What a dirty lying little prick Key is! Williamson has used the race card himself some years back, if I recall!

        • DH 73.1.1.2
          27 January 2012 at 8:54 pm

          That 7% is quite old, it will be more than that now. If the Herald figure of 357,056 hectares of agricultural land is correct that alone is 1.3% of NZs total land area sold to foreigners in the last two years. Total grassland is about 40-43% but farms are more than grass so 50% should be a reasonable guide to the amount of agricultural land in NZ. That would make the 357,056 2.6% of NZs total farmland sold in 2yrs.

          Unless it’s a genuine mistake, ie left off a zero on the briefing paper, the 1% claim is disturbing.

          • muzza 73.1.1.2.1
            27 January 2012 at 9:08 pm

            The faccade is slipping badly on Key now, and his seemingly manufactured way of brushing off situations, comments etc using the relaxed terms, the odd low end swear word etc, is going to become transparent to even the biggest moron.

            Anyone who can read body language, can tell you that almost 100% of what comes out his mouth is a lie. These days you dont even have to be clued up to see the lies.

            Wayne will be loving all this talk of racisim, though, and Gosman must be off somewhere rubbing one out over the thought of all the potential for capital gains, ROI’s eyc!

            • Wayne 73.1.1.2.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 9:36 pm

              Maurice Williamson sums it up pretty well here.

              Note. The decision to approve is not discretionary. If the criteria are met the minister must ok the proposed sale.

              http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/crafar-outcry-borders-racism-minister-4704480/video

              If Labour was in power they too would be locked into approving the sale.

              • muzza …
                27 January 2012 at 9:45 pm

                Blah fucken blah Wayne – Use of the race card is always a desperation reaction, or one reflecting the views of the person making the accusation, FACT!

                http://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/50576/williamson-claims-racism-natural-dairy-plans-scaled-back

                Seems Maurice like to trott this one out as his stock comment.

                Guess that makes you the racist one eh Wayne, given your preoccupation with the slurs!

                PS – I am not even talking about the politics of the left – right scam!

              • RedLogix …
                27 January 2012 at 9:48 pm

                No … Labour made it clear that they would change the law to ensure that the default decision would be no. The Greens would likely take a similar or even stronger position.

                This is what governments are for; they make laws to reflect their policies.

                • Wayne …
                  27 January 2012 at 10:00 pm

                  Absolute bs. Labour did not even give a crap about the issue until about last year some time.

                  And unless the law could have been made restrospective, and given the short time that has elapsed between the election and now, it is highly likely that the same laws applying now would have remained unchanged. In which case Labour would have approved the deal.

                  After all Labour approved the sale of how many hectares of land during their time in government?

                  And do you really believe that Labour would have suddenly changed the law in response to the first substantial Chinese investment in land, without risking looking like complete racists in the eyes of our major trading partner. Of course not. If they were in government they would be forced to deal with the reality of the situation, not listen the emotive bleatings of people like Muzza.

                  • RedLogix …
                    27 January 2012 at 10:35 pm

                    And unless the law could have been made restrospective, and given the short time that has elapsed between the election and now, it is highly likely that the same laws applying now would have remained unchanged. In which case Labour would have approved the deal.

                    That maybe so; but a Labour led government might have announced that while existing law may have required them to approve this sale; they would be immediately placing an embargo on any new applications until such a time as they could introduce and pass new legislation throught the House.

                    After all Labour approved the sale of how many hectares of land during their time in government?

                    Irrelevant. Both Labour and the Greens now have clear policy against further sales.

                    And do you really believe that Labour would have suddenly changed the law in response to the first substantial Chinese investment in land, without risking looking like complete racists in the eyes of our major trading partner.

                    All they would have to do is state that some 10% of our best land is already in the hands of overseas owners and that was going to be an upper limit. No further land would be sold…. to anyone.

  74. Wayne 74
    27 January 2012 at 10:07 pm

    Seems Maurice like to trott this one out as his stock comment.

