From Brian Rudman NZH
"... more than one million hectares of land already in foreign ownership.
Indeed, about 7 per cent of our commercially productive land area has overseas owners. And that was as of 2005. Overseas Investment Office figures in last Saturday's Weekend Herald recorded that in the five years since then, an additional 150,248ha of agricultural land went into overseas ownership.
The top three purchasing nationalities were the UK, Italy, US - each buying between 34,000ha-40,000ha, then Israel (26,132ha) and Australia (11,705ha). Looming large in the Israeli portfolio is the iconic Walter Peak station and its 25,758ha Crown pastoral lease."
Last October, when US-owned Foley Family Wines bought NZ Wine Fund (59.85 per cent NZ-owned), Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan noted that sale meant nearly half of the country's wine production was in the hands of overseas companies. Lincoln University's professor of farm management and agribusiness, Keith Woodford, goes further, calculating that because the surviving New Zealand-owned vineyards are the smaller ones, "on a volume basis about 70 per cent is foreign-owned".
Our forest plantations are even more alienated, says Professor Woodford, blogging in April that, by his calculations, about 72 per cent of pine forests were foreign-owned as of 1999, with US companies owning 35 per cent and Asian companies about 12 per cent. He says that since then, off-shore plantation ownership "appears to have further increased".Many people fear that this government will keep selling our assets, our land and our destiny - I am one of those people. I say NO MORE SALES. In fact i agree 100% with Hone, again - from Scoop
"About 27 million hectares of Aotearoa's prime real estate has been sold off to foreigners under both National and Labour, and that policy is simply not in the best interests of the citizens of Aotearoa, Maori or otherwise.
Maori Party MP Hone Harawira says he is seriously looking at drafting a bill to ban the sale of land in Aotearoa to foreigners.
“The Maori land march to Wellington 35 years ago had as its slogan 'Not One Acre More' because Maori were scared about how much Maori land was being gobbled up by the Crown,” Mr Harawira said.
"Somebody needs to take a stand on this. And given the pain that Maori people have suffered from land loss, who better than the Maori Party to take steps to save Aotearoa from the hands of foreigners."Lots of good words there but let's see some action.
No more sales, no more short termism that doesn't consider the future or our mokopuna. NO MORE!
Where did all this land come from anyway that these people can decide to sell it? Stolen, cheated and tricked from maori - give it back and that will create a platform for the correct growth of this country.
Footnote - I just want to make the point that I am talking about companies and corporations buying and selling land for profit - I am not talking about people from anywhere who choose to come and live here and raise their families. I encourage people to choose this country and come and build a life here. We want you, we need you. Maori are tangata whenua - the indigenous people of this land and that is good. Let's all work together to allow the potential of this country to shine.
5 comments:
Hi,
I went to te papa last year, and saw the way maori land become non-maori land - they had a map setup that showed how it shrunk over time.
We're in an odd position. My family and I are Aussies, and we've immigrated to NZ. We're still within our five year wait before we can become citizens, which we intend to do.
In the meanwhile, we've recently bought a 3 acre property which was owned by a (white) kiwi and his wife, and which had all sorts of chemicals dumped on it for years. We're in the process of turning it organic now, we grow a lot of food already, and share much of it freely with the community.
I have made a promise to my property that I will not poison it, and I will take care of it well. Hippy maybe, but that's just what I think is the right thing to do. I feel strongly about land stewardship and care.
I guess my view is, if you wan to buy land in New Zealand, you should live in NZ, and take up citizenship - if you qualify.
Same goes for anywhere else. I wouldn't expect to be able to buy land in China if I can't live there.
I see these sales as just more steps in the corporatisation of our world. Bad.
Yes, the land was stolen, for the most part, from the maori. I absolutely agree. But now I think the big challenge is getting all land back to health, back in the hands of ordinary people, and putting aside land which can never be bought, sold or built on.
If that means returning it to maori stewardship - bring it on! but if the maori are then going to sell it to overseas owners for big profits, that isn't good for our country - my new home. I want us all thinking and working together long-term, for the good of our communities and land - and for generations to come.
So yes, I'm strongly against selling land to overseas owners - even if that had included me. If we'd had to wait until our citizenship had come through, we would have waited. As anyone wanting to be part of this country should.
Just my (long) 2c.
Hi,
I went to te papa last year, and saw the way maori land become non-maori land - they had a map setup that showed how it shrunk over time.
We're in an odd position. My family and I are Aussies, and we've immigrated to NZ. We're still within our five year wait before we can become citizens, which we intend to do.
In the meanwhile, we've recently bought a 3 acre property which was owned by a (white) kiwi and his wife, and which had all sorts of chemicals dumped on it for years. We're in the process of turning it organic now, we grow a lot of food already, and share much of it freely with the community.
I have made a promise to my property that I will not poison it, and I will take care of it well. Hippy maybe, but that's just what I think is the right thing to do. I feel strongly about land stewardship and care.
I guess my view is, if you wan to buy land in New Zealand, you should live in NZ, and take up citizenship - if you qualify.
Same goes for anywhere else. I wouldn't expect to be able to buy land in China if I can't live there.
I see these sales as just more steps in the corporatisation of our world. Bad.
Yes, the land was stolen, for the most part, from the maori. I absolutely agree. But now I think the big challenge is getting all land back to health, back in the hands of ordinary people, and putting aside land which can never be bought, sold or built on.
If that means returning it to maori stewardship - bring it on! but if the maori are then going to sell it to overseas owners for big profits, that isn't good for our country - my new home. I want us all thinking and working together long-term, for the good of our communities and land - and for generations to come.
So yes, I'm strongly against selling land to overseas owners - even if that had included me. If we'd had to wait until our citizenship had come through, we would have waited. As anyone wanting to be part of this country should.
Just my (long) 2c.
Kia ora daharja,
Thanks for your great comments.
And thank you for working with your land to bring it back to health - i agree that that is the way to go. Communities working together to heal the past and the present is exactly what i believe too.
The argument about selling land for profit is premature because there are so many maori claims still outstanding. We should sort all of them out before we do anything else.
Welcome and thanks for choosing to live here - you have found a home.
Hi Marty - I absolutely agree that we need to sort out the claims. They're WAY overdue.
I won't even get started on talking about a similar situation over in Aussie - its shameful. Because my rant would go on for quite a while!
And then there's Maralinga.
I love New Zealand, and hope to be a proud Kiwi citizen pretty soon :-)
When pastoral leases are part of a land sale, even if they are still leases, they should be returned to the local iwi. The Crown bleats on about how it can't possibly afford to return the actual amount of land stolen, and privately owned land can't be returned by law, but it could return pastoral leasehold land. It only requires the good will to do so.
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