Twyford Phil: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 15 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:18045. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am glad to have the opportunity to make a few more comments about the Budget Measures (Miscellaneous Fiscal Matters) Bill which is the most insignificant contribution that could possibly have been designed. If the Government had set out to trivialise the issue of housing affordability in this country—if it had set out to disappoint New Zealanders who were looking for the Budget to actually make some meaningful contribution—it could not have designed a measure better designed to let people down and disappoint them.I want to respond to some of the comments that were made by the member Andrew Williams about the issue of offshore speculators and how they are bidding up the price of houses in Auckland and I want to respond also to a number of the comments and interjections that were made from the National benches. The National Government refuses to acknowledge that offshore speculators are bidding up the price of houses in Auckland and it is denying young Kiwi first-home buyers the opportunity to buy their own home.I do not know why it is in denial. It refuses to recognise that this is going on. Everybody in Auckland knows that this is a reality. It is happening every day in real estate auction rooms all around Auckland. Young Kiwi first-home buyers are being outbid by offshore speculators bidding on the end of a phone. It is a reality it is happening but the National Government for some reason is in denial. We had Nick Smith in the House earlier this week trumpeting Inland Revenue Department figures that he purported to claim said that only 1 percent of properties were owned by foreign buyers. Well he was misrepresenting the data. He was being far too cute as Nick Smith is wont to be. Although the data is limited and not comprehensive I think it is pretty clear to most observers that at least several percent of the houses that are being bought in the real estate market are going to offshore speculators.Every time we raise this issue in the House members on the National Party benches accuse members of this House of being racist and xenophobic. Well I ask members of this House when it has been racist or xenophobic for a Government to stand up for its own citizens. That is all we are asking but National is in such denial that it refuses to even collect the data. Nick Smith on the one hand says: “This is not a problem”—and that offshore speculators are not bidding up the price of houses in Auckland—“but the data is rubbish and I refuse to even collect the data.” That is complete intellectual dishonesty and it shows that this Government is running scared because it knows that New Zealanders care about this problem. In fact all of the polls on this issue indicate that by a ratio of 2:1 New Zealanders want restrictions on offshore speculators.Nick Smith has also been going around saying that it would cost a packet—in fact he said that it would cost mega-millions—to even collect the data on offshore speculators.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: They’ve got a department of statistics.PHIL TWYFORD: Yes the Government does have Statistics New Zealand but even so there are cost-effective and reasonable ways to go about solving this problem. It would be as simple as requiring the conveyancing solicitor to certify on the sale and purchase agreement whether or not the purchaser was a New Zealand citizen or a New Zealand resident. In the case of companies and trusts you simply apply the Overseas Investment Act criterion which means that if there is a beneficial interest or a foreign shareholding of 25 percent or more then you regard the entity as a foreign entity. It is as simple as that. It would cost hardly a thing. The Government could have done this months ago and it could have settled this debate once and for all.