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8:36 am, September 3rd, 2025 - 27 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, david seymour, housing, immigration, john key -
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Remember Act’s Regulatory Standards Bill which would establish principles of responsible regulation and increase transparency?
It appears that not all policy will be subject to these requirements. Especially if they affect rich foreigners buying local mansions.
From Jamie Ensor at the Herald:
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour, who has responsibility for overseas investment legislation, said after Monday’s announcement that, “we are going to get it done this year”.
We have a bill currently before select committee. It will come back. We will whip these changes in. We will pass it. It will be law before New Year’s Eve,” he said.
“I think getting it done that quickly is very attractive considering where we want to go with trying to grow the economy, try and get more investment in.”
Asked on Tuesday about that decision meaning there won’t be an opportunity for public submissions on the changes, Seymour gave a brief response.
“We are simply removing a restriction on New Zealanders’ freedom. This should not be controversial or require paralysis by analysis,” he told the Herald.
The right’s obsequious deference to the uber wealthy has been a feature for a while.
John Key previously advocated for New Zealand to be an Asia-Pacific Switzerland equivalent, a bolthole for high net-worthers seeking to escape the mess they had created in their own countries.
Christopher Luxon thinks the same. Let them into our country and the wealth will trickle down.
If the benefits are real, and concerns about housing inflation unwarranted, this should be put properly to a select committee so that we can see what is proposed and test the proposal.
This Government seeking to avoid this scrutiny speaks volumes about its deference to very rich foreigners. And its commitment to transparency and democracy.
Cannot think of a clearer class reversal than killing off Kainga Ora's developments for social housing for the working class by multiple thousands, and letting a few foreign rich bastards buy a massive house and stick $5m into government bonds.
Calling foreigners investing in managed funds (buying up bonds to finance the government budget deficit) a growth strategy.
And Peters has the gall to say this makes foreigners buying up 1% housing valid.
And no bright-line test left to get any CG made by our 1% ers into tax revenue.
I think you will find that the social housing is mainly for beneficiaries now and no longer the working class.
Many have to keep working beyond age 65 because they cannot afford to pay market rent otherwise.
Do you see the precariat and the proletariat as two distinct classes with no connection between them?
I googled but not entirely sure what you mean by the terms precariat and proletariat, Could you please define and I will reply.
Easier to re-phrase my question.
Do you see people in need who end up in social housing and people who belong to the working class as two distinct groupings with no connection between them?
There are obvious differences between those on a benefit and those who work in that one is supported by the taxpayer and the other largely providing their own support.
Most of us are working poor when we're young . We start on low wages and as we progress in our jobs or businesses we enter the middle class.
If you think that "most" people will be entering the "middle class" in the future, I would suggest have a re-think. The so called "middle class" is shrinking along with home ownership rates and will probably be no longer a thing at some point in the not too distant future if things carry on the way they are.
It will be the wealthy (which will become a smaller and smaller group by number) and everyone else.
It used to be that if you worked hard and saved a bit, you could buy a nice little a house of your own with a bit of outdoor space and support your family all on one income with maybe a nice little holiday to a nice beach town once a year at Christmas. You had made it to the middle class!!
That is just a memory of the past now and in a generation or two, people won't even believe it is true.
I think I get it . The precariat are the working poor and the proletariat are the beneficiaries. Is this correct?
Can you answer the re-phrased question, or can you not?
Will answer tomorrow. Had to go out to dinner
other way around. Kind of, working class can be in the precariat too.
So they want to use developers when we have no building industry for them now as a result of their wrecking ball approach to smash social housing.
Facepalm. Can't even get the plunder right.
The NZ dollar is currently worth 0.44 pence….it was worth 0.54 in 2020. That is a fall of nearly 19%.
So a NZ$5 million house will cost 2.2m pounds rather than 2.7m pounds. Bargain.
I can see lots of foreign owned rural mansions sitting empty around Queenstown and Wanaka…my guess is that nobody is going to either check or enforce any minimum number of resident days requirement in the legislation.
NZ under NACT1 is undergoing a fire sale….soon enough it'll be a wildfire sale
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National-Act don't change their spots, while wily Winston 1st is ever the schemer
Shows PM John Key standing on an angry sea monster that represents NZ. He is banging 'For sale' signs into the monster's body. [2012]
Isn't the cartoon wrong way round? I remember from school (50 plus years ago) "te ika a maui" the fish of maui is the north island
Googling frantically – yes, 'Te Ika a Māui' (Māui’s fish) is now also known as the North Island, and 'Te Waka a Māui' (Māui's canoe) the South Island.
However, it seems (to me) the cartoonist has (rather cleverly) depicted Aotearoa’s three largest islands as a unitary "angry sea monster" representing NZ.
Either way, be it fish, canoe and/or angry monster, it’s all up for grabs thanks to the CoC.
When my father died (1972?) I remember seeing an NZ Herald headline that the NZD had fallen to $1.30 USD
When we went to Britain in 1990, one pound was three dollars.
This talk of pounds made me think of 'a pound for a pound' from the 1950s.
The Korean war caused a demand for wool and as the US was stockpiling it, farmers were receiving a pound for a pound of wool.
Oh how far we have fallen.
This article touches on that and in a way encapsulates some of that which is wrong about neo-liberalism.
“…little to no investment in research, development or education in wool on farm and what was invested off farm has been spent on various consultants and advisors, and the pocket linings of a cabal of somewhere between the self-interested and the well-meaning. ”
https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/opinion/an-industry-thats-still-living-in-the-1950s/
a 1 pint bottle of milk delivered to you door was 3 cents not that long ago….. sigh
The investor visa category results in resident visas so the investors would be able to buy housing at some point, so could do what every other person a pathway to residence does – wait until they are granted their resident visa.
IMO the only people who should be allowed to purchase residential single dwelling (so houses, townhouses, etc) properties in NZ should be NZ citizens and permanent residents.
The only reason a foreigner would have to buy a residential property in a country they don't live in and aren't planning to live in is to make money out of the purchase in some way, shape or form. I don't see how this provides any tangible benefits to New Zealander's, certainly not any that aren't outweighed by the negatives.
If you want to but a house here then by all means go through the channels and come and live here, we're a welcoming (some might say to much so) country. But house are for New Zealanders to live in, not for non-residents to make money out of. IMO of course
All that being said I would be least concerned at non citizens or residents purchasing multi million dollar properties as these are a relatively very small, exclusive market and buying / selling of such properties doesn't have much if any effect on regular Kiwis? I'm assuming there, I don't know that and could easily be wrong…
And further, I would make laws that mean only an actual real life living human being (so not just a legal 'person') must be listed as the owner of a residential property.
Because again, the only reason that a company for example, would have for purchasing / owning a residential property (a home) is to somehow make money from the purchase / ownership of said property. Whether that via capital gains or some sort of tax scheme or whatever else. Homes are for New Zealanders to live in, not for companies, etc to make money off.
I realize there would need to be some sort of arrangements or exemptions for landlords but that wouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle by any stretch.
I think this (amongst other things) may be why a couple of friends laughed their heads off when someone else once called me right wing. They said that on economics i would probably be described as dangerously radically left. Well in my opinion the only way to stop the wealth inequality gap getting bigger for a start is through radical change. The powers that be and their wealthy donors of course would call any major changes to our monetary and economic systems dangerous….