The unfortunate case of the Overseas Investment Office handling of the purchase of a Taranaki Farm

39 comments on “The unfortunate case of the Overseas Investment Office handling of the purchase of a Taranaki Farm ”

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1. Sabine 1

   4 May 2016 at 8:35 am

   Pass the popcorn.
   maybe invest in popcorn futures?
2. Pat 2

   4 May 2016 at 8:36 am

   “This could get (even more) interesting …
3. Te Reo Putake 3

   4 May 2016 at 8:38 am

   I may be wrong, but I think I heard on the radio that the official responsible for signing off the shonky brothers’ application no longer works for the OIO. Which is convenient for scapegoat/bus throwing purposes.
   • Sabine 3.1

     4 May 2016 at 8:45 am

     some curious journalist could track down that now unemployed official and ask some questions?

     yeah, nah nah not gonna happen ey?
     • Te Reo Putake 3.1.1

       4 May 2016 at 8:55 am

       I suspect they are still in the public service somewhere, Sabine. Either a genuine promotion or job change prior to this debacle coming out or a sideways shift to ensure damage limitation in recent days. Either way, if the person concerned is still on the payroll, they can effectively be kept from scrutiny.

       Mind you, it’s probably not down to an individual. It looks like the OIO was just a rubber stamp for investment and no real effort to weed out the unsuitable was ever made on any application.
       • Sabine 3.1.1.1

         4 May 2016 at 9:04 am

         I don’t blame the individuals as they usually don’t have the decision making power. They compile the data, present it, and are then told what to do with it and how to present it.

         the bucket stops with the minister, but then heck if it the lady on the picture, that department is shit outta luck, cause that tart is a Minister because she is useless, not despite it.
         And yes the OIO is a rubber stamp. Foreign investment is good for the corrupt entity that is this current National Party and National Party led government.
       • Tiger Mountain 3.1.1.2

         4 May 2016 at 9:20 am

         have followed the activities of the OIO for years via CAFCA (Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa) and it has long been apparent that there is only one type of rubber stamp in the OIO office cupboard, it reads “Approved Immediately old chap” and is next to a stack of legal business cards issued to successful applicants so they can contact the NZ Trust Industry

         crony capitalism as practiced by this Nat govt. is becoming hard to ignore, even to those that perform extraordinary exercises in semantics and subterranean levels of denial

         bring on 9 May when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
         https://www.icij.org is due to release a searchable data base of 200,000 ”offshore entities”
         • Chooky 3.1.1.2.1

           4 May 2016 at 10:10 am

           +100..this jonkey nact government is corrupt in so many ways
         • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.2.2

           4 May 2016 at 11:23 am

           crony capitalism as practiced by this Nat govt. is becoming hard to ignore, even to those that perform extraordinary exercises in semantics and subterranean levels of denial

           Although probably true I’m sure that you’ll find that the OIO was operating just as badly under the previous Labour led government.

           The real problem is the ideology that says we should sell everything as fast as we can and that ideology seems to be common to, Labour, National and the OIO.
       • Stuff the Politicians 3.1.1.3

         4 May 2016 at 10:09 am

         To true, just like all the CEO,s in the State Service.

         They just go around and around.
         Same old faces with little ability.
         • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.3.1

           4 May 2016 at 11:29 am

           They’ll have about the same ability as anyone else. A large part of the problem is that we expect them to be better and that they come to believe that they’re better. The inevitable result of this is pure disaster.
   • Sabine 3.2

     4 May 2016 at 8:45 am

     some curious journalist could track down that now unemployed official and ask some questions?

     yeah, nah nah not gonna happen ey?
4. Adrian 4

   4 May 2016 at 8:48 am

   So do we take it that the extent of the OIO’s checking up on the applicant’s good character is simply to Google them?
   • Sabine 4.1

     4 May 2016 at 9:09 am

     why yes, that sure beats having to bring a police certificate from each country in which you may have resided for six month and over, at your own cost of course.
   • Lanthanide 4.2

     4 May 2016 at 9:40 am

     I was wondering that too; Micky implies that is the case by quoting only that part of the document. I expect (hope?) that is just one small part of their background checks.
5. Murray Simmonds 5

   4 May 2016 at 8:52 am

   Well, the purchasers apparently lied about not having an overseas conviction.

   They therefore now fail the “good Character” test, so the required government/OIO action is obvious: Simply take the farm back off them . . . .

   Oh, I forgot . . . . this government is led by a compulsive liar.
   • dv 5.1

     4 May 2016 at 8:54 am

     Wouldn’t/shouldn’t the OIO check back with the country of origin for convictions.
     • AmaKiwi 5.1.1

       4 May 2016 at 9:12 am

       dv – Absolutely.

       Despite overwhelming public disapproval, this Big Brother fascist government took unto themselves the power to spy on every aspect of your life and mine.

       But when they don’t want to uncover any bad news about rich foreign investors buying up our farms, they use an internet search to vet them instead of asking the proper police authorities about their criminal convictions.

