Bruce Slane: Concern at land sales to foreigners is not xenophobia

In its editorial "Denunciation of land buying racism spot on" the Herald commended Maurice Williamson's view that opposition to land sales to foreign owners is racist. It went further and gave the Save the Farms group as an example of stirring a wave of "xenophobic scaremongering" because the group wants a moratorium on approval of any sales to overseas companies to allow time for robust public debate.

Brian Rudman also thinks racism may be driving the public "uproar".

Allegations of racism and xenophobia (the dislike or fear of foreigners) have a chilling effect on public debate.

There is no evidence to support the assertion that racism is the reason that Save the Farms group has opposed the sale of farm land to overseas interests. It is assumed that it must be so because the group has not spoken out against a recent sale of a Wairarapa farm. That sale was not accorded the news treatment given the ambition of Chinese interests to purchase a total of 20 farms.

In July, on Jim Mora's show on Radio New Zealand National, I said I found it hard to see what benefits overseas ownership of the freehold of our farms would bring to New Zealand.

After all we have the expertise, the experience and state-funded research. What can an overseas owner add to New Zealanders above jobs that are here already?

I was invited to join the Save the Farms group and have detected no racism or xenophobia - just a desire to withhold consents to sales until there has been some input from the people into the Government's policy review.

I am now tarred with being a member of a group engaged in xenophobic scaremongering. I was for many years New Zealand councillor on the International Bar Association and was elected to its management committee for three years before being re-elected unopposed for another three. Were 160 bar leaders from all parts of the world unable to detect my supposed dislike of them?

The Herald implies that it's only xenophobic if you object to a bulk sale of farms to people like the Chinese. When I was elected vice-president of Lawasia they must have overlooked my apparent dislike of Asians.

Then I sat on two immigration tribunals in New Zealand and had my term extended without anyone alleging I was racist - a word I understood from 11 years as a human rights commissioner. So much for the gratuitous denigration.

What concerns me most is that the Herald and, uncharacteristically Brian Rudman, failed to discuss the real issues - Rudman implying it is too late and the both asking why we didn't do something about it earlier. That's an old journalistic technique. If you set up an organisation to do some good the reporter asks why you didn't do it earlier.

Save the Farms founder John McKearney was keen to do something about land ownership. I was pleased to join him. Can we all now discuss the issues openly and drop the personal attacks.

The review of policy is being conducted by the Treasury in secret. It invites submissions - but only a technical group made up of lawyers who act for overseas companies are allowed in on the debate.

Unnamed officials will make the recommendations and discuss them with ministers. We will be faced with a fait accompli when the Cabinet has made all the decisions.

What about a Treasury discussion paper first setting out the arguments for and against the sale of our freehold sensitive farm and agricultural land to overseas-based owners? Perhaps powerful lobbyists such as the Business Round Table, Federated Farmers, Fonterra, Business New Zealand and the CTU would be prepared to make their submissions public.

Save the Farms is not an expert policy group. It does not claim to know it all.

We are concerned citizens who suggest the Government hold further consideration of applications until there is a public debate on whether the freehold of sensitive land is different from other types of overseas investment and what the detailed policy should be.

I am not opposed to all overseas investment in New Zealand but obviously some is more valuable to New Zealand. For example, Haier group's cornerstone investment in Fisher & Paykel Appliances produces significant linkages and benefits for the New Zealand company.

Bill English sees vertical integration as an important issue. (Starting with overseas ownership of the freehold farm, running the whole farm business and processing of product through to selling it for the benefit of foreign owners, leaving us only with the jobs we already staff.)

The Finance Minister's raising of this point is not xenophobic. He is considering what is best for this country. That is what we should debate.

I have found no reasoned debate in the Herald of the case for continuing to allow the sale of our agricultural, horticultural and small island land to overseas investors. Is there one?

* Sir Bruce Slane is a former president of the New Zealand Law Society and has shares in Fisher & Paykel Appliances. He has no farm or horticultural land nor any intention of purchasing such.

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Posted: 22 Sep 2010