    Crafar farms: 7,893 hectares

    * United States to acquire 25,306 hectares of farm land

    * Germany to acquire 6,834 hectares of farm land

    * Switzerland 9,727 hectares of farm land

    * Australia 3,861 hectares of farm land

    * United Kingdom 22,600 hectares of farm land

    Now.

    Tell me Muzza.

    Where were the 400+ commented threads in relation to any of the above sales?

    • RedLogix 74.1
      27 January 2012 at 10:24 pm

      1. Green Party policy has long been firmly against farm land sales. Labour has recognised that it’s former policy was wrong and has changed it.The right now faces a coherent political opposition to farm land sales of this nature.

      2. John Key himself campaigned on his opposition to these sales and came out with the ‘tenants in our own land’ line. His actions are completely the opposite. It is the job of the Opposition to point this out and to extract the maximum possible political cost for this treachery. Any fool can tell Key manipulated the OIO process to ensure the announcement was made AFTER the election… and that alone pisses people off.

      3. Over the years there have been numerous comments made around land sales made here on The Standard; but no single sale has emerged with the profile like this one has. The Crafar sale has been in the media spotlight for several years now giving it a momentum like no other prior.

      4. People are now only just becoming aware of the scale of what has been going on quietly for about a decade now… and that something in the order of 10% of all NZ’s best productive farm land has already been sold. This is no longer a trifling small concern; everyone with any sense knows this cannot continue.

      5. While it is true that various private individuals and corporates have already purchased land; this transaction involves the Chinese goverment. Again only a fool would ignore the long-term strategic implications of this.

      Events have a life of their own Wayne, all these factors have converged onto one sale; but one that has become highly symbolic of a process of neo-colonisation that is going on under our noses.

      Ultimately if you are going to oppose an incremental process like this you have to take a stand somewhere; if not at this sale… where?

      • Wayne 74.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 10:30 pm

        While it is true that various private individuals and corporates have already purchased land; this transaction involves the Chinese goverment.

        Well it may or it may not.

        I suppose the South Americans should be equally concerned with Fonterrra holdings then eh?

        Afterall was not Fonterra a government sponsored cooperative before, and still gets a lot of support from the NZ government?

        but no single sale has emerged with the media profile like this one has.

        I agree. But why is this the case?

        • RedLogix 74.1.1.1
          27 January 2012 at 10:39 pm

          It had profile right from the beginning. IIRC it was Bernard Hickey who first broke the animal welfare story at least two years ago…way before the Chinese got into the loop… and the media have given it prominence ever since.

      • Jackal 74.1.2
        27 January 2012 at 11:52 pm

        RedLogix

        It is the job of the Opposition to point this out and to extract the maximum possible political cost for this treachery.

        I’m glad you used the word TREACHERY RedLogix, because that’s exactly what I think Key has undertaken. Firstly he mislead the public into believing he was not going to sell off parts of the country, then he disregarded the other applicants and his powers as Prime Minister to influence the decision… then he lied when he said the decision had nothing to do with the free trade agreement with China.

        Yahoo reported that the applicant (a subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin Group named Milk New Zealand Holdings) even submitted that a refusal of his application to by Crafar farms, may adversely affect New Zealand’s trade relations in China.

        Once again the traitor gets tripped up by the facts.

  75. Wayne 75
    27 January 2012 at 10:31 pm

    Green Party policy has long been firmly against farm land sales.

    True. At least you guys have been consistent.

    But one can hardly say the same for general public opinion out there.

    this transaction involves the Chinese goverment

    Now this is the xenophobic part of your screed. Are the big multinational corporations in the West any more divorced from their governments than Chinese ones are?

    In light of events over the past few years, I highly doubt it.

    Western governments have a record as long as your arm when it comes to even militarily intervening in other countries to protect the commercial interests of their multinaitonal corporations.

    In 1840, the British government went to war to protect the commercial interests of British opium traders —against China. Of course the Brits hung around their for another century or so.

