Campaign Against
Foreign Control (CAFCA) congratulates the Government for adding to the foreign
investment rules a national interest test for asset sales, and for including
water bottling and media companies within its scope.
This is a
result of the Government's stage 2 review of the Overseas Investment Act. CAFCA
was involved in that and our submission can be read on the Submissions
page of our website
CAFCA
has long recommended a national interest test. But it should not be confined
only to large foreign investments, but should be a blanket requirement for all
foreign investment applications.
And there
is a glaring loophole in the Government's announcement - it will only apply to
new applications from foreign applicants, not to the transnational corporations
already deeply embedded into. and dominatiing, the New Zealand economy. To use
a good old phrase, they are grandfathered.
Why?
How come
they don't get subjected to a national interest test?
How can
it be in the national interest for the transnational owners of the Bluff
smelter to get the biggest single chunk of electricity in the country at a
secret, mates' rate price, yet still keep blackmailing the Govenrment for more
taxpayers' subsidies or they'll leave the country?
How can
it be in the national interest to have a cabal of four Australian
banks totalliy dominate banking in NZ, extracting and exporting record profits
every year, whilst behaving in a way more suited to the Wild West (case in
point - ANZ, headed by John Key)?
How can
it be in the national interest to have transnational fishing companies
treating their workers like modern slaves in NZ's waters? Or transnational
forestry companies whose sub-contracted workers are among those most at
risk of death or injury while at work?
How can
it be in the national interest to allow the likes of SkyCity to operate here,
with its (quite literal) casino capitalism deal of getting more pokies in
return for the Auckland convention deal and then expecting its staff
to carry on working despite large numbers of them falling ill from smoke
inhalation from the recent major fire there?
These are
only a few examples. The list goes on and on.
CAFCA
recommends that the Government takes the same legal approach to transnational
corporations already in place here as it does to all people who hold a driver's
licence and/or own a vehicle.
Vehicles have
to be regularly inspected and pass a warrant of fitness. Because that is
in the national interest.
There are
also legal provisions for drivers to have to re-sit their licences, in certain
circumstances. Drivers are also subject to constant scrutiny via the road
rules. Because that is in the national interest.
So, let's
do the same with the transnational corporations already here - apply the
national interest test to them.
Make them
re-sit their licences and warrants of fitness. CAFCA predicts that plenty
of them would fail the test.
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