Parker David; Rurawhe AdrianHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for Economic Development): When the Labour - New Zealand First - Green Government took over nine months ago we inherited a country with the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD.Stuart Smith: That's rubbish.Hon DAVID PARKER: No it's not rubbish. That is correct. I was embarrassed to have to admit that when I was at a meeting at the OECD recently and I was ashamed that in a country as wealthy as New Zealand I come from a country that has got the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD. We've also got the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s and it continued to go down every year—Hon Dr Nick Smith: That's just not true.Hon DAVID PARKER: —and in the last year—it is correct. Dr Smith the former Minister of Housing is denying that we've got the lowest rate of homeownership since the 1950s. In addition to that the multiple of price to income is the highest it has been in New Zealand since I was born and I am 58 years old. Despite all of that the last Government could not admit that we had a housing crisis despite the fact that it seems like Simon Bridges might now admit that New Zealand faces a housing crisis. Despite that the National Party in Opposition opposes every measure that we do to address the problem that we have inherited. Whether it's supply initiatives like KiwiBuild whether it's changes that we propose to the Resource Management Act—you watch; they'll oppose those too—or whether it's measures to control overseas ownership of New Zealand land assets the National Party will oppose it and today is a case in point.There is some urgency for the passage of this legislation brought about by the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (CPTPP). The CPTPP is an agreement which includes—Hon Members: TPP.Hon DAVID PARKER: These people on my left—you know anything bigger than three words and they can't string it together: the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. They will understand one day that that agreement includes a provision that prevents the New Zealand Government after that agreement comes into force from adding new classes of investment that fall within the screening regime of what the New Zealand Government can control in respective inward investment. The effect of that was that if New Zealand was to sign up to CPTPP—as the current Government has chosen to do—but didn't fix the holes in the New Zealand screening regime then the ability to include new classes of asset to be screened would be lost. Not only would it be lost in respect of CPTPP countries; it would be lost in respect of earlier countries that we have free-trade agreements with that have got most favoured nation clauses in their agreements including the agreement with China.Now when I say the word China" you can bet that the National Party will accuse me of racism. Interestingly the New Zealand – China free-trade agreement includes a provision that allows China to ban New Zealand buyers of their homes. And in fact—Hon Judith Collins: And who signed that?Hon DAVID PARKER: The Labour Government signed that—the Labour Government signed it—and that agreement with China allows New Zealand to ban Chinese buyers of New Zealand properties. Indeed since that agreement was signed the Chinese Government has wisely chosen to ban New Zealand buyers of residential property in some of their major cities because they recognise that those housing markets should be for the benefit of Chinese citizens not New Zealanders buying in China.Now because the provisions of that particular part of CPTPP were locked down by the prior National Government's negotiation of those terms we couldn't change the clause which says you can't introduce new classes of screening after it comes into effect. But what we could do was change those investment classes before it comes into effect. We had to signal that before we signed up to it and we did. We have to legislate for those new asset classes before it comes into effect or else the New Zealand Government effectively loses the power to introduce new classes of screening for ever.The two classes of screening that are covered by this bill are residential homes which are not currently screened in the overseas screening regime but will be under this bill and a certain class of forestry asset called forest registration rights. Now I want to deal with forest registration rights because the Hon Amy Adams is just wrong in respect of her analysis here. Any freehold or leasehold forest can be purchased through a forest registration right. A forest registration right can cover a freehold forest or a leasehold forest. A forest registration right can exist for multiple rotations so if you had three rotations that's 90 years of control of forestry land through a forest registration right. A five-year lease of that same forest is already covered by the screening regime. It is nonsense to pretend that you have a screening regime in respect of forestry assets if you do not include forest registration rights because it becomes a completely ineffective regime because you can buy the same asset via a forest registration right. That is why we are including forest registration rights.Now it is also true that the New Zealand forest industry—particularly the forest ownership industry—is heavily reliant on foreign direct investment. It's about 70 percent foreign-owned at the moment and we want to plant more trees. We need more foreign direct investment in order to plant more trees.Hon Amy Adams: So you want trees but you don't want houses? Brilliant. Trees but not houses—that's just brilliant Mr Parker.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well actually—she says "Trees but not overseas investment in houses." We do see a difference; the National Party might not see a difference. The National Party should already understand that there are differences between different classes of investment under the Overseas Investment Act but in truth we need more foreign direct investment in forests. It is also true though that a future Government might think "Wow if foreign direct investment got to 90 percent of our forests might we want to intervene?" I would suggest that it would be irresponsible of this Parliament not to pass this legislation to give a future Government the sovereign right to intervene to control foreign investment in forestry. You can have too much of a good thing and if we had not introduced this legislation in effect a future Government would not have the sovereign space to do that because CPTPP would stop it doing that and it would also flow into earlier agreements pursuant to most favoured nation clauses.Can I say something about what was said in respect of the number of houses that were sold. I'm sure this will come up again but the latest data showed 20 percent of central Auckland houses were sold to foreign buyers—Hon Judith Collins: Not houses; apartments.Hon DAVID PARKER: —excluding houses that were sold to corporate vehicles because they don't count the corporate purchases yet—20 percent. The Hon Judith Collins says that's apartments. Yes it is partly apartments but it's not wholly apartments.Twenty percent must be moving the market. It must move the market—it must be affecting the marginal transaction. We don't know by how much. We know that that 20 percent is less than it used to be. When the market was really hot and the National Party refused to move against this the market going to foreign buyers in Auckland was much higher than the 20 percent that it is now. We don't know the actual percentage—we never will—but we know it was higher than that. Indeed North & South had an issue last week that recorded that as a consequence of China closing down its outward capital flows the flows into the Auckland property market decreased—effectively proof that although you might disagree whether it was 40 percent or 30 percent there's no doubt that it was higher than the 20 percent now and it was significant.I used to rail against foreign farm sales when I had responsibility for that portfolio in Opposition and I would complain about US purchases. No one accused me of racism. I would complain about French purchases and English purchases and German purchases and no one would complain about racism. I complained about Crafer farms being sold to Chinese buyers and I was accused of racism. It was exactly the same argument—exactly the same policy issue. It's a very easy issue to try and rark up racism around as the National Party tries to do but actually the underlying theory here is that New Zealand land assets should be sold on a New Zealand market. If you've got the right to live here permanently you've got the right to buy here. Why do we exempt Australia? It's because they exempt us. We've got the right to live there; they've got the right to live here. We've got the right to buy there even though they've got a foreign buyer ban on residential as well and we've got the same thing.The National Party are completely wrong here. They're on the side of foreign buyers who don't pay tax here don't live here but who outbid New Zealanders.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Judith Collins."