    And we need not mention the US role in Iran and the Middle East and Latin America —all on behalf of US commercial interests.

    • RedLogix 75.1
      27 January 2012 at 10:46 pm

      Now this is the xenophobic part of your screed.

      Sorry but the Chinese government is not our friend. They are a single party, totalitarian, non-democratic state. Ironic that the right is suddenly defending the CCP… a party still at it’s core committed to communism, albeit with a market facade erected over the top of it.

      And what you say about powerful colonial powers, England and the USA is true, but given that China is now the new colonial power…. what comfort can we draw from your observations?

      Or are they veiled threats? That if NZ doesn’t ‘sell’ our best land to the Chinese, they’ll lever it out of us some other way?

      • Populuxe1 75.1.1
        27 January 2012 at 11:02 pm

        Actually there’s very little actually “Red” about China anymore. The closest analogy I can think of would probably be Fascist Italy before Germany got all insistent about ethnic purity. In terms of China as a “colonial power” – mmm, not in the usual sense, though it’s certainly Imperialistic after the fashion of the Hapsburgs’ Austro-Hungarian Empire – ie, it stays within the borders it has defined for itself rather than going out and conquering distant new territories.
        No one can actually sell the land except in the sense of deed of use. A Chinese (or any foreign) presence does not de facto render it Chinese territory – it is still bound by the laws of this country and any legal or economic leverage rather depends on whatever government we have in power. There’s a lot of panic talk going on here which makes unreasonable claims for what China can actually do to us. They cannot use economic leverage that breaks international law (and given the US desire to remain top Pacific power, they would inevitably counteract or block that sort of coercion. Likewise I doubt the US would brook Chinese military interference with their very very good friend, especially if it makes them look bad – not that I think for a moment that China is going to invade and occupy us in the near future given their isolationist stance)

      • mik e 75.1.2
        27 January 2012 at 11:14 pm

        The Chinese communist party has now taken over the National party!
        Rob muldoon will be turning in his grave,Pinko’s under the bed.

      • Wayne 75.1.3
        27 January 2012 at 11:15 pm

        Or are they veiled threats? That if NZ doesn’t ‘sell’ our best land to the Chinese, they’ll lever it out of us some other way?

        Veiled threats? No. Just pointing out the obvious hypocrisy and double standards.

        China the new ‘colonial’ power? What about Switzerland which has acquired holdings about three times the size of the Crafar farms?

        • RedLogix 75.1.3.1
          27 January 2012 at 11:18 pm

          So you do understand the colonisation dynamic. Good. Why then are you …collaborating… with it?

          (Yes that’s a strong word; care to pick another?)

        • Populuxe1 75.1.3.2
          27 January 2012 at 11:26 pm

          Ooer – here comes the Swiss Navy to enforce their claims…. LOL 😀

        • RedLogix 75.1.3.3
          27 January 2012 at 11:39 pm

          China the new ‘colonial’ power? What about Switzerland which has acquired holdings about three times the size of the Crafar farms?<

          Well yes you've more or less named it. What is the difference between the Chinese and the Swiss? The answer is obvious. The English and American hegemony is either long past or past it's peak. They are no longer expansionary powers. Certainly the Swiss never were.

          By contrast the Chinese are. They are the ones growing their military and economic power at a rate unmatched anywhere else. While the USA for now remains a greater military force, on present trajectories China will inevitably overtake them within decades.

          But I'd prefer to discount the military possibilities, the Chinese are far more sensible than to use force against the West when a far more effective means is readily available… simply use the tools of capitalism against itself… and buy the resources they desire.

          That’s the thing Anglo Saxons are champions at.

          So you are a collaborator….

