Summer services update
The final report of an independent review into a 2019 decision under the Overseas Investment Act 2005, commissioned in response to a recommendation by the Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use in Tairāwhiti/Gisborne and Wairoa.
The Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use in Tairāwhiti/Gisborne recommended reviewing a decision to not carry over a condition that required a forestry processing plant be built when Hikurangi Forest Farms was purchased by new overseas investors.
This document is the final report of an independent legal review that Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) commissioned in response to this recommendation.
The report concludes that LINZ’s decision was made lawfully under the Overseas Investment Act 2005, that the purchase application could not have been declined, and that there was no lawful basis for imposing further conditions. It identified no lessons to be learnt from this decision.