Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I'd just like to congratulate the member who has just resumed his seat Jamie Strange on getting all the way through his speech. Well done. And I just want to say to some of the National members who were ganging up and heckling him: how cruel. I suspect their behaviour like many bullies' was an attempt to hide an insecurity and the insecurity is this: they know that the speech before it by Andrew Bayly—Andrew Bayly you see is not known to be a funny man—proved with his speech that a man needn't be funny to give a funny speech and that he did. He started off by saying that there were deep philosophical divides between the National Party and the Government on this particular issue. He then went on to give a comprehensive list of policies that the previous Government introduced of the very same nature with exactly the same objective.Do we remember requiring foreigners to have a bank account to have an IRD number? Do we remember the brightline test which Andrew Bayly said was designed to ensure it was harder for foreigners to buy homes in New Zealand?Hon David Parker: And a good idea.DAVID SEYMOUR: So the National Party know that this policy is ineffective because it didn't work for them either. But I don't know if I can give the same forgiveness to the smiling David Parker because he knows that this policy will not work but he is learning about the exigencies of a coalition arrangement. David Parker is not a racist man but some of the people he sits with are. The fact of the matter is that this policy is not going to be effective.The reason it was found to be ineffective by the previous Government and will be found to be ineffective by this Government is very simple: you cannot tell the difference between the formal ownership and the beneficial ownership of a house in New Zealand if the owner wants to hide that beneficial ownership. Let me just give an example: someone under 30 whom I was talking to in Auckland the other day earns less than $50000 and owns two houses in Auckland. Why? Extensive overseas contacts and sources of cash. Under this bill that's fine. Under any bill that's fine unless you're actually going to literally start blood testing the people that own the houses. That's the reality. When the National Party says that only 3 percent of homes that were bought in New Zealand were bought by foreigners we know that is absolute bulldust. The fact of the matter is that it might be formally true—it might be true on the property titles—but it's not true when it comes to who has the beneficial ownership and who really owns the property.So this bill will not do anything to change the real ownership of property—who really puts up the money to pay for it—but it will scratch an itch; an itch felt by some of David Parker's coalition partner's voters—that maybe those bad people who look different have been buying too many homes and if we just stop that then New Zealand will be a fairer place. He knows it won't work—he's said it won't work—but he's going to do it because of the exigencies of coalition Government. But the really sad thing for all of those New Zealanders who are finding it hard to access a home is that this Government is avoiding the real issue.The real issue is this; it's very very simple. The real issue is that we built in New Zealand 39000 houses in 1974 when people barely had technology such as nail guns when the population was two-thirds of what it is today and we haven't broken 30000 since. The rate of home building per capita in New Zealand has halved in the last 40 years under the Resource Management Act under the infrastructure funding—and the member who just resumed his seat should study how they fund infrastructure in Germany. That's the real reason it's cheaper; it's not this ein Reich" stuff he was referring to. The fact of the matter is that if we don't change our underlying land-use regulation and infrastructure funding regimes we will not build more homes. We will not alleviate the very real shortage of housing. And we will not be a peaceful harmonious collegial nation here in the South Pacific when the Government of the day comes down to this House and puts on the Order Paper a bill that is designed not to make housing more affordable but to scratch that little itch. What a shame."