          • Populuxe1 75.1.3.3.1
            27 January 2012 at 11:48 pm

            How is China an “expansionary power”? Aside from invading Tibet and eyeballing Taiwan (both of which they see as within their historical borders, and so a slightly different kettle of fish), what has China done that might be considered “expansionary”? Not saying I’m not a little disconcerted by their economic might (but then same game, different players), but the terms you are using seem inappropriate in this context. This is not a colonisation, or an invasion, or an occupation – these are violations of international law. This is not the start of WW3.

            • RedLogix 75.1.3.3.1.1
              28 January 2012 at 12:00 am

              In the modern context ‘expansionary power’ no longer means troops occupying other countries. In the American experience from Vietnam onwards teaches us anything, it is that this has become an obsolete paradigm. Did I not just say “But I’d prefer to discount the military possibilities?

              Economic expansion and political influence is much more efficient route to maximum extraction of resources.

              • Populuxe1 …
                28 January 2012 at 12:06 am

                So basically what the British, the US, and Australia have been doing to us at various times for nearly 200 years – why should China be any different? Quite frankly the Australian ownership of our banks is far more frightening to me than the Chinese buying some of our farms – which various people here seem dead set on extrapolating into the prologue for Chung Kuo.

                • RedLogix …
                  28 January 2012 at 12:20 am

                  Quite frankly the Australian ownership of our banks is far more frightening to me than the Chinese buying some of our farms

                  There’s any amount of popular disquiet arond the Australian colonisation of our banking system too. But that’s the trouble isn’t it… once they gained dominance it’s proven very difficult to undo. We don’t get much choice, and transitioning to KiwiBank isn’t always straightforward especially when you’re locked into a mortgage.

                  And remember how it all came about, first the BNZ went… and that was no big deal. If you objected to that you were obviously a racist…a nasty anti-Australian. So any opposition to that got derailed. Then we lost one after another in an apparently unstoppable cascade. Now almost all the profit from our bloated banking sector benefits other people.

                  I find it hard to understand why you would want MORE of this? And why learning the lesson is so very hard? Or are you just too young to remember? I’m not being patronising… but is this why you don’t know how we lost our banks? They were all ours once upon a time you know.

                  • Populuxe1 …
                    28 January 2012 at 12:34 am

                    It’s not that I particularly want more of it (unless it’s somehow reciprocal, regulated, or otherwise demonstrably beneficial to our economy), it’s just I don’t like all the inflammatory rhetoric and hyperbole. The word “colonisation” is totally inappropriate, nor is our sovereignty in any way affected. OK, you don’t like foreign ownership of assets – understood, but lets keep the terminology relevant. If the law needs changing, let’s focus on that and leave off what really is beginning to sound a bit like “Yellow Peril” bullshit.

                    • RedLogix …
                      28 January 2012 at 12:41 am

                      Give us a break. We’ve already sold about 10% of our best farmland. We’ve lost our banks, we export some 10% of our GDP as profits to overseas owners every year. That’s economic colonisation.

                      Sure these days it’s in a different form to what happened in the last two or three centuries when the process was often projected with overt military power… but the end result is pretty much the same.

                      If you don’t like my ‘terminology’ you come up with one.

  76. Wayne 76
    27 January 2012 at 11:23 pm

    So you do understand the colonisation dynamic.

    Sure I do. That’s the thing Anglo Saxons are champions at.

    • fender 76.1
      27 January 2012 at 11:54 pm

      So no need to worry it’s fine and dandy to continue down the colonisation track (even if it’s you being colonised).
      Just rub more salt into the wounds of the indigenous who are none too happy with foreign ownership.

      Kerr is your last name eh Wayne

      • Wayne 76.1.1
        28 January 2012 at 12:10 am

        So no need to worry it’s fine and dandy to continue down the colonisation track (even if it’s you being colonised).

        Never said that. And I have not said whether or not I support foreign investment in farm land.

        Just think it is rather strange how it is only the China deal triggers alarm over ‘colonisation’ whereas the far bigger holdings of the US and other Western countries —not a murmur.

