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.
