Latest / The SME Stream / Marcus Beveridge: Queen City Law Managing Director on the potential for Singapore to invest in New Zealand's infrastructure

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Marcus Beveridge: Queen City Law Managing Director on the potential for Singapore to invest in New Zealand's infrastructure · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now from the Good Ideas Department. The suggestion over the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: weekend from Shane Jones no less that Singapore wants in
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: on some of our foreign investment for infrastructure. We want
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  Speaker 1: their money, they want our food security. Seems simple. Queen
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: City laws. Marcus Beveridge specializes in foreign investment, and he's well,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: there's Marcus, morning to you mining.
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  Speaker 2: Mike has it hanging very well.
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  Speaker 1: I was a little bit surprised about all of this,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought we were close with Singapore. They're an
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneurial sort of city. They've got to carve out with
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  Speaker 1: a foreign investment. I would have thought we'd be into
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  Speaker 1: this already. A sort of floated as a new idea
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  Speaker 1: seems weird to me.
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  Speaker 3: Well, what about the exquisite irony of Shane and Winston
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  Speaker 3: out there promoting this when near the sort of reads
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  Speaker 3: under your beds and Japanese Smarines.
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  Speaker 2: And the harbor guys. I mean, look, fantastic idea.
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  Speaker 3: The Singaporeans have been big players in our commercial property
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  Speaker 3: market for a long time, but getting them to invest
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  Speaker 3: into our infrastructure is a novel and really good idea.
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  Speaker 3: But whether we can pull it off or not, I'm
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  Speaker 3: not so sure what would do.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 3: Thirty years ago we tried to get to Maussak, the
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  Speaker 3: investment arm of their government, to invest in an internationally
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  Speaker 3: important Taupo, which sounded like a great idea at the time,
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  Speaker 3: but it didn't really happen. I think the problem is
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  Speaker 3: reputationally at the moment, despite our regulatory framework being probably
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  Speaker 3: considered attractive, we're not seen as a positive jurisdiction to
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  Speaker 3: invest in at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be changing given that Peters is out there
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  Speaker 1: every second day beating the drama and Luxin is not
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  Speaker 1: far behind him.
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  Speaker 3: Our hats off to Winston for doing that. But I
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  Speaker 3: think we're sort of seen as the lawless West at
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  Speaker 3: the moment. There's not so much the Aussie criminals. It's
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  Speaker 3: probably more the Kiwi criminals. We've we've also with immigration,
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  Speaker 3: we've damaged some relationships there.
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  Speaker 2: We had a client.
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  Speaker 3: Who has two hundred and fifty million dollars worth of
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  Speaker 3: hotels here, employees five hundred Kiwis and just he was
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  Speaker 3: decked around by bureaucrats and Wellington and pulled the plug. So,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a great idea they've got. I was
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  Speaker 3: trying to work out what their investment fund is it
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  Speaker 3: actually equates to about five hundred thousand million New Zealand dollars.
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  Speaker 2: But they're shrewd investors and I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, if you look at the underground railway, it
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  Speaker 3: should have taken two years and cost two billion dollars
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  Speaker 3: and it's sort of ten years later and getting close
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  Speaker 3: to ten billion.
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  Speaker 2: I think Leekon you would be turning in his grave.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a very good point. So what you're
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  Speaker 1: saying is one, you need to get across the hurdle
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  Speaker 1: reputational damage. If you get across that hurdle, you then
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  Speaker 1: put your money into the country to watch a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of road cones hold up everything and blow out at
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  Speaker 1: twice the price. So we've got to fix that as well.
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  Speaker 2: Well, see it, I mean that's it.
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, so that whole governance around projects and how
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  Speaker 3: we get stuff done efficiently, Yeah, it's you know, they're
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  Speaker 3: not stupid and so yeah, there's a real politic thing
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  Speaker 3: to deal with there. But the idea that Shane Jones
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  Speaker 3: has is a great idea.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is all right, Marcus, appreciate the insight. We'll
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  Speaker 1: talk to the Prime Minister about it. Shortly Marcus Beverage,
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  Speaker 1: who's with Queen City Law. Mike, you didn't answer the
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  Speaker 1: question how's it hanging. It's hanging as it always does.