O'Rourke Denis: Overseas Investment (Protection of New Zealand Homebuyers) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Overseas Investment (Protection of New Zealand Homebuyers) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11321. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Seventy-six percent of New Zealand people will be very disappointed by what they hear the members on the other side of the House saying. Seventy-six percent of people will be very dissatisfied by what they have heard from members on the other side of the House because they want something done about the problem of overseas speculators buying up New Zealand homes in competition with New Zealand people. It is as simple as that and that is the one thing that those members opposite have not addressed. They are on the wrong side of this issue. They will be punished for it and they deeply deserve it. New Zealand First will support this bill because we support—clearly and unequivocally—restrictions on overseas buyers competing for and buying up New Zealand homes in competition with especially young New Zealand people seeking to buy their first home.There are too many speculators in the market and too many of them are overseas speculators. We know because I have seen many examples of advertisements in overseas newspapers by overseas real estate agents imploring people in overseas countries to invest in New Zealand houses because they can make a killing on them. That much is beyond doubt. The damage that does to the New Zealand housing market is perfectly clear to everybody except those dead-head members opposite who do not understand the reality of what is going on. That clearly means that there will be a contribution to rapidly increasing and hugely increasing house prices in New Zealand and especially in Auckland.Nothing that an overseas speculator does in the New Zealand market can ever be of any value to the New Zealand economy or to New Zealand people. So it is a no-gain situation as far as overseas speculators are concerned. Of course we in New Zealand First are also concerned about immigration and the effect of excessive immigration on house prices as well. That is another issue for another time because that is not covered in this bill but it is still a significant issue.Although New Zealand First will support this bill we do have some issues that we would like to discuss especially at the select committee stage because it actually does not go far enough. In other words it is too conditional as far as New Zealand First is concerned. The first of these issues relates to the provisions of the bill in which it says that “non-residents will be granted permission to purchase a residential property only if they intend to live here permanently or their purchase adds to our existing housing stock.” We have some issues with that.First of all we are not sure about how it could be properly shown whether a person intends to live here permanently or not so we would need to investigate whether that is actually a practical proposal. In addition to that purchasing new housing stock can also be problematical because what it could simply mean is that somebody buys a house that was already going to be built by a developer anyway and that actually does not mean that there would really be any increase in the housing stock as a result of that. So that again seems to me to be a practical obstacle to the proposal.What New Zealand First says is that there should be a much more simple proposal than that and that would be to simply make sure that if a person does not have permanent residence in New Zealand or does not have citizenship then they simply cannot buy property in New Zealand. You can see other countries in the world especially China and many others where that is the situation. New Zealand’s housing crisis is so extreme now that such a proposal should be the one that is adopted and that is the one that we would prefer to see. So we are not too keen about the conditions that are attached to this bill. We would like to see a simpler and more straightforward regime altogether. The other issue that I mention is this. The bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! [Interruption]DENIS O’ROURKE: —talks about “Students skilled migrants”—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume his seat.DENIS O’ROURKE: —“and other persons”—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume his seat. David Seymour will stand withdraw and apologise.David Seymour: I stand withdraw and apologise.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Denis O’Rourke completing his speech.DENIS O’ROURKE: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I was saying that the other parts of the bill that we have some concerns about are those parts that refer to—and I am reading here—“Students skilled migrants and other persons temporarily resident in New Zealand for 12 months or longer will be granted approval to purchase a house”—