      • Wayne 76.1.2
        28 January 2012 at 12:14 am

        Just rub more salt into the wounds of the indigenous who are none too happy with foreign ownership.

        Well, it is clear, I think, that what the Chinese are offering for the land is of slightly more value than a few diseased blankets. So they are not quite as bad as the Brits eh?

  77. Wayne 77
    28 January 2012 at 12:08 am

    the Chinese are far more sensible than to use force against the West when a far more effective means is readily available… simply use the tools of capitalism against itself… and buy the resources they desire.

    Really? So Western countries are not into buying the ‘resources they desire’?

    So I suppose the Chinese should just invade and take the stuff instead of buy it? Would that be more moral and ethical?

    You know, like the Brits did in Africa and Asia (and in China of course)?

    What is your meaning dude?

  78. Wayne 78
    28 January 2012 at 12:25 am

    “By contrast the Chinese are [expansionary power]. They are the ones growing their military and economic power at a rate unmatched anywhere else.”

    China’s military spending is about 1/7 that of the US, about the same as Britain and France put together.

    And as a percentage of GDP is smaller than that of Britain, France, Russia, India, and of course the US.

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/06/military-spending

    Given the size of China, the length of her borders, and her very recent history of military invasion by Japan and European countries, a little military spending is perhaps understandable.

    Now where are the Chinese expanding (militarily or economically) that other Western countries are not already there?

    • RedLogix 78.1
      28 January 2012 at 12:36 am

      China’s military spending is about 1/7 that of the US, about the same as Britain and France put together.

      But growing, while that of the rest of the world is not. Even today the US announced major cuts to military spending. But then if you weren’t so intent on misrepresenting me you’d notice that I’ve already discounted the military aspect in the near-term.

      • Wayne 78.1.1
        28 January 2012 at 1:14 am

        But growing, while that of the rest of the world is not. Even today the US announced major cuts to military spending.

        Well if they are, they are simply catching up? Surely they have the right to a military which is barely twice that of a small countries like France or Britain?

        Afterall China has never invaded these two countries. But these two countries certainly have invaded China in the past.

        Your obvious yellow peril racism has bared its ugly teeth.

    • Frank Macskasy 78.2
      28 January 2012 at 12:46 am

      They also overtook Japan a couple of years ago, as the second wealthiest nation on the planet.

      In a decade, they will have overtaken our American cuzzies.

      • Wayne 78.2.1
        28 January 2012 at 1:29 am

        They also overtook Japan a couple of years ago, as the second wealthiest nation on the planet.

        In a decade, they will have overtaken our American cuzzies.

        Well not really. In per-capita terms they are still way behind, and even on current trends will not catch up to the West for around another 50 years.

        They were a lot richer in the past. At least relatively speaking. In the 1820s they were about 1/3 of world GDP (bigger than the whole of Europe). Now they are about 14%, I think.

        This chart is quite interesting:

        http://gulzar05.blogspot.com/2010/03/china-vs-us-mirror-images.html

    • Matt 78.3
      28 January 2012 at 4:01 pm

      Tibet?

  79. RedLogix 79
    28 January 2012 at 12:33 am

    Maybe it’s like strip poker. It was a bit of harmless fun losing your shirt and trousers. Now you’re down to your undies and suddenly the next hand matters….

    The point is losing your economic sovereignty is an an insidious process. It’s not like boatloads of troops suddenly occupying every street corner. You don’t see it, you don’t really feel it. Life more or less goes on as usual for most people. Just different names on the old buildings, head offices in other countries, and not as many good jobs around as there used to be. All the important decisions seem to get made elsewhere and the people who make them are remote and wholly unaccoutable in any meaningful way.

    But at some point you realise you’ve lost control of your destiny and getting it back isn’t going to happen anytime soon. You wish you had realised sooner and acted while you could.

    But you know this.

    • Populuxe1 79.1
      28 January 2012 at 12:43 am

      So really just business as usual.

