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Leading Auckland real estate company has dismissed staff member who revealed detailed sales information

Property
Leading Auckland real estate company has dismissed staff member who revealed detailed sales information

Leading Auckland real estate company Barfoot & Thompson has sacked an employee who revealed confidential Auckland housing sales data.

The leaked information was then subsequently released to the media by the Labour Party, with Labour asserting that 39.5% of the sales from February through to April involved people with Chinese sounding names.

The release of the information, which based on the large number of house sales could only have come from Barfoots - as it has about 45% of the Auckland market, has caused a firestorm of public opinion this week.

Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson said he was "extremely disappointed and saddened at the events that have unfolded over the last few days".

"While our investigation is still ongoing, we are able to confirm conclusively that confidential data was sent by the identified internal source to a number of individuals, including the media and political figures."

Labour's housing spokesperson Phil Twyford, who released the information, said it was "extremely disappointing" Barfoots had seen fit to sack the staff member.

“The whistleblower who I worked with wanted to shine a light on what is a very real issue for New Zealand – foreign investment pushing up house prices and shutting people who live here out of the property market.

“This data provided an important snapshot of what’s going on in the Auckland housing market,” Twyford said.

This is the full statement from Peter Thompson:

Initial outcome of internal investigation following the recent disclosure of confidential sales data

I can confirm that following an internal investigation we have terminated the contract of a member of staff who has breached our Policies, resulting in the disclosure of confidential data.

This action was taken after careful consideration of all the facts, and meeting personally with the member of staff involved.

I would like to make five points

  • It would not be appropriate for Barfoot & Thompson to release any details about the member of staff involved at this time or in the future.
  • We can also offer no insights into the motivation of the staff member concerned.
  • This decision was not taken lightly, but we have very clear and well-defined company Policies. It is a basic condition of employment for all Barfoot & Thompson staff that information concerning clients and other staff is without exception treated with the utmost confidentiality, and cannot be disclosed or discussed with other people, unless it is in the proper performance of their duties or with the express approval of the management. Our investigation demonstrated conclusively that in this case a line had been crossed, and the breach of our Policies has provided grounds for dismissal.
  • While our investigation is still ongoing, we are able to confirm conclusively that confidential data was sent by the identified internal source to a number of individuals, including the media and political figures. However, this does not include direct contact with the Labour Party.
  • I am extremely disappointed and saddened at the events that have unfolded over the last few days, and believe firmly the actions of one person should not detract from the extraordinary commitment and integrity of the Barfoot & Thompson team.

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58 Comments

One person has lost their job. Will Mr Twyford be the next person to lose his job?

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No, Twyford should be promoted.

He needs to take the high ground and keep on message. It is not about Chinese, it is about the rights of NZers to be able to own a home in their own country.

The second question needing asked is why are so many Aucklanders born overseas?

Why have so much immigration when Auckland is so demonstrably full?

Why are our wages not rising? Why are we letting migrants come in to work at lower rates when NZers could be trained for the jobs?

Why are we becoming tenants in our own country?

The questions go on and on, and it's all about immigration and foreign ownership.

Remember if 25,000 houses sell a year in Auckland and there are 50,000 migrants, most of the houses sold are needed just to house migrants.

This needs sorted out. Head in sand burying gets no where.

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+1000.

Keep it up Chris!

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Funny. Barfoots happily release information about sales trends all the time.. But now they talk confidentiality. They can't have it both ways. So no more promo from them. Tui.

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I would like to nominate The Barfoot and Thompson Staff Member for The Order Of New Zealand. "to recognise outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity". In my opinion, they have exhibited selfless courage. God bless you!

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Yep. Well done, brave whistleblower.

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I don't think they'll be jumping agencies anytime soon. Probably wouldn't want to anyway. Probably be queuing for a job at Glengarry Glenn Ross.

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Definitley Glengarry Glen Ross at the NZ Real estate agents

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Nice comment until you got to the last sentence. Why would you assume the person you are trying to commend is superstitious? Keep your religion out of these discussions.

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You have issues if you need to have a cry about someone saying God Bless. Arrogance and ignorance of the highest order.

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Religion is debunked and over, there is no god to bless anything. Those remaining deluded otherwise are the largest source of conflict perpetuation which afflicts the human population of this planet. As long as they persist with their beliefs there will be those who use it to peddle hate in pursuit of their own desires alone over that of the common good. Despite it's long history, it does not present a true representation or record of anything and only works as it is indoctrinated onto those with insufficient education to resist. Religion is a bad idea and to point this out is not arrogant or ignorant it is a truth.

