The Green Party has drafted a bill to block any more New Zealand land falling into foreign hands.

The bill would apply to rural land of five hectares or more and limit ownership to New Zealand citizens or permanent residents.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says the bill would protect New Zealand’s brand and economy from high-profile acquisitions such as Natural Dairy NZ’s bid for the 16 Crafar family farms.

“The current Overseas Investment Act has a definition of what is sensitive land, and it includes non-urban land greater than 5 hectares.

"So just using their definition you can say let’s just make sure sensitive land doesn’t fall into foreign ownership, we can protect the majority of rural land from falling into foreign ownership, which would be a great thing for New Zealand."

Dr Norman says he’s concerned an overseas investment review, being led by Finance Minister Bill English, will relax foreign ownership rules rather than strengthen them.

"The Government’s giving very mixed signals on foreign investment – the Prime Minister is saying he doesn’t want to see New Zealand fall into foreign ownership, but the Finance Minister has said he wants to weaken our overseas investment laws.

"So they seem to be going in opposite directions, and it will be interesting to see what the outcome is of those two opposites.”