Bayly Andrew; Parker DavidANDREW BAYLY (National—Port Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to go back to the Hon Michael Woodhouse's original question that gives rise to the reason why we're having this urgency today which the National Party is very very concerned about. I'd just like the Minister to answer the question: if the purpose of the change—of introducing an extension to the brightline test and removing the deductibility of interest—is to stabilise the market then why is there a need for urgency? Because if people had more time to contemplate these changes and actually be able to manage their affairs as they would have expected to up to 9 o'clock this morning if they'd had a time to work through a process where these things would have been considered in a committee stage we would have had a much better outcome. What it also would have done if we'd delayed the introduction of this is led to a point where if an investor was currently holding a property they would have been caught under the five-year brightline test anyway and they could have exited the market at that point.In terms of the interest deductibility people could have also taken a view on whether they wanted to buy a house because it has significant ramifications for the economics of their buying the house. I heard the Prime Minister very damagingly talking about speculators today. In most cases this is mum and dad investors who are trying to create a retirement fund and look at housing as a legitimate form of investment. As of 9 o'clock this morning they were brutally told that they could no longer claim the interest. Of course it's a stage period and we're not quite sure about the stage for it but I cannot see the downside for the Government to have delayed this announcement to have flagged it and delayed it. Because effectively what the Minister is doing by putting this through urgency is actually capturing everyone now under the 10-year rule automatically without letting people be informed about it. I've got a text actually someone wanted to read out to me that I received since the announcement this morning. They've been buying a house they're in the process of buying a house and if they'd known about these requirements they would have done something differently. If your intent was to slow the market down then maybe those people could have taken a more educated or different view on it but what you've done is basically captured and imposed new conditions on existing people who were happily going along until 9 o'clock this morning until you Draconianly imposed this new regulation on them that will have a significant financial cost to all parties concerned.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Revenue): Well we could have done it that way but we think the outcome would have been worse.Andrew Bayly: Why?Hon DAVID PARKER: Because we would have caused an incentive towards people to buy more properties in an already over-heated market taking the more beneficial tax arrangements that would have flowed from them into account. We could have caused even further pressure on the housing market.Andrew Bayly: You don't think more would have sold?Hon DAVID PARKER: In respect of whether there is a problem to remedy I think recent reports from CoreLogic and Statistics NZ show that there are. In the last quarter the period for which we have the latest statistics there has been a sharp rise in the percentage of existing properties that are sold to investors rather than either existing homeowners or first-home buyers to the point where they now—those investors—are relying on advantageous tax rules that apply when you can heavily leverage a property which you can in this asset class if you have a portfolio of properties over which you can spread the borrowings. That's now the largest segment in the purchases of existing property. The percentage according to the graph I have in front of me is 27 percent of all purchases in the most recent data were leveraged multiple-property owners 12 percent were multiple-property owners with cash and lower percentages lower than the 27 percent were perforce first-home buyers and for people selling one home and moving into another. So on that basis we thought it was appropriate to move quickly.In terms of whether we could have advised the public earlier than the announcement that we made today I think most members when they look at the papers that we've released today will see that the Government has moved promptly with this policy and promptly to advise the public.