Labour Agriculture spokesperson Damien O’Connor says the Government is leaving farmers hanging with its latest ruling on foreign land sales.

The Government announced on Monday it would give its ministers greater powers in overseeing the application process for potential overseas buyers.

Mr O’Connor says the Government’s backtrack from its previous stance of loosening the rules leaves farmers uncertain.

“There’s been no clear direction given from yesterday’s announcement by the National-ACT Government as to how they will treat applications by foreign investors for farmland, and so farmers or farm operations considering selling won’t know if they can go out and attract foreign investors.”

Mr O’Connor says continued overseas investment here will push farm prices artificially high.

“The big issue here is land value and it is important that we don’t see open slated land values pushed up by foreign investment driven by cheap capital because that then just makes it more difficult for New Zealand farmers to get on to the land and then try and make a decent living.”