Govt 'back in hot seat' over farms

The Government is back in the "hot seat" over Chinese company Natural Dairy NZ's proposed purchase of the Crafar dairy farms after state-owned Landcorp's bid for the properties was quickly dismissed, says Green Party leader Russel Norman.

The receivers for the 16 properties - Michael Stiassny and Brendon Gibson of KordaMentha - appeared to go out of their way yesterday to rule out Landcorp's offer early on in what has become a politically charged sale process.

While they said in a brief statement that Landcorp was not one of the "preferred tenderers", they did not rule out any other of the 50 bids.

Mr Stiassny told the Herald that given the interest in the sale of the farms he had taken "this unusual step to make it very, very clear to all the commentators and Landcorp" that its bid would not go any further.

Comments by ministers in recent months suggest the Government would prefer the farms remained in New Zealand hands and Prime Minister John Key has said in recent days that he opposes the sale of large tracts of productive land to overseas investors.

Dr Norman, himself opposed to the sale of land to foreign owners, said a successful bid by Landcorp would have got the Government "off the hook so they didn't have to turn down Natural Dairy" through the Overseas Investment Office (OIO).

Natural Dairy is awaiting OIO approval for its possible purchase of the farms and has a conditional purchase agreement with the receivers.

"Assuming Natural Dairy is pretty likely to win," said Dr Norman, "the Government is back in the hot seat."