Seymour David: Land Transfer Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Land Transfer Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 10 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6554. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this legislation. I just want to reflect a bit on the road that brought us to making this legislation. We do have in New Zealand very high house price to income ratios. In Auckland where I am from it is a ratio of almost nine between the median house price and the median income. When you have a problem in a political marketplace sure enough a whole range of different remedies are provided. We saw a remedy from Mr Twyford which was to blame people with Chinese-sounding names. It might interest the member to know that I have had reports of Chinese real estate agents on the North Shore who are using Labour’s data to demonstrate that they really do have lots of demand from Chinese buyers. So sometimes in politics you create unintended consequences but you do have to admire the entrepreneurship in particular of real estate agents and new New Zealanders if that is who they happen to be.Of course it is not just that the Labour Party has indulged in this demand side issue so far as the housing market is concerned; it also decided to engage in xenophobic racism. The New Zealand First Party of course has made it its stock-in-trade. Jacinda Ardern is horrified at what the party has done to her opportunities to compete in Auckland Central and of course the Green Party only last week—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member must come back to the content of the legislation.DAVID SEYMOUR: I have one more sentence Mr Assistant Speaker. Only last week Julie Anne Genter of all people that doyenne of liberalism also said that the problem is foreign capital. So we find ourselves here today trying to find a way to measure just how many of these nasty foreigners are on the demand side of this housing market. So the Government has found it necessary to do something to at least placate the howling masses on the other side of the House.Phil Twyford: Is that the point of this bill?DAVID SEYMOUR: That is the reality Mr Twyford.Phil Twyford: Is that what you think of it?DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes it is. Let us tell it like it is Mr Twyford. Yes of course there are all sorts of loopholes that will never be properly policed. It will be very difficult to decide whether a lifestyle block is truly being farmed economically. It will be very difficult to decide what a person’s greatest connection to—Fletcher Tabuteau: What is a loophole?DAVID SEYMOUR: You are just shocked because you have never seen a politician tell the truth before especially in your party.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No.DAVID SEYMOUR: Sorry Mr Assistant Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The member will sit. To make an allegation like that is unparliamentary and I will ask the member to withdraw and apologise for it.DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise. We also have to consider in this case the costs and benefits of regulation. We heard from a member earlier: “Let’s have more compliance costs. Let’s have more administration. It’s only a few dollars more.” Well I actually believe that given the unsavoury political prerogatives created by some of the simpler Opposition members and more latterly by the usually sophisticated ones this legislation strikes the right balance of allowing people who wish to buy and sell homes to go about their business most of the time but only when they get into a very large quantity of on-selling or speculation as some may call it. They find themselves so far over a so-called brightline that their activity will end up being recorded will clearly be in contravention of the law. So the worst extreme of what some people are concerned about as speculation will finally find itself reined in with minimal costs to compliance on the part of every other Kiwi who is fair-minded who actually welcomes foreigners and the fact that we are a multicultural nation and who wants to go about their business without being caught up in excessive compliance costs.With that I commend this legislation to the House.