Foreign farm buyers face crackdown
The new Government will tighten the rules around foreigners being able to buy farmland.
Farm properties have always been regarded as ‘‘sensitive’’ assets and have required a minister to allow them to be sold, on the advice of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO).
Trade Minister David Parker told Radio New Zealand yesterday the Government would tighten the discretion around farm sales.
‘‘At the moment they are virtually all waved through. We think the ministerial discretion should be narrowed.
‘‘Our reasons for that are that young farmers graduating from sharemilker to farmer shouldn’t be priced out by foreign buyers,’’ Parker said.
‘‘Foreign buyers of New Zealand land don’t generally increase farm output, they use New Zealand farm systems and New Zealand managers so we don’t think there should be any economic cost in saying they should be New Zealand-owned as well,’’ he said.
Between 2008 and 2015, 724 sales of sensitive assets were approved and only 11 declined.
The new Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, has responsibility for OIO consents. She has indicated the present ‘‘rubber stamping’’ of sales would stop.
Federated Farmers has been reluctant to criticise sales, saying it supports direct overseas investment.
However, former president William Rolleston said for sensitive assets such as farm land there needed to be demonstrable benefits for New Zealand.
Monitoring and enforcement were also needed to ensure promised benefits were actually delivered on.
The OIO has been disparaged for carrying out ‘‘desk-top exercises’’, and never visiting properties themselves after they have been sold.
In the decade 2007 to 2016, each year an average of 131,012 hectares of freehold and 51,177ha of leasehold land was approved for sale.