    • Jum 79.2
      28 January 2012 at 12:47 am

      Red Logix
      ‘You wish you had realised sooner and acted while you could.
      But you know this.’

      And it’s wayne’s job to ensure most don’t.

      I really struggle to believe these people like Wayne actually are Kiwis. They are so all-knowing about what Key is doing, but they refuse to see the damage to themselves as Kiwis.

      Real Kiwis would see that damage if they were politically aware, wouldn’t they?

      • Wayne 79.2.1
        28 January 2012 at 1:03 am

        I really struggle to believe these people like Wayne actually are Kiwis. They are so all-knowing about what Key is doing, but they refuse to see the damage to themselves as Kiwis.

        I don’t even like John Key.

        Now. Can you please link to your comments on this website (or others) displaying the same level of vehemence when it came to opposing the American Harvard acquisition of farmland?

        If you cannot, you are a dick-wad. If you can I will retract my comment.

        • Colonial Viper 79.2.1.1
          28 January 2012 at 2:20 am

          Ahem. Labour launched its policy of no farm sales over 5 ha. many months before the Nov 26 election.

        • Jum 79.2.1.2
          28 January 2012 at 9:52 am

          wayne,

          there are two things I need to make clear to you.

          1. Your opinion of me is of no importance.

          Just as Kiwis’ being against asset sales to foreign owners (and countries) is of no importance to key and banks/banks.

          I have read your posts, seen your refusal along with gosman, etc to admit part liability for the growing gap between the 10% and the 90% and have concluded you are a NAct stooge.

          2. I will spend very little more time on you, apart from to say that there are other ways of protesting against wrongs in what was once a great country called New Zealand, until blind greed and selfishness took it over.

          That’s your fault as a ruth richardson/roger douglas follower intent on milking New Zealand dry.

  80. Jum 80
    28 January 2012 at 12:35 am

    (a subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin Group named Milk New Zealand Holdings)

    ‘Milk New Zealand’

    Aint that the truth.

  81. Frank Macskasy 81
    28 January 2012 at 12:44 am

    “YOU KNOW, YOU’D THINK NEARLY TWO CENTURIES ON, WE’D HAVE LEARNT NOT TO TRADE BLANKETS FOR LAND” – Curwen Rollinson, Facebook

    New Zealanders voted for the wrong people in Parliament.

  82. ak 82
    28 January 2012 at 1:13 am

    Funny as a fart this whole furore. Labour opposing a socialist country and supporting a royally rich white scumbag, NATsies supporting a socialist country and opposing their own base farmer-owners of socialist co-operative, and out of it all Labour gaining points with the public!

    The idyllic kiwi family farm fantasy is a goneburger: thriving communities destroyed by greed, now a green desert of suicide city and slavery-is-us. Sell it all to the Chinese: at least their intentions are still higher than a dunny snake.

  83. vto 83
    28 January 2012 at 7:59 am

    This problem is easily solved.

    Pass legislation that bans the sale of any land to foreigners.

    Then even those foreigners who have recently bought will, when they come to sell, only be able to sell to NZers.

    And a provision could even be put in that requires all foreign owners to sell their holdings over, say, a 20 year period.

    Over a period of time all land will again be owned by us kiwis. Yay! And values will be lower, meaning less of our daily toil needs to be spent on the land beneath our feet and more can be spent on children and other good things. Someone tell me how that is bad.

    So come on – which party is going to do that? My vote will go, again, to that one (at least you will get one vote)

  84. muzza 84
    28 January 2012 at 8:36 am

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10781723

    “The Crafar decision is a victory for economic rationalism over blind xenophobic nationalism. Long may the former reign.”

    Fran you are quite simply a disgrace – This is clearly a strategy which is being used, as you echo Maurice Willamsons racist slur on the NZ public from yesterday…Key then tried to distance himself from it!

    Your articles have been becoming increasingly bias over the past year or two, mysteriously since you went on that junket to China – Perhaps you are not telling us something Fran?