       Hypocrisy to perfection!
   • Sabine 5.2

     4 May 2016 at 9:06 am

     well, if the purchasers were only regular immigrants into NZ their residence permit by now would be revoked and they would be on a plane to where ever they came from?
     Oh hang on, they only poisoned a river, all good then, the only people that we kick out are the ones that may have had a conviction for possesion and use of weed.
     Poisoning a river is such a corporate white collar crime. Nothing much to see here.
     • AmaKiwi 5.2.1

       4 May 2016 at 9:15 am

       “if the purchasers were only regular immigrants into NZ their residence permit by now would be revoked”

       But exceptions will be made for those making donations to a certain political party.
     • Lloyd 5.2.2

       4 May 2016 at 10:03 pm

       Anyway no-one owns water so they didn’t really damage anything…..
   • Jack Ramaka 5.3

     4 May 2016 at 10:44 pm

     Fraud in my book?
6. One Anonymous Bloke 6

   4 May 2016 at 9:17 am

   Keep it up. Drip feed the OIO farce until the Mossack Fonseca database comes online on the 9th, and then with any luck the fun really starts.

   Who cares who the officials involved were – the Minister carries the can, or would if right wingers exhibited any shred of personal responsibility.
   • TC 6.1

     4 May 2016 at 9:33 am

     That minister is bus material like smarmy sammy was.
7. wyndham 7

   4 May 2016 at 9:26 am

   Some interesting facts here vis-a-vis the OIO:

   http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/community/CAFCA/key-facts.html
   • Observer (Tokoroa) 7.1

     4 May 2016 at 10:40 am

     To: Wyndham

     , The data presented by CAFCA is shocking. No wonder Louise just rubber stamped all foreign requests. She was on the mission of Key and English to flog our country off. Massive amount of New Zealand wealth has been passed onto Foreigners.

     How could Louise regard herself as A New Zealander, She is a cheap shallow dangerous underminer of NZ.
   • Draco T Bastard 7.2

     4 May 2016 at 11:42 am

     Keeping up with the research that CAFCA does is pretty much mandatory. They’re the only ones who show just how bad foreign ‘investment’ is.
8. TC 8

   4 May 2016 at 9:31 am

   C’mon folks this is the brighter future making our waterways glow, just take a nose peg.
9. roy cartland 9

   4 May 2016 at 10:33 am

   Trust good old Cunnles to come up with the goods. Why oh why did we not vote him in again? Because some reports said some MPs “didn’t like” him?
   God we’re pathetic, what an opportunity missed!
   • Bob 9.1

     4 May 2016 at 12:00 pm

     “Trust good old Cunnles to come up with the goods”
     At this point all he has done is take a leaf out of the Winston Peters “I have proof, but you will have to find it yourself” playbook.
     Clever politics, but it certainly doesn’t mean he has “come up with the goods”.

     “Why oh why did we not vote him in again?” Because if you do like this style of politics you are better off voting for the guy that does it better than anyone, Uncle Winny.
10. Draco T Bastard 10

    4 May 2016 at 10:58 am

    The report refers to the checks that had been made to ascertain if the purchasers were really people of good character. It states “[w]e have also conducted relevant internet searches for relevant adverse information on those individuals and have found nothing relevant”.

    It seems that this particular passage may not have been, how do you say, correct and makes you wonder at the quality of decision making by the OIO and also highlights repeated attempts to minimise what has happened here.

    I would expect the OIO to get in touch with the authorities of the country that the offshore owner comes from and not just google them. Hell, I just googled the Auckland mayoral candidates and for a few of them I got so many different results there’s no way I could determine which person of that name was running for mayor.

    You really get the feeling that a lot of rubber stamping may be going on and you have to wonder if the quality of many of the reports accompanying these applications is being compromised by a doctrine that thought that money coming in from overseas was a good thing.

    I’d say that that was pretty much guaranteed.

    David Cunliffe has stated he has other examples of companies that should have failed the good character test being granted OIO approval.

    I truly hope so as it will increase pressure to ban offshore ownership. Not that NZers ever wanted to allow offshore ownership – that was only ever the politicians.
11. save NZ 11

    4 May 2016 at 11:21 am

    Is that stream wadeable?

    The governments new standard for pollution.
12. Henry Filth 12

    4 May 2016 at 1:45 pm

    Australia seems to take a somewhat tougher line on these sorts of things. . .

    http://m.dw.com/en/australia-thwarts-sale-of-its-largest-cattle-farm-to-china/a-19224022

    Interesting to see the coverage of it in the German press, too.
    • dv 12.1

      4 May 2016 at 3:39 pm

      AND the have introduce a 40% tax on profit shifted out of aussie by google apple etc
      • Henry Filth 12.1.1

        4 May 2016 at 10:54 pm

        It’s a shame to see that they’re continuing the idiocy of taxing profit, but you can’t win them all, I suppose.
13. b waghorn 13

    4 May 2016 at 5:22 pm

    There’s another 2% to Winston right there.
14. Grace 2 14

    4 May 2016 at 6:22 pm

    “Do I look like a rubber stamp?”
    For Louise Upston – this question works like a charm on bureaucrats, please learn it for use when asked to sign off OIO approvals in future.
15. webbrowan 15

    4 May 2016 at 8:40 pm

    If we aren’t talking about the government or state run services, than any publicity is good publicity though isn’t it? I would love for my car finance company to get a bit of mention in the newspapers for helping people, but you can never control what the media will say about you. And of course you don’t want people to think that you’ve got bad or unhygienic service standards though!
16. Jack Ramaka 16

    4 May 2016 at 10:41 pm

    Nothing has changed in NZ since the old Maori Land Court days, all those records went up in smoke, I wonder why that was? Same shit different day?

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