Watchblog: Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa

Overseas Investment Office says Rupert Murdoch of good character

In May the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) wrote to the Overseas Investment Office: “In light of the recent finding by a British Parliament Select Committee that Rupert Murdoch is “not fit” to lead a major international company, and in light of the fact that Murdoch’s News Ltd owns 43.65% of the shares of Sky Network Television Ltd, when is the OIO going to review, in terms of the Overseas Investment Act and accompanying Regulations, whether all of those in control of Sky are of good character and, if not, require Sky either to divest or Rupert Murdoch to relinquish any control of News Ltd?”.

This week we received the OIO’s considered decision from Annelies McClure, OIO Manager. Basically it boils down to saying that the OIO is not bothered about a British Parliament cross-party Select Committee finding that Murdoch is not fit to lead a major international company. The most extraordinary reason given for the OIO being satisfied with the “good character” of Murdoch and the other individuals exercising control over News Corporation is that he and they told the OIO that they are of good character, in the form of statutory declarations to that effect. In other words, the OIO takes his and their word for it, with no independent checking required. What a bloody joke!

CAFCA has documented the OIO’s long history of going to extraordinary lengths to rubberstamp the “good character” of all sorts of dubious characters in control of overseas companies whom it approved.

OIO’s Rupert Murdoch decision is just the latest proof of its role as a ... doormat

And the latest example namely an article by my colleague James Ayers in the forthcoming August issue of Foreign Control Watchdog, which analyses in great detail the OIO’s truly heroic efforts to vouch for the good character of Kim Dotcom, based entirely on the OIO’s own file on the subject. In that case the OIO was overruled by one Cabinet Minister (the since retired Simon Power), who persuaded his colleague Maurice Williamson to reverse his previous approval of Dotcom’s application.

It was a hopeful sign that the OIO, backed by Ministers, turned down the original bid by Natural Dairy (fronted by May Wang) to buy the Crafar Farms, because it wasn’t satisfied as to the good character of the people involved. CAFCA is also very pleased that the OIO has, very belatedly, taken our advice and is taking court action to divest May Wang’s company UBNZ of the four Crafar Farms that it bought without OIO permission in 2010. But this is the only case we’ve ever seen where the OIO has actually declared prospective foreign investors to not be of good character and therefore ineligible to join the garage sale that passes for foreign investment policy in this country.

The OIO’s Rupert Murdoch decision is just the latest proof of its role as a doorman (actually a doormat would be more accurate) for the transnational corporations and overseas individuals inexorably buying up, and profiting from, New Zealand companies and land. What we need is a bouncer. And, more fundamentally, we need a foreign investment law with teeth, one that states that these people are guests in our home and are here on our terms, a law that needs to be backed up by politicians who put the national interest ahead of their starry eyed infatuation with “globalisation and the open economy

CAFCA Media Release

The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) declares its solidarity with the Canadian members of the United Steelworkers Union who are currently visiting New Zealand (Invercargill today; Wellington tomorrow) to gain support for their struggle against contracting out by their employer, Rio Tinto Alcan. Their struggle bears an uncanny resemblance to that being waged by the Maritime Union against Ports of Auckland Ltd contracting out their jobs. And Rio Tinto Alcan has used the same tactic – namely, the indefinite lockout –as Affco has against its’ meat workers in the North Island.
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Our Canadian visitors need to know that Rio Tinto Alcan is also a recidivist corporate offender in this country, being one of the eight finalists in the annual Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand in 2011.

www.usw.ca

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New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ Ltd (notorious for decades under its previous name of Comalco) has been a regular finalist and was runner up in both the 2009 and 08 Roger Awards (you will find the Judges’ Reports for those years here).
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In 2011 the nominator put in a detailed (even footnoted) nomination of the owners of the Bluff aluminium smelter for a new reason – for lobbying two Governments “over several years to secure to secure excessive allocations of free emissions units under the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)… NZAS/Rio Tinto has interfered in a democratic process via political lobbying through its industry advocate the Greenhouse Policy Coalition in order to dodge a tax (greenhouse gas pricing under the NZETS), and to profit from the ETS through excessive free allocation of emissions units….there is very little doubt that the NZETS unit allocation rules are so distorted that the smelter would face a higher carbon price if it were exempted from obligations under the NZETS and just paid its electricity bills”. This is the same transnational which, only a few years ago, threatened to quit NZ if the ETS went ahead. If you can't beat them, you might as well make money out of them, eh.
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A whole book could be written about this company’s misdeeds in New Zealand and a good place to refresh your memory about its outrageous early history here is our 30 year old classic comic booklet “The Amazing Adventures Of NZ’s No.1 Power Junky: The True Story Of Comalco In NZ” It’s an oldie but a goody.
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The winner/s of the 2011 Roger Award will be announced at an event in Christchurch on the night of Friday April 20th.
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The full list of finalists and other details are here.
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