The drive to limit land sales to foreigners is building with the Prime Minister making his clearest comments to date on the issue.
"My concern is about what I see potentially unfolding and that is quite large tracts of New Zealand land coming available for sale rapidly and the consolidation of those farms in foreign hands and whether that's in New Zealand's best interests, and my view is, it's not."
Up until now OIS records show that almost all approvals have been from the UK and the US, France and the Netherlands. Of the 235 bids approved in the five years from July 2005, only nine came from Asian countries.
In fact, if the bid for Crafar Farms by Chinese firm Natural Dairy succeeds, it will be the first successful approval for a Chinese-based enterprise.
Is xenophobia part of the popularity of this issue? Does it matter whether it is the origin or the scale of the foreign interest in our land?
Why are "large tracts of ... land coming available for sale rapidly"?
Why are there so few local buyers?
And if there are no foreign buyers bidding, will that push down the price of those farms, and the value of the whole farm land market?
Will the unintended consequences hurt us more than the policy objectives?
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