    Using racism as the cover and to disrespect people who care about the fact that ANY foreigners who own our productive farm land, when global recources are becoming more scarce, is beyond awful Fran, and you have shown your position for all to see!

    DISGRACE

    • vto 84.1
      28 January 2012 at 8:49 am

      Perhaps they could explain the “economic rationalism”. As far as I can see it is completely irrational. And those fools who have been trying to explain otherwise on this thread the last couple days have singularly failed to outline the net benefits to NZ of this situation.

      And as for the racism cover – what do you expect from Williamson, he is the biggest cocksucker in the west. And a lying bullshit artis – just like all those other National Party ex-Ministers currently up before the courst for fraud and other dishonest behaviour such as Doug Graham, Wyatt Creech, John Luxton. They are crooks.

      Same for John Key – wanking liar in pretending that it is about racism against the chinese. He is starting to sound like Peters who for years thought people believed his bullshit.

      Anther example – this governments dismissal of Canterbury’s regional council on the pretext of havong no water plan. That was an outright lie. The plan was nearly done. And even one of Nick Smith’s appointed commissars ex-judge Peter Skelton has openly written and said exactly that – that it was a fabrication.

      National party ministers – liars. Proved by Skelton’s assessment of Nick Smith. Doug Graham currently being charged with a crime. Peter Luxton and Wyatt Creech also charged with civil proceedings over their role in Blue Chip Property – the biggest fucking rorting outfit of the lot.

      It is all there in black and white.

      Corrupt.

      Liars.

      Cheats.

      Anybody who believes what they say is a fool.

      • muzza 84.1.1
        28 January 2012 at 9:10 am

        There is a very rotton stench around which ever party is the lead in government, however the Tories seem to be excelling themselves again.

        The BS fellatio from Fran O’sullivan is blatant – Anyone who uses rasicim against the people of this country, has something to hide!

        Economic rationalisation – We will never here an explantion on that because journos like Fran are sucking cock, and hence controlled – Wonder how many of my uninformed friends I will be hearing quote “econimic rationisation” this weekend….

        ECAN – Something stinks to hig hell there, that much was always obvious, but by the time it comes out in the wash, it will be all over!

        Nationas role of dis-honour

        http://laudafinem.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/new-zealands-national-party-has-a-history-of-serious-systemic-corruption-in-government/

  85. Jum 85
    28 January 2012 at 10:10 am

    Newspaper headline:

    “HERE’S THE KEY TO NEW ZEALAND” says john key. “MILK US DRY”.

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    Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #16 2024
    Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications: Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago

  • Where on a Computer is the Operating System Generally Stored? Delving into the Digital Home of your ...
    The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • How Many Watts Does a Laptop Use? Understanding Power Consumption and Efficiency
    Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • How to Screen Record on a Dell Laptop A Guide to Capturing Your Screen with Ease
    Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • How Much Does it Cost to Fix a Laptop Screen? Navigating Repair Options and Costs
    A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • How Long Do Gaming Laptops Last? Demystifying Lifespan and Maximizing Longevity
    Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Climate Change: Turning the tide
    The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    2 days ago

  • How to Unlock Your Computer A Comprehensive Guide to Regaining Access
    Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Faxing from Your Computer A Modern Guide to Sending Documents Digitally
    While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Protecting Your Home Computer A Guide to Cyber Awareness
    In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Server-Based Computing Powering the Modern Digital Landscape
    In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
    Gareth’s WorldBy admin
    2 days ago

  • Vroom vroom go the big red trucks
    The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago

  • Jones finds $410,000 to help the government muscle in on a spat project
    Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    2 days ago

  • Again, hate crimes are not necessarily terrorism.
    Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    2 days ago

  • Despair – construction consenting edition
    Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • Coalition promises – will the Govt keep the commitment to keep Kiwis equal before the law?
    Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • An impermanent public service is a guarantee of very little else but failure
    Chris Trotter writes –  The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • What happens after the war – Mariupol
    Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
    Open ParachuteBy Ken
    2 days ago

