Foreign Investment Changes

A reader writes:

The truly pavlovian response by the media to the statement yesterday about changes to overseas investment rules, makes me marvel that we have any decent public policies in NZ.

The English statement today sets out facts that competent journalists would have worked out for themselves, if they were professional and not dependent on recycling statements from politicians and others with little or no interest in the truth. Their coverage has been truly pathetic.

The statement the reader refers to is this:

Removing the strategic asset test from the overseas investment rules will reduce confusion and uncertainty for investors but will have little other practical effect, Finance Minister Bill English says.

“The strategic asset test has never been used to block a sale by any government in this country,” Mr English told the Shareholders Association Annual Conference in Wellington today.

So a never used ill defined test is going, and this got the headlines about everything for sale.

“Contrary to Labour’s spin, it did not use this test to block the sale of Auckland Airport. Instead it relied on nine existing criteria in the rules relating to the sale of sensitive land. They were applied as part of the normal screening process.

Yet many media reported that this test was used to block the sale.