Bring us your wealthy and your privileged …

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, February 11th, 2025 - 11 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, economy, erica stanford, national, overseas investment, same old national - Tags:

As part of an ongoing attempt to dominate political discourse on Sunday National announced an expansion to the red carpet for rich immigrants immigration policy.

From Radio New Zealand:

Investors will only have to remain in New Zealand for 21 days to gain residency under changes to the so-called ‘golden visa’ to attract wealthy investors to New Zealand, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced the government was making changes to modernise the visa settings and attract foreign investment.

From 1 April, the Active Investor Plus visa will be replaced with two, simplified investment categories.

The first, ‘The Growth’ category, will focus on higher-risk investments, including direct investments in New Zealand businesses.

It will require a minimum investment of $5 million for a minimum period of three years.

The second, ‘The Balanced’ category, will focus on mixed investments, with the ability to choose ones that are lower risk.

There will be a minimum investment of $10 million over five years.

Other changes include expanding the scope of acceptable investments and removing potential barriers to investment, like the English language requirement.

National has always been a fan of allowing rich immigrants to come to the country to live. Their mindset is that these people are somehow superior to the rest of us and that allowing them in will make us a richer more capitalist society. It also does wonders for land values, particularly at the rich end of town. Who cares if affordability declines and the housing crisis gets worse?

Eligible candidates will be able to come into the country and purchase all sorts of interests in businesses. But not a house yet, at least until they obtain residence. NZ First will stop any attempts to loosen up land purchase restrictions.

And the requirement to be in the country is pretty limited. For the growth category qualifying persons will only have to be in the country for 21 days over three years, basically a week’s holiday in Queenstown once a year will do it.

National’s infatuation with rich people has been evident for some time. But its belief that sucking up to them will improve things for us all is questionable.

For instance if you are a billionaire American with strange ideas and a desire to buy land in the South Island as a bolt hole from the pending Trumpocalypse in the United States National will grant you citizenship, even if you have only spent 12 days in the past five years in the country as opposed to the normally required 1,350 days.

And to really spice things up the Government through inept negotiations will allow you to walk away with all of the profits from a successful joint venture.  All $27 million of them.  The Government was played.

So I think we should be careful in relying on allowing rich people into the country to improve our wealth. They may have different ideas.

What else could we do to increase investment in local industry. How about accepting the contributions of ordinary people. Instead of the profits going to a bunch of uber wealthy foreigners what if we accepted contributions from ordinary kiwis?

As an example 200 growth category immigrants will generate $1 billion in new investments.

How else could we do this?

Well there are 3.25 million kiwisaver accounts in Aotearoa. Get them to each put in $310 a year and change the rules so that more can be invested locally and we have the same result. An increase in Managed funds and a billion dollars of new investments.

To achieve this we would need to make some basic changes. Cheaper rents, better wages, lower interest rates.

But the options are clear.

Bring in wealthy businessmen and watch as our wealth ebbs their way.

Or work out how to make sure we all have enough to live on. And can invest in our country.

Guess which option National prefers?

11 comments on “Bring us your wealthy and your privileged … ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Psycho Milt 1
    11 February 2025 at 7:22 am

    National's been happy to sell passports to rich people since the 1990s. There's never been any benefit to the country from it, but there's certainly been individual benefits to National's donors and voters. Trying to understand their policies in terms of NZ's national interest is pointless, they have to be viewed through a lens of "How will the people who fund them benefit from this?" Next up, "Of course wealthy people who want to buy a NZ passport should also be able buy a property to live in."

  3. PsyclingLeft.Always 3
    11 February 2025 at 8:35 am

    National : Selling your country down the river…since ages.

    Just one from the past..going for it. Some might remember? I sure do. Hamish Walker, disgraced Nat mp.

    Former MP Hamish Walker launches real estate career in Queenstown

    Had to laugh at this…

    Harcourts Queenstown managing director Warwick Osborne said Walker was a “perfect fit” for the company.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/123310399/former-mp-hamish-walker-launches-real-estate-career-in-queenstown

    And…the creep, gets the Master creeps endorsement.

    As sir Key slimes (I'm sure the Irony unintended… : )

    "A bit of honesty in the equation"

  4. Drowsy M. Kram 4
    11 February 2025 at 8:58 am

    Beware the Billionaire-A-Saurus Rex: Who Will Keep the Parasitic Oligarchs in Check? [6 Feb 2025]
    The only viable future for humanity requires that these men become fossils — relics of a bygone era, studied by future generations to comprehend the absurd scale of their existence and the devastation they caused. Like dinosaurs with tiny brains and outsized bodies, they are capable of immense destruction yet seem unaware of their own impact.

    Who will keep the oligarchs in check? Not Key, Willux, Seymour et al. – suck-ups all.
    NZ is but a snack – The World is Not Enough.