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On the contrary it's the arrogance of the "blesser" that caused me to comment. They are assuming the intended recipient is in some way welcoming of Christian platitudes, a backhanded way of edging a bit of proselytizing in where it's not been asked for. Pray to your deity to bless me, with the implicit assumption that I have no control over my own destiny, and I'll take it as patronizing and insulting. Direct any genuine gratitude or compliments at those deserving them and leave your superstition out of it.

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At least publish his name so that those who want to award him some honor can do so and those who want to ensure that they don't hire him can as well.

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Why don't you go lay some flowers (and award money for that matter) at the B&T door. Surely some of your "tenant-of-his/her-own-country" friends will appreciate the gesture, or the cash.

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One family have made 100's millions out of the property market over the last 100 years.

Banks is full of cash apparently.

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The Family business could run starship hospital for years.

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Envy is one of the cardinal sins.

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so is greed

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And so is avarice.

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Interestingly the patriarch of the Barfoot family makes substantial donations to the National party.
He has probably never thought of voting for any other party. A voting automaton would be my best guess.

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What happened to whistleblower protection?

The Protected Disclosures Act 2000 - known as the "Whistleblowers Act" - came into force in 2001

Purpose of the Act

The purpose of the Act is to promote public interest in the disclosure of important information -

by facilitating the disclosure of matters of serious wrongdoing in or by an organisation. The Act provides procedures under which such disclosures can be made and gives statutory protection from liability or unfavourable treatment for employees making disclosures

Am I in the position to know that what I see as fraud really is improper in the bigger picture

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I wonder if they left with more than has been released? Could be more to come.

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I would hope so the attitude of the B&H lady on one news was disturbing to say the least.
she gave me the impression they are employing agents from a certain country to sell specifically to people from that country, not one glimmer of sympathy for the young FHB NZ's she has helped devastate
you could see the greed in her eyes

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Typical RE greedy eyes

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She had exactly the same tone as a well known former National Party President. I wonder if she had been schooled by Ms Boag or had just studied Ms Boag's very direct delivery style??

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Great!!! Armed with your argument I can finally upload the photo I shot through my neighbour's window with her naked. Legal or not I just don't approve people being naked, even in their private residence. I'm so gonna blow this whistle.

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Clearly Barfoots are opposed to the true facts being made public. I wonder what their motivation is?

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Making millions from Chinese buyers - 40% of their income and growing

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If someone wanted to do the research, they could find the names of all property buyers, they could determine if they mortgaged the property or not, the price paid, the indicative rental return, they could even determine whether it appeared owner occuppied or not.

All that could easily be compiled if someone wanted to pay for it to be done.

Realistically it is only a few thousand dollars of work. I could actually do it myself if I wanted, but it would probably prove easier employing some students or maybe some unemployed real estate agents...

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Don't even need to do that - here's a simple start - Auckland only

Get a quote from Statistics NZ for one of their complex queries - probably about $100

A large portion of the information is contained in the 2013 Census - if you can get at it - I have tried on several occasions to do a query on the Census databse - but found it beyond my capabilities

Answers to these questions provide information as to whether they have arrived within the past 5 years, their birthplace, ethnicity, and if they own the property outright or rent it

by Location
Dwelling address
Usual residence
Usual residence five years ago
Years at usual residence

and by Ethnicity
Birthplace
Years since arrival in New Zealand

and by Housing
Occupied dwelling type
Tenure of household (do you own it or rent it)
Weekly rent paid by households (if you rent it)

By location, ethnicity, years, tenure

http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/76476/david-hargreaves-says-governmen…

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First rule of fight club - don't talk about fight club.

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The most relevant article about the Chinese house buying problem is this:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=114…

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Is there any truth to the rumour that the Pm of Parnell is extending his vacation indefinitely?

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One can only hope. Wait, look at the others who could take over. Hopeless. He has built in security.

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What was the word John Key quoted some time ago ' The Club'

Is not the family part of 'The Club'

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JK has an escape plan, vacation Palaces London, Hawaii, new York...

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Can someone clarify exactly what type of information was released (i.e. Column headings from the data set). Did it contain personally identifiable information? I have seen some reports that generically call it "sales data", but I see other reports that say there was analysis performed by Labour on names, if Labour did perform the analysis then that mean personally identifiable information has been released (i.e. people's names) if this is the case, then that is clearly unacceptable.

It would be interesting to hear the Privacy Commission's view on this if people's personally identifiable was in fact leaked.

Given an employee was fired, it suggests there were serious concerns with the type of data that was leaked.

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So when do Barfoot and Thompson have to account for constantly lying to the public about who is buying houses in NZ?
This information about if buyers are from NZ or not should be public information, and not some dirty secret the real estate companies and the government have turned it into.

