Fletcher Tabuteau: Speculators profit at expense of nation's hopes

NZ First list MP Fletcher Tabuteau

One can understand the Reserve Bank's moves to cool the Auckland housing market. It is a pressure cooker, which if it pops, could undermine the financial security of this nation. Additionally, as most serious commentators have observed, and rightly so, it is already creating an imbalance in the New Zealand economy, meaning smaller regional economies such as Rotorua's are being artificially stifled in order to supposedly manage the Auckland housing crisis.

The critical problems with the Auckland housing market are immigration and offshore buyers, many of whom are speculators. Foreign buyers have access to cheap loans from overseas, in the 1-2 per cent range, and with the latest round of tinkering from the Reserve Bank these foreign buyers now have even more of an advantage.

The current solution package from the Reserve Bank sets up an uneven playing field where foreign buyers, not using the main four New Zealand trading banks, are able to simply by-pass the impositions placed on the New Zealand home buyer. Further exacerbating the problem that this government refuses to acknowledge.

The government can immediately reduce demand by winding back immigration and stopping foreign ownership. We are still on a collision course for a financial catastrophe when the bubble bursts.

New Zealand First is calling for a cessation on all sales of New Zealand land to foreign non-residents, including the large foreign corporates, not only buying up productive land but also the profits to be made from it. The amount of cheap money circulating the rest of the world means that New Zealand's prime land is cheap and under the National government infinitely accessible, with no restrictions and even encouragement from senior ministers.

Parts of Canada are looking to make it harder to buy their productive rural land, already you have to be an individual Canadian or a 100 per cent owned Canadian company. But that's not enough, too many are getting around the restrictions. What is New Zealand doing in comparison?

Mr English spoke out derisively against Australia's attempts to stop the wholesale loss of land to foreign buyers. Australians are bringing in prison sentences because they could not enforce the law, and Mr English said 'now they are trying to scare the wits out of foreigners who have been getting round the law on a large scale'. Australia is at least trying to protect the home buying dreams of its citizens.

This government needs to wake up to a problem that will be almost impossible to reverse. We are creating problems in Rotorua, trying to solve the Auckland housing crisis as more and more foreign speculators profiteer. We are losing productive land, our best farms to foreign companies, how is that an investment in New Zealand?

- Fletcher Tabuteau is a Rotorua-based NZ First list MP.