Prosser Richard: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 12 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8005. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the third reading of the Taxation (Bright-line Test for Residential Land) Bill. New Zealand First opposes this bill. There is any number of reasons why any party—in fact every party in this House—could and in fact should be opposing this bill. New Zealand First’s primary reason for opposing it—our primary objection—is that it quite simply will not work.As Mr Cosgrove said this bill is a waste of time. It is strange that he did. It has put me in the rather odd position of being able to agree with Mr Bennett who in a rare moment of cogency questioned why Mr Cosgrove and others from Labour would bag this bill and then vote for it anyway. I have to ask the same question. In New Zealand First of course we do not just talk the talk we walk the walk. We say the reasons why we are going to oppose the bill and then we oppose it. Perhaps Labour could take a leaf out of our book rather than the other.But as Mr Cosgrove said the bill is a waste of time. It is a waste of time money and effort. It does not acknowledge the underlying problems that affect residential property in New Zealand. It does not admit where the obvious faults lie and it does not address any of the root causes of discrepancies between supply and demand in any honest or effective manner.So this bill is not about a brightline test. It is about a “dumbline” test. It is a dumb bill that introduces a dumb regime that represents a dumb approach to what is a very real problem and it highlights the way that this Government has tried—and failed I might add because people have not swallowed the line—to dumb down every aspect of the foreign ownership debate that it does not agree with. There are holes in this bill again as Mr Cosgrove noted that you could drive a bus through. I might suggest that perhaps it should be a housebus because housing and more to the point the lack of it is what this issue is all about and what this bill purportedly attempts to address.Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand has said that this bill is not sound tax policy. Treasury itself has stated that it will not capture the speculator. Anyone who is happy to wait for 2 years and 1 day after buying a property and before selling it again will not be inconvenienced by this bill either. Trusts and companies are exempt from it. Farmland and business premises are exempt from it. Foreign buyers and in fact anyone who wants to land bank and simply has a need to expatriate money from wherever they are in order to get it out of the reach of various authorities in other jurisdictions and who are not motivated necessarily by the prospect of short-term speculation will not be affected by this bill but the action of their purchase will nevertheless remove New Zealand residential properties from the reach of New Zealand buyers. The Minister of Finance himself has said that any transaction that is likely to be captured by this bill is very likely to already be liable for capital gains tax under existing legislation.So this bill and the other related and rather limp responses that the Government has belatedly brought to this House as a result of a multitude of increasingly loud voices protesting the sell-off of New Zealand quite simply do not address the real issues and because of that it quite simply will not work. Making foreign buyers obtain a New Zealand tax number which a tourist here for a weekend can apply for and get will not slow down the overseas speculator who is out to get their hands on New Zealand residential property.As for making them obtain a New Zealand bank account when almost all the commercial banks in this country are foreign owned—no one is going to refuse to open an account for a foreign buyer who turns up with a fistful of dollars or any other currency come to that. So that is not going to slow them down. Neither is making them wait 2 years and 1 day before they clip the ticket on what is an ability to trade in New Zealand residential property which an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders quite simply do not want them to have in the first place.New Zealanders do not want foreigners buying our country. No one has any objection to immigrants whom we choose to allow to come buying a home to live in. But there is a world of difference between that and the kind of unbridled speculation and purchase that has been allowed under this and previous Governments where anyone at all from anywhere at all with access to very cheap zero percent foreign finance can come to New Zealand—or not come to New Zealand; they can get on the phone—and buy up any number of houses and properties that they like frequently sight unseen at whatever money the seller demands at whatever money the market commands and at prices that are beyond the reach of New Zealand citizens permanent residents and first-home buyers. New Zealanders do not want that and the Government’s own supporters do not want that and they have been saying so with increasing volume and increasing stridency. This bill and others like it—the other measures that this Government has brought in—are a rather half-hearted attempt to provide a sop to those concerns and it will not work.The answer to what is this very real problem is to limit the purchase and ownership of New Zealand houses to New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who are exercising their permanent residency and to no one else. As Mr Twyford mentioned his bill addresses this too. We are very very glad to see that Labour has adopted this longstanding piece of New Zealand First policy and when Mr Twyford’s bill comes up I am sure our caucus will be only too keen to discuss it. Taking that action will fix the supply and demand problems and it will fix the looming Godzilla that is the Auckland housing bubble. This bill will do no such thing. For that reason New Zealand First cannot and does not support it. Thank you.