Peter Dunne: New Zealand citizenship

Reports that the American billionaire and Trump loyalist insider Peter Thiel is winding down his business interests in New Zealand call to mind one of the more controversial issues relating to New Zealand citizenship in recent years.

Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal in 1998 and the major data analysis company Palantir Technologies in 2003, amongst other global technology businesses. He has been a substantial contributor to the United States Republican Party over the years, supporting many right-wing causes, and was on the executive of Donald Trump’s transition team when he was first elected President in 2016.

Ele Ludemann: Whose view matters?

Friends were planning to build a new home on their high country station.

The consent process was long and expensive.

Among the objections raised was that the house would be seen from the near by lake.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Peter Thiel and the Environmental Court

Did a Christchurch Environment Judge called Prudence just end NZ's Dreams of higher tech-based productivity growth that would've fixed our health system & ended poverty?

New Zealand citizen, Peter Thiel, who is one of the world's richest men, and business associate of Elon Musk, has had his house application in Wanaka rejected on appeal by the Environment Court. Theil was the first investor in Rotorua Lakes High School's former student, Shane Legg's company Deep Mind. He started the Artifical Intelligence revolution. Theil once expressed huge enthusiasm about doing business in NZ - he loved how we fostered extreme sports in places like Queenstown and were into risk-taking and being different, with a freedom-loving edge, on top of being friendly and easy going at the same time. Not any more.