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Not every foreigner wanting a place here is a rapacious land banker.
At a friend’s birthday party this week, I was introduced to a man whose parents fell in love with New Zealand during a holiday there and visited regularly, once three times in one year. They liked the people and the land so much they decided to buy a property (a few hectares in Arrowtown, so I am assuming they were wealthy). But aged in their eighties, they began to find the trip from the US East Coast too much, so after 10 years, they sold it.
I have American friends who, 20 years ago, bought a very modest bach in Buller. They have visited it every year since and each summer are welcomed back by the locals, who embrace the couple for doing something so mad and spontaneous as buying a dilapidated bach halfway around the world from their home.
My friends know that the time will come when they, too, will find the annual trip too much; they will sell the old bach and the new one they have built beside it.
For 20 years, they have planted and maintained the Department of Conservation reserve next to their place. Neither of my friends nor the parents of the man I met at the birthday party have New Zealand residency or citizenship. I am no expert on immigration rules, but I think that means that they can stay in New Zealand for a maximum of five months each calendar year, and both couples strictly abide by the rules.
The Government would argue, I think, that these Americans displace New Zealanders from home ownership, but every New Zealander who buys a home also prevents someone else from owning it. I was broken-hearted in January to miss out on a property in Golden Bay. As far as I know, the successful bidder was a New Zealander, although all that mattered to me was that they had more money than I did. Plenty of New Zealanders meet that criterion.
I know two American couples who would love to buy a little place in New Zealand – not in Auckland. It is the Government’s right to ban foreigners from owning property, but it should not do so by implying that every foreigner is a rapacious landlord or a scheming land-banker or has an eye on 26 houses in Papakura. Nor should the Government pretend that restrictions on foreign ownership will suddenly make home ownership easier for New Zealanders. The foreigners I know who have owned or own land in New Zealand have, I would argue, given more to our country than they will ever take from it.
According to the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch, Syria will chair the United Nations Conference on Disarmament next month. Well, naturally. Among other achievements, the conference was responsible for the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons. Who better to provide leadership on the use of chemical weapons than Syria, which just this month gassed some of its own citizens, either because they supported the wrong people or happened to be in the wrong place? The gas – like the UN – does not seem to discriminate.
Last year, the UN elected Nigeria, Afghanistan, Angola, Qatar and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others, to each serve a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council. The world looks forward to their leadership. Meanwhile, membership of the Committee for the Prevention of Making the UN a Laughing Stock seems wide open.
Syria will chair the United Nations Conference on Disarmament next month. Well, naturally.