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Everyone's overlooking that bit aren't they - B&T have been publicly down-playing this for a long time - saying the percentage is less than 10% - approximately 5%

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The woman from Barfoot and Thompson on the news clip tonight was expressing how much they welcome business from buyers overseas, so is she willing to admit now that for the last few years they have been lying about the numbers of overseas buyers there were? all we ever heard from B&T over the last few years was about how there is not many overseas buyers.

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That's the crux of the matter isn't it

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Perhaps we should nationalize the real estate industry

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No they should just be held accountable for their actions. The actions of a few can ruin the lives of the many. That is why we elect governments to make sure laws and regulations are put in place to protect it citizens for the unscrupulous few that will do what ever it takes to feather there own nest.

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The (potential) fraud and damage that has been perpetrated on NZ society by the Real Estate Industry mis-leading the populace by continuously downplaying and minimising the extent of off-shore money flooding into Auckland property, saying its not foreigners, its locals, logically leads to one conclusion that it must therefore be locals who are buying with their ears pinned back, FHB's climbing on board at great financial risk to themselves, existing home-owners using their equity to buy another and another and another, gotta get on-board because all my local-peers are doing it, so I better do it too, which logically leads to the end conclusion that it must therefore be the evil-baby-boomers doing it

Maybe it has all been a mirage created by the RE industry - Maybe it's not the BB's after all - not if as one whistle-blower has now claimed - foreign buyers are closer to 80% of Auckland purchases

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Deliberate indifference to the duty of care of NZers has been the hallmark of recent govts. Blinded by dollars signs and neoliberal ideology, Rockstar Economy BS propaganda - this property debacle and the the inevitable social rumblings is the initial symptoms of an economy that is wildly out of balance. But the time to manage change has well past. If the govt were to enact changes to restrict the property market boom, the pyramid would collapse with such force that the shockwaves would be felt in Sth America. Banks would certainly collapse. But equally as bad an outcome is to do nothing. The risk of social upheaval is real. This is a very difficult situation for NZ - one that should never have been allowed to develop.

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I wonder if this people have an escape plan? I already know what to do if things turn ugly, having lived in different countries before, I'll be at the airport in no time. But what about this people selling off NZ for immediate returns. They can't see 2 years down the track, let alone 10 years. What are all these RE Agents going to do once the bubble bursts? Should we start an RE Agent relief found?

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First against the wall.

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Most of these agents will revert to their natural calling when the bubble pops.
Instead of spouting " the market will tell us the price" they will be saying " Kissing will cost you an extra $20"

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A spokesrobot, speaking off the record, and possibly allegedly working for Barfly and Twinkletoes, has refuted the rumour that the 'leak' was a Gnat Plant, organised by the Minister for Everything, the Right Hon. Joyful Stephanopolous.

"The mixture of surnames on that allegedly leaked alleged document included 'Singh' - I mean, that's sub-continental, shurely."

"The rumour that this alleged document was liberated by a Blue Operative is so off the mark as to be laughable."

"With the demonstrated level of incompetence, utopianism, undergrad-level research and general sloppiness, there's only one credible prospect for orchestration of this sorry mess."

"The Greens."

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This subject reminds me of the song 'It's too Late Baby'

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If you have plenty of money you can be part of the CLUB.

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The real issue is that whilst the kiwi feel asleep watching rugby the diligent Chinese bought up the place, most kiwis don't realise just how much of Auckland commercial, business zones and development land is own by Chinese, Koreans and the Chinese govt.

Sitting their waiting to skin the kiwi when they want to build a house or start a family.

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Nonsense. Average Joe kiwi cannot compete with the ~2.5 million Chinese millionaires that are free to buy-up New Zealand. The government should be placing restrictions to protect the people it represents, the electorate.

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.

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The employer should be promoted, looks like B&T had this information all the while.
Just like Hagar exposing whats really going on hurts the affluent/powerful people who benefit the most.
National have all gone bush/quite, with minimal disappointing response cliche racist card and delayed request for data and foreign purchase requirements for IRD number & bank accounts.
This must be one of the biggest media issues I've seen.

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Perhaps the ex-employee can be given a column at Interest.co.nz. It would make a welcome break from the real estate infomercials we are occasionally fed at present!

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I'd read the hell out of a 'Real Estate Confidential' behind-the-scenes expose feature.

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Been living in Singapore for a few years now. Why? I cannot afford to live in NZ whilst earning $NZD. My family and I are forced out of NZ, just so we can eventually afford to move back to NZ.

Do you think non-resident taxes for property in Singapore are considered racist?
No. They protect Singaporean citizens, and so they should.

Why the hell is the NZ government not doing the same thing for NZ citizens?
Are the NZ population really as stupid as the Kiwi? It seems so to me, but perhaps due to recent media coverage, there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. You kiwi's better make damn sure that it's not a train (made somewhere other than NZ)...

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