King MattMATT KING (National—Northland): Thank you Mr Chair. First of all I'd like to acknowledge the poor suffering officials over there especially under the regime they're under at the moment but I'd like to acknowledge the work that they've done. The Overseas Investment Amendment Bill: what a dog of a bill—a flea-infested tick-ridden mangy dog of a bill. Nothing surprises me. This is classic poor bill-making—ad hoc piecemeal.Now I've heard from the other side of the Chamber the often-repeated phrase that we have the highest homelessness in the OECD. Do you really believe that of all of the OECD we have the highest homelessness? The infamous Nazi Joseph Goebbels said Tell a lie once it's still a lie; tell it a thousand times it becomes the truth." and I think they're trying to cover that philosophy. Countries have different definitions of what homelessness is. The Japanese are the lowest end of the homelessness scale. They have 0.04 percent homelessness. That's one of the lowest in the OECD because their definition of homelessness is rough sleepers. Now if you used that definition we're at 0.04 percent down at the bottom with Japan. So that myth that we have the highest homelessness in the OECD—that is exactly what it is: it's a myth.Now these kinds of statements are made by this coalition Government all the time. This bill is reactive legislation—no analysis. There's no evidence that foreign investment increases house prices and this bill doesn't work overseas so why would it work here? This bill is full of random exceptions. For example in Queenstown foreigners can buy an apartment; they just can't live in it. In Singapore it breaches the trade agreement with them so they're an exemption. This is full of loopholes. Ministers have the power to grant exemptions for whole classes. They could grant an exemption for all of the urban houses. In the bill it says in new section 61C inserted by clause 33A "any transaction person interest right or assets … from the requirement for consent or from the definition of overseas [person] or associate or associated land." Now I don't know about the rest of us but I don't want Government Ministers having that power. This will create a field day for lawyers seeking exemptions for their clients.Forestry has an exemption: 72 percent of our forests are foreign-owned. Why not viticulture agriculture horticulture? This is full of unintended consequences. They saw that the telecommunications and the power companies—some of them are partly foreign-owned—would have to go through the Overseas Investment Office so they carved out an exemption. But what about the developers of retirement homes? It doesn't work overseas and it won't work here.Now this Te Ārai case—that's a case in point. That stinks to high heaven. The Minister was doing backflips in the House a few weeks ago trying to explain this decision. No amount of cartwheels will explain away that faux pas. Last year former MP for Northland Winston Peters said "Why do Kiwis going about their lives as best they can have to fight every step of the way to preserve what is their right against a billionaire developer from another country and a complicit Government?" And you know what? Now he's in Government he's doing exactly that. All I can say is thank God for the Speaker shutting this down. I've come to expect this from this coalition Government. The bar has been lowered—has never been so low. Lift your game; otherwise you're going to be gone in 2020."