Do you need to understand FTA complexities in detail?
My colleague Rob Ogilvie has drawn my attention to an excellent paper, Uncertain Opportunities: Chinese Investors Establishing Investments in New Zealand by Paul Comrie-Thomson published by the NZ Contemporary China Research Centre of Victoria University this year.
I commend it to the Labour Party research unit.
Their Leader said this evening to NewsTalk ZB's Susan Wood that his colleagues responsible for the China FTA tell him it was not meant to prevent NZ from barring investment it does not want.
If that was what they meant, it is not what they signed. They should read Mr Comrie-Thomson's paper. There may be room as "Michael" and others have argued in comments on my previous post, to protect an Australian privilege under CER 1983, but it will not be straightforward. More importantly the proposed prohibition is simply not permitted by our ASEAN FTA ( as well as the Malaysian FTA mentioned in the previous post).
The sooo boring detail of deals that stitch us up may have eluded the politicians who actually signed them, but until they are properly understood Mr Shearer, stop digging.
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I think the parts in the paper about MFNs and how bits of future agreements get automatically included in prior ones is worth a read in itself.
Interesting this too: “This indicates that if the Overseas Investment Act were wound back to
become more restrictive, New Zealand would be in contravention of its
obligations in its IIAs.
So seems like no more nationalistic protection measures on sensitive land.
I dont know how Paul thinks we will get foreign investors more consistent certainty/transparency with the OIA without there somehow being a perceived increase in restrictions to some investor and thus putting NZ in breach of an FTA