Another of John Key’s lies – sorry – “Dynamic Situations”

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An  email sent to Dear Leader, last year,

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from:    [email]
to:    john.key@parliament.govt.nz
date:    Sun, Sep 11, 2011 at 12:32 AM
subject:Purchase of farmland

Sir,

At a recent public meeting in the Hutt Valley, in answer to a question from
the audience, you responded that purchases of farmland, by overseas buyers,  
would be restricted to ten farms per purchaser.

Can you confirm that this restriction is in place, and when the regulation was
enacted?

Regards,

– Frank Macskasy

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No response (or even acknowledgement)  was ever received from the Prime Ministers office.

The issue arose during a public meeting in Lower Hutt, organised by Hutt Grey Power,  on 24 May last year. People were concerned about the sale of 16 Crafar farms to overseas investors. The audience were most clearly unhappy at the prospect that foreign investiors were buying up vast tracts of our productive land.

Key made reassuring noises and said that his Party were “looking” at putting a limit at the number of farms a foreign investor could buy. He proposed a cap of ten farms. (Though even that  was not well received by the audience.)

In media reports though, he was somewhat less specific,

“Prime Minister John Key says the Government would look at changing the law to limit foreign ownership of productive land if there is growing public concern.

However, he says such a change in response to the sale of the Crafar farms would a knee-jerk reaction.”

See:  Law change possible over foreign land buyers – Key

See:  PM: Change to foreign ownership law possible

Nothing ever happened, of course.

This was yet another example of John Key uttering vague reassurances with no intention of following through. And on 20 April, this year, Ministers Williamson and Coleman consented to foreign investor, Shanghai Pengxin, buying all 16 Crafar farms.

See:  Govt’s Crafar China sale decision slammed

No wonder that John Key’s reputation is becoming more tattered with each passing day. After a while, people start remembering these things.

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= fs =