    Exciting news! Sometime in the next decade the world is on track to have more than 1.5 degrees of warming and five trillionaires!

    What a remarkable coincidence.

    Oxfam says world ruled by “aristocratic oligarchy,” as billionaire wealth surges by $2 trillion [20 Jan 2025]

    “It’s not about one specific individual,” he added. “It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit.”

    The report includes statistics making clear that the wealth of these financial oligarchs is indeed “unfathomable.” It noted, “Even if you saved US$1,000 daily since the first humans, 315,000 years ago, you still would not have as much money as one of the richest ten billionaires.”

    It added, “If any of the richest 10 billionaires lost 99 percent of their wealth, they’d still be a billionaire.”

  5. gsays 5
    11 February 2025 at 9:04 am

    So, what has Peter Thiel done for us lately?

    This is just saying trickle down without saying trickle down.

  6. Incognito 6
    11 February 2025 at 10:07 am

    The NZ public is being played hard by the Coalition. They tell us that NZ is starved of investment funds that can only come from rich speculators overseas. This is blatant BS!

    35. Investment. Beyond the needed public investment, it would be important for the broad range of New Zealanders to feel that they are part of the innovation journey. Many countries do so by investing small amounts of sovereign funds in the local innovation economy. Already the Elevate fund administered by NZ Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP) has done so on behalf of the NZ Super Fund, and the venture capital sector commends this as an important element albeit that it may need some modification for greater adaptability. Such approaches should be encouraged across ACC, KiwiSaver funds, etc. [pg. 19]

    And get this:

    Even a 0.5% investment by such funds would change the innovation landscape [in NZ] significantly. [pg. 59]

    That’s only 1/200th of all investments but a shed load of money. There’s no need to sell-out NZ to the rich mates of Chis, John, Dave, and Nicola.

    https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/science-system-advisory-group-report.pdf

    The Coalition is waging an ideological war with fake reasons & arguments and they’re lying to us. We may think that we’re led (astray) by a weak leader, a clown, and a curmudgeon, but we’re being the fools in all this, as they know exactly what they’re doing, to us and for them.

    • Psycho Milt 6.1
      11 February 2025 at 12:47 pm

      NZ is starved of investment funds

      Unsurprising, when things are structured so that even the Prime Minister of the country finds it more attractive to put his money into buying and selling houses than into productive investment. It's not obvious why foreigners investing here might come to a different conclusion from the Prime Minister about the most lucrative thing to do with their money.

      • Incognito 6.1.1
        11 February 2025 at 8:55 pm

        I wrote “investment funds” not “investments” per se; please don’t conflate these and fall in the trap set by the Coalition.

        Unsurprising, when things are structured so that even the Prime Minister of the country finds it more attractive to put his money into buying and selling houses than into productive investment.

        Careful. This sounds dangerously similar to RW talking points that the way “things are structured” is the problem that needs to be fixed and all is well. The main reason why people do not invest into productive investment, as opposed to why they do invest in flipping real estate, is the low level of public funding. Besides not underwriting risks this fails to build that essential layer of trust and confidence of wannabe investors. The Science System Advisory Group Report was quite clear about this and rightly so.

        It's not obvious why foreigners investing here might come to a different conclusion from the Prime Minister about the most lucrative thing to do with their money.

        It’s quite obvious when you look at it Rightly. Overseas investors want two things badly: 1) land & house(s) (property); 2) NZ passport. The Coalition is killing these two kiwi birds with one stone and fulfils both wishes at once for a few pieces of silver.

        Their ‘investing’ seems more of a side-hustle to me, a game almost for the rich bored boys – making a big profit is a bonus [pun intended].

        The Coalition is way too willing to bend & loosen the rules for overseas investors but always fails to mention that this will have a flow-on effect on the rules & regulations for Kiwis, i.e., for the wealthy-and-sorted ones. The neutering of the Treaty is part of this subversive strategy – the focus of attention is too much on so-called equality, for Kiwis, alleged culture wars, and alleged restrictions on freedoms for all Kiwis, but this all is a deliberate distraction. It’s all about economic power, control, and freedom for the well-offs, the rich elites that form the ruling class, which is why they dislike democracy.

        The more they gain a foothold in NZ and the more economical power they amass, the more immune they will be to political interference. The Regulatory Standards Bill aims to speed up things and facilitate the consolidation of economic power in the hands of a few at the expense of the common good and the interests of the many.

  7. Mike the Lefty 7
    11 February 2025 at 10:17 am

    Bringing in rich foreigners won't create much wealth for ordinary Kiwis but certainly will be good for the already rich, land speculators and National's election donors.

  8. Mountain Tui 8
    11 February 2025 at 10:26 am

    Great article, mickysavage. Thanks.

  9. adam 9
    11 February 2025 at 4:27 pm

    I'd rather give Luigi ‘golden visa’, at least he was honest about his killing.