Not one acre more

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira says he is seriously looking at drafting a bill to ban the sale of land in Aotearoa to foreigners.

“The Maori land march to Wellington 35 years ago had as its slogan 'Not One Acre More' because Maori were scared about how much Maori land was being gobbled up by the Crown,” Mr Harawira said.

"The funny thing is that if government had passed legislation back in 1975 to keep that land forever in Maori hands, we wouldn't be moaning so much about the sale of NZ lands to foreigners today.

"About 27 million hectares of Aotearoa's prime real estate has been sold off to foreigners under both National and Labour, and that policy is simply not in the best interests of the citizens of Aotearoa, Maori or otherwise.

"If foreigners want to do business or have a holiday house here, that's fine - let them lease or pay rent.”

Mr Harawira said a number of countries including China, Japan, Thailand, most of the Pacific Island nations and parts of Europe allowed foreigners to have 'land use rights' but not freehold title.

"Foreign investors might not like it, but they will understand it because a lot of them come from countries that have no problem saying no to us."

Mr Harawira said that this country's foreign investment rules were quite simply failing to keep Aotearoa in Kiwi hands.

"The Crafar farms and the Marlborough Sounds farm are highly visible examples of the problem. We lose the land, the productive capacity, the management, and the connection.

"Somebody needs to take a stand on this. And given the pain that Maori people have suffered from land loss, who better than the Maori Party to take steps to save Aotearoa from the hands of foreigners.

ENDS

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