Alliance Party Press Release
October 22nd 2009

Port Lyttelton is not for sale!

Alliance condemns move to weaken oversees investment rules

The Alliance Party’s Conference, held in Christchurch last weekend, unanimously passed a resolution to:

“...fully endorse the call by the Campaign Against Foreign Control to reject the Government’s proposal to liberalise even further the 2005 Overseas Investment Act.”

Party President Paul Piesse said that the only reason individuals and enterprises from overseas invested in New Zealand was in the expectation of taking more out of the country than they put in. “Only idiot politicians would connive at that,” he said.

The Alliance Party noted that the changes will mean, for example, that Christchurch City Councillors, who have recently and without any public consultation removed the Port of Lyttelton from its register of protected essential assets, will be able to sell the Port without requiring the permission of the Overseas Investment Office – let alone their own citizens.

The Party pointed out that the Council “tried to do that previously, but were prevented by the intervention of a combination of wrathful Christchurch citizens and the Port of Otago – also publicly-owned”.

Mr Piesse said that “previous generations of New Zealanders, who built up our assets, had a word for politicians, national or local, who sold out their country: “‘Quislings!’”

“There is nothing noble, or patriotic, or democratic about comprador capitalists and their political friends when they undermine our economic sovereignty,’ he said.

ENDS

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