Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very pleased to take a call on proposed new Part 5 of the Housing Legislation Amendment Bill inserted by Phil Twyford's amendment and before I begin my comments on the specific provisions of this I do want to acknowledge the growing levels of frustration on the benches opposite. I want to say that the power to end this debate is entirely in the Government's hands. If the Government is willing to send Part 2 of this bill to a select committee so that the confiscation of property rights can be adequately considered then the debate will be all over. But if it is not willing to do that then the debate will continue. The power to end this debate is entirely in the Government's hands—I suggest those members have a conversation about that. I move to new Part 5 which amends the Overseas Investment Act to consider basically a housing interest test when overseas buyers are buying New Zealand housing. The question that we should always ask about overseas investment—and I stand here as someone who supports overseas investment in New Zealand—is what the benefit is to New Zealanders. What extra benefits are we getting from the overseas investment? If they are buying a business we have good tests around what the extra investment would mean for New Zealand. If they are buying sensitive land we have a test that asks what extra benefits New Zealanders get from this purchase. Why do we not have similar criteria around overseas investment in our housing market? Surely the question we should be asking is what we are getting. If we are allowing somebody who is not resident in New Zealand to come to buy housing what is the benefit to New Zealanders? At the moment no such test exists and this provision inserts that. By doing so it would prevent an overseas investor from simply buying up residential properties for the sake of raking in profits which are then removed from New Zealand which then pushes up the price of rental accommodation and excludes New Zealand buyers from the housing market and it would ensure that those houses would otherwise be available to New Zealand purchasers—first-home buyers potentially or other New Zealand - based resident investors. So why do we allow unrestricted overseas investment in New Zealand housing at the moment? There really is not any good justification because if we go back to that very first test around what value that delivers to New Zealand it arguably does not deliver any. So I want to turn particularly to new section 17B in new Part 5 which talks about assessing the value of overseas investment in New Zealand housing and I want to talk particularly about subsection (2)(a)(iii) which is where an overseas buyer is purchasing existing premises used or intended for occupation by any person as a place of residence that is not currently suitable for habitation and the relevant overseas person is committed to redeveloping that site to make it fit for habitation;". We have got a number of buildings throughout New Zealand that at the moment do not meet code. Many of them are owned by local authorities but some of them are privately owned—some of those old Housing New Zealand Corporation blocks for example that need significant improvement in them that are now privately owned or no longer owned by the Housing New Zealand Corporation. They need significant improvement in their present form. Although some of them regrettably are currently tenanted they are not suitable for human habitation and it is an indictment on our current housing policies that we have actually got people living in housing that is currently not fit for human habitation. If an overseas investor were to buy those properties that are so badly run down that they cannot be occupied without significant investment and there is nobody else domestically—that is the other test that has to be applied—who would be willing to make that investment then they are going to be increasing the supply of housing for New Zealanders. There could be a case to be made for the overseas investor to be allowed to buy that because those dwellings are otherwise unoccupiable and without that overseas investment they would not be occupiable. So there could be a case made for that. This bill introduces that and it allows for that to happen. I actually think that the threshold would have to be reasonably high because as I have indicated before the second test has to be whether there would be someone in New Zealand who would be willing to do that and make that investment. If there is then there is no justification for the overseas investment. So it is not just a question of "Does the opportunity exist?". The test then also has to be "And is there nobody else who could take up that opportunity or who would be willing to take up that opportunity or who would have the capital available to take up that opportunity?". New Zealand housing should be for the benefit of New Zealanders. We as a Parliament should certainly be making sure that New Zealanders are the first in the queue."