  • Babies and benefits – no good news
    Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three.  ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago

  • Should the RBNZ be looking through climate inflation?
    Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago

  • Bernard's pick 'n' mix of the news links
    The top six news links I’ve seen elsewhere in the last 24 hours, as of 9:16 am on Thursday, April 18 are:Housing: Tauranga residents living in boats, vans RNZ Checkpoint Louise TernouthHousing: Waikato councillor says wastewater plant issues could hold up Sleepyhead building a massive company town Waikato Times Stephen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago

  • Gordon Campbell on the public sector carnage, and misogyny as terrorism
    It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
    Gordon CampbellBy lyndon
    2 days ago

  • Meeting the Master Baiters
    Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    2 days ago

  • How extreme was the Earth's temperature in 2023
    This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blog In 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago

  • Backbone, revisited
    The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago

  • Ministers are not above the law
    Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago

  • What’s the outfit you can hear going down the gurgler? Probably it’s David Parker’s Oceans Sec...
    Buzz from the Beehive Point  of Order first heard of the Oceans Secretariat in June 2021, when David Parker (remember him?) announced a multi-agency approach to protecting New Zealand’s marine ecosystems and fisheries. Parker (holding the Environment, and Oceans and Fisheries portfolios) broke the news at the annual Forest & ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago

  • Will politicians let democracy die in the darkness?
    Bryce Edwards writes  – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago

  • Matt Doocey doubles down on trans “healthcare”
    Citizen Science writes –  Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago

  • A TikTok Prime Minister.
    One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago

  • PM’s South East Asia mission does the business
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 hours ago

  • $41m to support clean energy in South East Asia
    New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Minister releases Fast-track stakeholder list
    The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Judicial appointments announced
    Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Education Minister heads to major teaching summit in Singapore
    Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa.  The summit is co-hosted ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Value of stopbank project proven during cyclone
    A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Anzac commemorations, Türkiye relationship focus of visit
    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul.    “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Minister to Europe for OECD meeting, Anzac Day
    Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago

  • Comprehensive Partnership the goal for NZ and the Philippines
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.  The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Government commits $20m to Westport flood protection
    The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Taupō takes pole position
    The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Cost of living support for low-income homeowners
    Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners.  “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Government backing mussel spat project
    The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Government focused on getting people into work
    Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Clean energy key driver to reducing emissions
    The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Earthquake-prone buildings review brought forward
    The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago

  • Thailand and NZ to agree to Strategic Partnership
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Government consults on extending coastal permits for ports
    RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Inflation coming down, but more work to do
    Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • School attendance restored as a priority in health advice
    Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Unnecessary bureaucracy cut in oceans sector
    Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago

  • Patterson promoting NZ’s wool sector at International Congress
    Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector.    "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • Removing red tape to help early learners thrive
    The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • RMA changes to cut coal mining consent red tape
    Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago

  • McClay reaffirms strong NZ-China trade relationship
    Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Prime Minister Luxon acknowledges legacy of Singapore Prime Minister Lee
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.   Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • PMs Luxon and Lee deepen Singapore-NZ ties
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong.  During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Antarctica New Zealand Board appointments
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner.  The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Finance Minister travels to Washington DC
    Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Pet bonds a win/win for renters and landlords
    The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • Long Tunnel for SH1 Wellington being considered
    State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago

  • New Zealand condemns Iranian strikes
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel.    “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says.    "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago

  • Huge interest in Government’s infrastructure plans
    Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Health Minister thanks outgoing Health New Zealand Chair
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board.   “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti.  “I have asked her to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Roads of National Significance planning underway
    The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.  “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Navigating an unstable global environment
    New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.   “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States.    “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • NZ welcomes Australian Governor-General
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Pseudoephedrine back on shelves for Winter
    Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • NZ and the US: an ever closer partnership
    New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says.    “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

  • Joint US and NZ declaration
    April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

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