Yang Jian: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYang Jian: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10968. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister for Building and Housing: What reports has he received on the number of properties bought and sold by those with tax residency overseas and how do they compare with previous reports?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Yesterday’s data provides us with tax residency status for every property bought and settled between 1 October 2015 and 31 March 2016 or 67087 transfers. There were 1692 buyers or 2.5 percent with offshore tax residency and 1695 sellers with offshore tax residency—i.e. there was a net reduction of three properties over 6 months owned by people with overseas tax residency. This latest data from Land Information New Zealand is actually very much in line with the Inland Revenue Department report that was published a year ago estimating that 2 percent of properties in New Zealand are owned offshore including by New Zealand residents or citizens who are tax residents offshore. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member can have a supplementary question shortly.Dr Jian Yang: What conditions apply to the data that need to be considered in how it is interpreted?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The data is preconditioned by four factors. Firstly it is specifically for the 6-month period and does not include property agreements entered into before 1 October. Secondly it is about tax residency and not citizenship or residency. A New Zealand citizen or permanent resident whose tax residency is in China Australia or the UK would be included in those numbers although we would not usually describe them as foreign buyers. Thirdly when there is more than one taxpayer which is quite common on property transfers if even just one of the five names on the property transfer is from a person who is offshore the transfer is included in the numbers. Finally the data includes non-residential properties where there are no houses which make up about 10 percent. So these numbers are likely to overstate the number of homes that are owned by people beyond New Zealand tax residency.David Seymour: Has the Minister heard any reports of conspicuously Australian people bidding at house auctions?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No; they might be wearing a Wallabies jersey. But I think the member very astutely makes the point of the anti - New Zealand approach of attacking one ethnic group—be they Australians or someone else.Dr Jian Yang: Does this data support the claims made last year that 40 percent of the buyers in Auckland are from China?Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I call the Minister he needs to be very careful with his answer in that according to Speaker’s ruling 197/5 it is not appropriate now to use this question to bring an Opposition party into the answer when the question has come from the Government. I will allow the Minister to presume—Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No. There is no possible interpretation of the data that would support the claim that 40 percent of buyers are from China. Only 444 of the buyers had tax residency in China or 0.7 percent of the property bought and settled in the 6-month period. The Australian figure was about the same. The UK figure was about half. The data might move around a bit as we get a longer-term period but anybody who claims that the figure is 40 percent is being deliberately misleading.