Huo RaymondRAYMOND HUO (Labour): I thank the Minister in the chair Chris Finlayson for his earlier comments. Basically the Minister's view is that any measures that lead up to the registration of foreign ownership of our residential properties are outside of the scope of the bill. Specifically the New Zealand First member Denis O'Rourke's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 325 according to the Minister is outside of the scope of the bill. With due respect it is the Chair advised by the Clerk who decides whether—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): That is right.RAYMOND HUO: —amendments are in scope not the Minister in the chair. So could I ask the Chair whether SOP 325 has been ruled in or out of the scope of the bill? The Chair can answer my question either now or after my contribution.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Oh thank you!RAYMOND HUO: That is your call.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Good! I will get around to it—it is a valid SOP at the moment and it has not been ruled out so go for it.RAYMOND HUO: Thank you. Thank you very much Mr Chair. At the moment we do not have any legitimate and reasonably reliable data about the number of foreign purchasers of New Zealand residential properties. Figures released by Land Information New Zealand showed that only 3 percent for instance of Chinese non-residents were responsible for purchasing New Zealand residential properties but the houses purchased by people with Chinese names were more than four times the level of ethnic Chinese in Auckland's population.So here we are—we are talking about the Chinese names". One colleague shortly after I returned to this House did make a joke that we now have not one but two "Chinese names" in this House. In talking about my Chinese name—you may forget about my first name because it can be painful even trying to get it pronounced correctly—my last name spelt H-u-o is pronounced similar to the word h-a-l-l with a soft "l": Huo. Still people get confused. Some call me Mr Hugh and some of them call me Mr Hwah or Mr Who. French people will certainly call me Mr 'uo because the "h" is silent. If my last name does get pronounced "who" that can well be my campaign slogan: "Who cares!"Hon Members: Ha ha!RAYMOND HUO: And being light-hearted we do care.Now back to Part 2. Part 2 deals with "Land title and registration" and clause 9 is "Registrar to keep register" and clause 10 is "Purpose of register" so that brings us back to SOP 325. We do not have any legitimate and reliable data about the number of foreign purchasers of New Zealand residential properties. What I just outlined just shows that the discrepancy is enormous. On the one hand we have a housing crisis; on the other nobody knows about the size and scope of foreign ownership of New Zealand residential properties.Hon Member: He'll know.RAYMOND HUO: Well those National MPs may have a good laugh but National does operate in such a manner. It is flying a big jumbo jet but without a working navigation system.Hon Members: Ha ha!RAYMOND HUO: Now back to this bill again. We have three problems with the Land Information New Zealand data. Even the Minister at that time admitted that the data was inconclusive and should not be viewed as a foreign buyers register—here we are; we are back to the SOP again. Those figures were based on the low side of the market. They were collected after the introduction of the new IRD disclosure rule in October 2015 and the data did not and will not include trusts and business purchases. This means that the scale of influence by foreign purchasers in the domestic residential market at the height of their activity prior to October 2015 will remain unknown for ever.About US$1 trillion of capital flowed out of China in 2015 and it is reasonable to assume that that movement of money will have had some impact on the New Zealand housing market. As my colleague Phil Twyford said in his contribution earlier Auckland is not alone with housing problems despite having the fourth least affordable houses in the world. Hong Kong Beijing Vancouver and other major cities have similar problems too. The Hong Kong Government has widened its property curves by imposing stamp duty double stamp duty and buyer's stamp duty. Now in Beijing—Phil Twyford: 15 percent market value.RAYMOND HUO: 15 percent—yes damn right. In Beijing local authorities applied harsher rules that do not allow non-residents even Chinese nationals to buy their residential properties unless they become tax residents for a number of years. Interestingly the same issue has attracted all sorts of debate there but race is not part of the argument. The matter is treated as a simple matter of supply and demand and not race.Funnily enough it appears that no one so far has questioned this National Government as to why it has refused to collect any reasonably reliable data to help gauge the size and scope of the problem. At best it has been in the slow lane; at worst it has been in denial.A Kiwi-Chinese investor can buy a property anywhere in New Zealand. But should his family members such as brothers or sisters living in Beijing Hong Kong or Singapore enjoy the same right? National says yes; Labour says no. Labour's policy puts the best interests of Kiwis including Kiwi-Chinese ahead of foreign buyers including Chinese nationals. Thank you."