Robertson Grant: Overseas Investment (Protection of New Zealand Homebuyers) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Overseas Investment (Protection of New Zealand Homebuyers) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11317. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Taking a lecture from Paul Foster-Bell about the founding fathers of the Labour Party is a bit rich. Mr Foster-Bell told us that he was terrified of this legislation. Well that makes him terrified of Malcolm Turnbull because this is the current policy of the Australian Government. If Paul Foster-Bell is terrified of a policy like this he needs to get on a plane get himself across to Canberra and talk to his mates in the Australian Liberal Party because this is what they support.Mr Foster-Bell and the other National Party members need to calm down a little bit and actually read what this bill is about. In the end as Tony Alexander I think has pointed out New Zealand is in fact the outlier now. We are the outliers when it comes to this kind of legislation. We are the ones who do not have mechanisms in place to support new first-home buyers in New Zealand to get access to the housing market. We have talked a lot on this side of the House about the importance of increasing supply in the housing market. There is absolutely no doubt that building more homes is critical to us solving the housing crisis getting more New Zealanders into being able to buy their first home and dealing with the social housing issues that we have got.But we cannot leave the demand side of the equation out. That is what this bill attempts to do. It is the nature of a member’s bill that it is only one step because that is how members’ bills get written and I congratulate my colleague Phil Twyford on putting it forward. It is not a silver bullet but it is a step towards giving New Zealanders the chance to do something that is so important to our way of life in New Zealand—buying their own home. Buying your own home is not just about shelter. It is not just about the ability to have bricks and mortar around you. It is how we establish communities and neighbourhoods in New Zealand. More and more in New Zealand people are becoming isolated from their communities and neighbourhoods because they move around so much.Phil Twyford talked about the number of renters exceeding the number of homebuyers in Auckland now. We need New Zealanders to be able to buy into the housing market so that they can put down roots and create those strong communities that are the bedrock of giving New Zealanders a decent life. That is what this is about. It is about the communities that have served New Zealand so well in the past when we have had higher levels of homeownership. This bill quite simply sets in place the rules that as we say are already in place in Australia which say that somebody who is not a resident of New Zealand who does not intend to live in New Zealand gets to buy into our property market only if they are creating new houses. That is fair. That is what other countries do.Paul Foster-Bell threw a whole lot of irrelevant information on to the table when he started talking about his pride in migrants who have helped to create this country. I absolutely agree with him and this bill gives those exact people the ability to buy a house. In fact what it does for somebody who is here on a skilled migrant visa which is not even a permanent resident visa is it gives them the ability to buy a house. So none of that diversionary nonsense that we heard from Paul Foster-Bell is even contained in this bill. It provides the facility for people who are here who want to live in New Zealand who want to stay and make a commitment to purchase an existing home and it provides for those from offshore if they do want to come to be able to build and invest here.The question I put to National Party members is: what is the value to New Zealand of allowing offshore speculators to speculate in our property market? What do we gain from that? We lose so much more than any gains that Mr Seymour might want to stand up and talk about in a few moments. What we lose is the ability of New Zealanders to be able to get on to the property ladder to be able to help create those good environments to raise families and to be able to build strong communities.The Labour Party has had this policy for some time. Mr Twyford has had the bill in the ballot for some time and he had it drawn out. It is our great concern that the Government knowing that failed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations to protect the right of a future Government to put this policy in place. In fact it deliberately moved to make sure that a future Government could not do that. That is a true shame because a bill like this passed through this Parliament would put us in line with other signatories to that agreement. [Interruption] Sorry?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am indicating the number of seconds.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is excellent—seconds. I did not hear a bell ring.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No it is a 5-minute speech.GRANT ROBERTSON: This bill is a contribution to giving New Zealanders a chance to get on to the property ladder to treat them fairly. It is in line with legislation around the world and it should be supported across the House.