Henare Peeni: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Peeni: Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4815. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): One of the favourite pastimes of our beautiful country is sitting by the fire playing Monopoly on a cold winter’s evening. By the sounds of the kinds of policies and the kinds of bills that the National Government is currently putting through it is clear that the Government is playing the game of Monopoly with the Kiwi dream. What it is doing basically is saying to all Kiwis—to all Kiwis who aspire to the Kiwi dream—that there is “no passing Go”.Can I pick up on one of the points made by the member across the House Mr Jami Lee-Ross about having no ideas? Well it is quite the contrary; we do have some brilliant ideas and what we are growing tired of is sharing those ideas only for this Government to take them and turn Coke into Diet Coke or the Kiwi dream into a nightmare. So the point of this actually is to ask what the full plan of this Government is to ensure that Kiwis can have affordable homes and live the Kiwi dream. I mentioned in my maiden speech in this House that I was afraid that the backyards of our homes in Tāmaki-makau-rau would be turned into the playgrounds of land speculators and foreign investors. Well this particular bill here is a Clayton’s attempt at trying to curb that offshore investment in properties in New Zealand which has driven up the house prices in Tāmaki-makau-rau as all of my colleagues on this side of the House have mentionedalready.Tāmaki-makau-rau as you will be well aware Mr Deputy Speaker is obviously a big city and it does need to grow but I do want to pick up also the point of the member Dr Russel Norman who talked about urban sprawl. At the moment I am reminded of a group that goes by the acronym “SOUL”—Save Our Unique Landscape—which because of the haphazard approach of this Government to housing development is currently fighting a battle in Auckland Tāmaki-makau-rau near the airport in fact in the hope of trying to save its community; a community that has been forgotten by this Governmentfor a long time now. The Government is now looking just to run the community almost out of its own homes and to build a whole heap of new homes with no clear plan to allow our people Kiwis and also the people of the community of Ihumātao into those homes. This of course is of concern to me.I want to talk a little bit about the Inland Revenue Department’s position on this particular bill. My colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove spoke about this and about the Inland Revenue Department’s advice on this particular billa little bit earlier. In respect of one of the problems and we have noticed it with a series of fumbled passes by the Inland Revenue Department the department rightly points out the difficulty of being able to enforce or police what this bill is intending to do regarding a register—and let us face it that is what it is: a register of offshore investors or property-buyers in this country. Although the department mentioned that it would be relatively easy to police this here in New Zealand one of the fears—and it is a reality—isabout its ability to enforce this law offshore for those people for whom this particular bill is intended. This is not only an uphill battle but also a near impossibility. It is these kinds of things that raise concerns on this side of the House. It also adds to the conversation that this matter has been poorly consulted on by this Government. We have already heard on that side of the House that it hopes that as this bill progresses it will get the opportunity to hear more on it. Well my thinking is: why does National not do the homework properly first so as to ensure that it does not waste the precious time of this House?Having said that Labour will be voting for this particular bill now and encouraging it to go through to the select committee. I want to encourage one and all to make sure that they have their voices heard on this particular bill and that they tell this Government that it can no longer play Monopoly with the future of this country and with the dreams of our people here in New Zealandto own a home particularly of our young people. Kia ora.