Farms, politicians, and emails…

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January 14

To re-cap:

The second colonisation of New Zealand

The Crafar Farms – Why the delay from the OIO?

The time-line thus far;

5 October 2009: Crafar Farms placed into receivership.

22 December 2010: Government  blocks  bid by Natural Dairy to buy the 16 Crafar farms on ‘good character’ grounds.

27 January 2011: KordaMentha accepts offer from Pengxin International Group Ltd to buy Crafar Farms.

18 April 2011: Shanghai Pengxin lodges application with the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) to buy the Crafar farms.

26 September 2011: Crafar farms receiver KordaMentha  rejects a conditional NZ$171.5 million offer for 16 central North Island dairy farms from a group led by controversial former merchant banker Michael Fay.

To date, nothing further has been heard on this matter.

I have emailed Bill English again,

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from: [email]
to: bill.english@parliament.govt.nz
date: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 5:59 PM
subject: Crafar Farms

Sir,

Shanghai Pengxin lodged an application with the Overseas Investment
Office (OIO) on or around 18 April 2011, to buy the Crafar portfolio
after Natural Dairy’s application was rejected.

Normally, applications take up to 50 to 70 working days to process, as
per OIO guidelines. (Ref:LINZ, Application Assessment & Timeframes,
Estimated decision times,
http://www.linz.govt.nz/overseas-investment/applications/assessment#estimated)

It has now been nine months since Shanghai Pengxins lodged it’s application.

As the Minister responsible for the OIO, can you explain why Shanghai
Pengxins’ application has not yet received a decision? I have written
to you previously on this matter, and received on an acknowledgement
of receipt of email, but nothing further.

Information on this matter would be appreciated.

Regards
-Frank Macskasy

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It is my guess that the decision by the OIO was deferred last year  because of the General Election. The sale of the Crafar Farms is a contentious issue, to put it mildly, and would most likely  cost National the election had the OIO granted Shanghai Pengxin’s application.

I am betting that the OIO will make it’s decision in February or March, and will grant consent. I’m further “betting” that the consent will be made with some sort of “sweetener“, such as Landcorp managing the farms.

The result, however will be the same;  productive farmland alienated into foreign control; valuable produce shipped off to Chinese consumers; and profits lost to Chinese investors.

Gain to New Zealand? A few dozen employees’ salaries.

I am reminded of John Key’s pronouncement on foreign ownership of our productive landbase,

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The sell-off of our country continues.

That, coupled with the on-going de-unionisation of our workforce, is further indication of where our New Right government is heading.

Truly, we are in the midst of an ideological “civil war”.

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UPDATES

January 25

No response has been recieved from Bill English or any other Minister on this issue. The only conclusion I can reach is the following;

• this government is ducking for cover,
• this government intends to allow the Shanghai Pengxin purchase to proceed,
• this government instructed  the OIO to delay making a decision on Shanghai Pengxin’s application, because  of the sensitivity of this  as an election issue,
• this government has manipulated and interfered with the OIO process – just as National’s appointee to the Board of NZ on Air attempted to interfere with the broadcasting of a documentary, because it was considered as ’embarressing’ to National,
• this government has accepted donations from Chinese businessmen connected to Shanghai Pengxin,

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Full Story

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This is not the first time that National has benefitted financially from doing questionable “deals”,

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Full Story

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Full Story

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This blog predicts that National will allow the OIO to permit the sale of the Crafar farms to Shanghai Pengxin, and will try to “sweeten” the deal with sale-conditions designed to satisfy public concerns.

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