New Zealand Citizens Group
Posted 20th April 2001

He (almost invariably it is a he) who pays the piper plays the tune. It is an essential item of information to know who owns what where you live, and if that happens to be New Zealand, then you are rapidly becoming part of a minority shareholder group called New Zealand citizens group, part of New Zealand (NZ) Inc. Foreign direct investment (ownership of companies) in New Zealand increased from $9.7 billion in 1990 to $46.6 billion in 1996 - an increase of over 450%. Foreign owners now control nearly 65% of the NZSE40 companies (the top 40 companies listed on the Stock Exchange). In 1989, the figure was 19%. In 1996* alone, the Overseas Investment Commission approved foreign investment totalling $6.8 billion (the Commission only has to approve company takeovers involving $10 million or more). The area of rural land sold to foreigners has increased from 41,900 hectares in 1991 to 86,000 in 1996.

The biggest foreign owners of New Zealand are: America, Australia, Britain, Singapore, Europe, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan. The Asian countries come a long way behind the others. Transnational corporations (TNCs) are making massive profits out of New Zealand. For the 1996/97 financial year, US-owned Telecom made a $581 million profit. It pays out never less than 70% of annual profits as dividends to its owners, and some years more than 90%. TNC profits can truly be called New Zealand's biggest invisible export and have a major deletrious effect on our balance of payments. Foreign "investment", in the great majority of cases, is actually a takeover, not investment at all. Foreign ownership does not guarantee more jobs. In fact, it quite often adds to unemployment. US-owned Telecom is making 40% of its New Zealand workforce redundant.

Foreign ownership does nothing to improve New Zealand's foreign debt problem. In 1984, total private and public foreign debt stood at $16 billion. In 1997, it was $75.5 billion - despite a decade of public asset sales and takeovers. Ownership means political power. The finance markets constantly threaten to move their money out if policies are enacted that they disapprove of. Foreign control means recolonisation, but by company this time, not country. Nearly everything that has been done to New Zealanders in the past decade has been done to "make the New Zealand economy attractive to foreign investment". This is what it all means to ordinary New Zealanders - we are involuntary competitors in the race to the bottom.

Recommendations to New Zealand Citizens Group (NZCG) Vote for NZCG and vote often by using your spending dollar to:

* Buy locally made goods and services

* Read labels and online reports of company ownership as reported on this site

* Don't patronise foreign owned chains that compete only on price and value only cheap foreign labour and super-exploited natural resources

* Pressure politicians by expressing buy local, own local views while in private or public conversations

In short, support local and environmentally sustainable businesses..