Latest / Best of Business / Pattrick Smellie: BusinessDesk managing editor on the Government signing off on new rules for foreign investors

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Pattrick Smellie: BusinessDesk managing editor on the Government signing off on new rules for foreign investors · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: We've got Patrick Smley from Business deskic. It sounds like
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: New Zealand First has come to the party when it
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: comes to overseas buyers of property, and Patrick a Business
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Desk is reporting New Zealand First is set to agree
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: to allow wealthy people to buy homes above a certain threshold,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: reportedly five million dollars. So Patrick Spley from Business Desk
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: is with me. Now, Hello, Patrick.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Hi, Andrew. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: written there.
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  Speaker 2: You know, Okay, do we know that the threshold is
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: five million dollars?
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: We don't know that, and in many ways to do
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: pervot as with you, I think the more important thing
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: is that New Zealand First has agreed to a set
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: of reforms to the Overseas Investment Regime and so act.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: And it seems to me that that's actually even more
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  Speaker 3: significant than the is an intial property thing, because that's
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: what international investors coming into the summit next month will
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: be wanting to know about. So it's almost like that
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  Speaker 3: summit has accelerated a debate that had to be had
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: at the cabinet table about how they got to that point,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: and all this visa stuff is really supporting all of
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: that so that people who might want to come here
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  Speaker 3: in the course of making investments, we'll find that easier
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  Speaker 3: to do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I understand act absolutely, But New Zealand first,
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  Speaker 2: that is a sea change.
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  Speaker 3: They have been persuaded over a period of time, and
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  Speaker 3: Peter started talking about it last year, and I think
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  Speaker 3: Shane Jones is particularly on board and has probably been
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: influential in changing Winston Peters's mind to a more nuanced
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: view about foreign investment. And as long as it's a
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: reasonably toppy threshold. I mean, there was a cartoon I
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: saw in a newspaper this morning which suggested that letting
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: rich people coming from from America or wherever by very
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: expensive homes would would increase homelessness. I thought, I don't
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  Speaker 3: really think that's very likely. They're not going to be
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  Speaker 3: buying house that the average first home buyer is looking for.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: They won't even be allowed to.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, well five million cotton speak. You know, here
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  Speaker 2: we go. So you've already mentioned, of course we've got
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  Speaker 2: the summit it's coming up very shortly, and this is
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: setting quite a good scene for the whole thing. When
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  Speaker 2: you look at all the business settings that we are
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  Speaker 2: presenting before these international investors. Are we starting to look
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  Speaker 2: attractive enough?
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  Speaker 3: I doubt it, But I do think that there are
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: a number of things which start to come together, which
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: should start to come together, which maybe at the moment
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: they are a bit hard to see how they connect
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: because they're not the connections are not happening. If you've
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  Speaker 3: got a big list of fast track projects that need
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  Speaker 3: funding in front of a whole bunch of people's lots
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: of money which they want to deploy in safe countries
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: to do good things and hopefully make some money, then
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  Speaker 3: the fast track and the infrastructure projects that the government
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  Speaker 3: has on its own books represents a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 3: opportunities for investments. So it's now becoming possible to think
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: that you could get it. If you think in these terms,
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  Speaker 3: instead of it taking ages, it will be reasonbly quick
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: to get the thing underway. So yeah, I think to
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  Speaker 3: some extent, but I think it's the reality is only
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: going to set in very slowly.
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  Speaker 2: But of course it means nothing if we don't actually
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  Speaker 2: get people with investment capability, you know, and a higher
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: class of investment capability to come along, and they've been
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: very tight lipped about who's coming to the summit. I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: interviewed Neck Leggett the other day from Infrastructure New Zealand.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I said, mate, are you invited? And he went, I
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: don't know. Do you know?
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  Speaker 3: Do you have it signed?
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I know exactly. I would have thought he would
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: have been number one or certainly high up there from
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  Speaker 2: the New Zealand side. Do you know who's been invited?
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  Speaker 3: I know a few of the people have been invited,
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  Speaker 3: and I have make educated guesses about others. I mean
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand first is very keen on the on the
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Singaporean Government's Sovereign Wealth Fund Temasek. I would expect them
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  Speaker 3: to be there. We know that Morrison and Co, which
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: is the company that manages infratil infrastructure Investor, will be
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: there and has invited other parties that they deal with
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  Speaker 3: internationally to be present, some banks, some some other. I
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: think she's struggling to remember who the hell that we
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: know about black of course kind of it. But they
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: will seem a reasonably senior person. Which is which is
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: which is good. I kind of thought they'd abandoned us, really.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, Patrick, Yes, black Rock is coming and that's gonna
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  Speaker 2: that's going to put some wolves amongst the sheep, is
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  Speaker 2: it not? Anyway? Thank you so much for your time
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: at Patrick Smilli from Business Desk.
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