CAFCA congratulates the Government for adding to the foreign investment rules a national interest test for asset sales, and for including water bottling and media companies within its scope. This is a result of the Government's stage 2 review of the Overseas Investment Act. CAFCA was involved in that (see my article "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Overseas Investment Act Reform Aimed At Making Life Easier For TNCs", in Watchdog 151, August 2019. That article includes CAFCA's submission to the Government on the review).

CAFCA has long recommended a national interest test. However, it should not be confined only to large foreign investments, but should be a blanket requirement for all foreign investment applications. And there is a glaring loophole in the Government's announcement - it will only apply to new applications from foreign applicants, not to the transnational corporations (TNCs) already deeply embedded into, and dominating, the New Zealand economy. To use a good old phrase, they are grandfathered. Why?

Make Ensconced TNCs Subject To National Interest Test

How can it be in the national interest for the transnational owners of the Bluff smelter to get the biggest single chunk of electricity in the country at a secret, mates' rate price, yet still keep blackmailing the Government for more taxpayers' subsidies or they'll leave the country? How can it be in the national interest to have a cabal of four Australian banks totally dominate banking in NZ, extracting and exporting record profits every year, whilst behaving in a way more suited to the Wild West (case in point - ANZ, headed by John Key)?

How can it be in the national interest to have transnational fishing companies treating their workers like modern slaves in NZ's waters? Or transnational forestry companies whose sub-contracted workers are among those most at risk of death or injury while at work? How can it be in the national interest to allow the likes of SkyCity to operate here, with its (quite literal) casino capitalism deal of getting more pokies in return for the Auckland convention centre deal and then expecting its staff to carry on working despite large numbers of them falling ill from smoke inhalation from the recent major fire there? These are only a few examples. The list goes on and on (transnational insurance companies, anyone?).

CAFCA recommends that the Government takes the same legal approach to TNCs already in place here as it does to all people who hold a driver's licence and/or own a vehicle. Vehicles have to be regularly inspected and pass a warrant of fitness. Because that is in the national interest. There are also legal provisions for drivers to have to re-sit their licences, in certain circumstances. Drivers are also subject to constant scrutiny via the road rules. Because that is in the national interest. So, let's do the same with the TNCs already here - apply the national interest test to them. Make them re-sit their licences and warrants of fitness. CAFCA predicts that plenty of them would fail the test.