Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): This issue—the issue of the impact of non-resident foreign buyers in the housing market and in the buying up of rural land in New Zealand—is one of the starkest issues that draws a line down the middle of this House between National and its acolytes and the major Opposition parties on this side of the House. Between 70 to 80 percent of the New Zealand public support this bill that Winston Peters has brought to this House. On this issue New Zealand First Labour and the Greens are overwhelmingly supported by the public of New Zealand. Between 70 to 80 percent of New Zealanders want to see Labour's policy of a ban on non-resident foreign buyers buying existing residential property in New Zealand and I would wager that a similar proportion of the people of this country would support Winston Peters' bill.The member who spoke before Brett Hudson raised the question of the data that Land Information New Zealand a Government agency had been gathering about the impact of foreign buyers in the housing market. He repeated the spurious claim that we have heard from numerous Ministers that only 3 percent of the buyers are people who are not resident in this country or not citizens. It is a nonsense. The data that has been released for the last three times over the last year basically excludes people who are non-residents and non-citizens who are in this country on a student visa a temporary student visa or a temporary work visa but buying houses. They are not citizens they are not residents and they are buying houses but the National Government thinks it is a good idea to exclude them.The figure is not 3 percent. If you add those temporary workers and temporary students who are buying houses it is 13 percent—one three. It is 13 percent of the property transactions. Thirteen percent of the homes are being purchased by people who are not residents and non-citizens. That is very significant—13 percent. There is no question that that will be having a very significant impact driving up house prices in a market that is already overheated and undersupplied.Countries all over the Pacific Rim—Canada particularly in British Colombia and Vancouver but Hong Kong Singapore Malaysia and Australia—all have policies that are designed to protect the opportunity for their citizens to have decent affordable housing and to protect them from the impact of demand pressures from overseas money. But not under this National Government; that will not happen in New Zealand while the National Government is in office. It is in denial. It has been confusing diverting and denying that this is even a problem now for the last few years. It does not trust New Zealanders with the facts and that is why the National Party members in the House today are not voting for Winston Peters' bill.This is a sensible bill. We support it. It is the policy in Australia. It is the policy in the UK. Why not collect this information and make it publicly available? I think that there are issues that I would say we would like to see explored fully at select committee. We are not convinced that you would need to necessarily publish the names and addresses of the individuals who own these properties but we would like to explore and get expert advice on that at select committee.This Government has a mantra that fixing the housing crisis is all about supply. Well it has not even delivered on that because it built hardly any houses and hardly any affordable houses. But it has this blind spot about the demand forces that are driving up house prices not just in Auckland but around the country.The next Government will tackle these demand forces. We will review the immigration policy that currently is throwing fuel on the fire and driving up demand particularly in Auckland. We will ban foreign buyers from buying existing residential properties in this country. We will implement the recommendations and the commitments that New Zealand has already made under the anti - money-laundering convention to stop dirty foreign money corrupt foreign money flooding into the real estate market in this country. We will do that and we will tackle the tax incentives that currently channel vast amounts of savings and capital which we need in the productive economy into real estate speculation. Those are the changes that we will make.