Housing Minister Nick Smith says he won't be introducing a foreign-buyers register for New Zealand property.
On TV3's The Nation this morning, Mr Smith pointed to new measures introduced in this years Budget. They would track non-resident foreign buyers by making them provide an IRD number, tax identification number from their own country and current identification.
"What we're not going to have is one of those cheap ill-informed debates that targets one ethnic group. That's not fair. That's not the New Zealand way."
Mr Smith was responding to debate sparked last week when the Labour Party released leaked figures from Auckland real estate firm Barfoot and Thompson that appeared to show people with Chinese names bought property in the city at a rate far above the Chinese proportion of the population.
He said the government received advice that foreign buyers were not having "significant effect" on the housing market.