By: Mike Hosking | Friday, February 03, 2012 7:30 AM

The silliest story of the week surely has been the purchase of a couple of farms in the Wairarapa by James Cameron.

There is a queue of people who don't like it - perhaps it had something to do with the fact it came in the same week as the Crafar deal. But an argument without logic should never have excuses wrapped around it, so let's look at the lack of logic.

What's their point? Well productive land should never be sold to foreign interests. Well if you support that, then who should it be sold to? Their answer is farmers. Trouble is the farmers are stoked James Cameron has bought the land. Why? Because farmers know that generally people who come from offshore to buy productive land actually bring money with them, invest in the land, make it better and make it more productive. As a result we all get the flow on effects.

But be that as it may, let's indulge those who don't want it sold to foreign money so you're left with just local farmers. What happens as it did in the Crafar sale if no one locally wants to buy it? Well, according to Annette King on the programme on Wednesday, the Government would buy it. Brilliant - but for how much? Well she says market price. But wait a moment, who sets the market price? Given there would be different markets - a market for non productive land that anyone could buy and a market for farms that only farmers or the Government could buy - that would be a false market and the false market would produce a lesser price.

Then you look at the broader argument. If they don't want the Chinese buying land, and that now seems to extend to Americans, is there anyone at all we're remotely wanting to do business with? How do we explain people like Julian Robertson who is American and thus foreign, who bought big chunks of our land and then turned them into luxury lodges in Northland and Hawke's Bay along with associated golf courses that visually put this country on the map and as a result bring in millions in tourist dollars.

Because he did all this, he fell in love with the place. Because that happened, he handed the Auckland Art Gallery its biggest ever gift in the form of tens of millions of dollars worth of art from his own collection including work by blokes like Matisse and Picasso. Gee he turned out to be a real shister didn't he!

The xenophobia in this argument is ludicrous and I can only hope those who want to invest realise this madness is only peddled by a handful of the bewildered and paranoid.