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Treasury Secretary warns Aucklanders could struggle to pay their mortgages in the event of a downturn causing a knock on effect on banks and the wider economy

Property
Treasury Secretary warns Aucklanders could struggle to pay their mortgages in the event of a downturn causing a knock on effect on banks and the wider economy

Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf has expressed his concerns about the high levels of housing debt that has grown out of Auckland's rampant housing market.

"When New Zealand's housing debt is around $215.9 billion, a 26.6% increase in five years, nobody should be surprised the Treasury is concerned," he said in a speech to the Committee for Auckland Group Summit.

Housing debt was far and away the largest component of this country's $246 billion of household debt, which has increased by 26.2% in five years, he said.

"By the beginning of 2016, the level of household debt to disposable income had risen to 163%," he said.

"That is higher than in the lead up to the Global Financial Crisis and is likely to go higher still, with the Reserve Bank expecting credit growth to continue to outpace income growth."

He warned that the historically high debt to income ratios in Auckland, where it now takes nine times the average household income to buy an average house, meant households were increasingly vulnerable.

"A drop in income or a rise in interest rates might see some struggling to meet their mortgage payments," he said.

He was also concerned about the risks this posed to our banks.

"Housing represents around 60% of bank balance sheets," he said.

"In the event of downturn, the high levels of debt across the banking sector and significant levels of indebtedness of individual households could have knock on effects that might cause serious losses of confidence and financial disruption.

"In short, inflated Auckland house prices are a risk to New Zealand's financial stability and the economy more generally."

Warning to speculators 'getting rich off the status quo'

Makhlouf also made it clear that Treasury believes the shape of the new Auckland Unitary Plan, which Auckland Council is expected to finalise in August, will be a key element in solving the region's housing problems.

"One of the crucial things we'd like to see is that the Auckland Unitary Plan provides sufficient residential development capacity - in terms of the quantum, location and typology - to support urban growth and create a competitive market for land," he said.

"This would send a clear signal to land bankers and speculators getting rich off the status quo.

"There are figures on the number of development sites that sound like a lot, but prices suggest otherwise.

"In large part this is because of a shortage of feasible development capacity in existing areas within current plans.

"Creating a competitive land market, by making more development capacity available across all parts of Auckland, would weaken the incentives for speculation and land banking, resulting in a larger proportion of potential development sites being brought to the market," he said.

Here is a link to the full speech:

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105 Comments

History never repeats, I tell myself before I go to sleep.

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Don't say the words you might regret.....I lost before, you know I can't forget.

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those that dont learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
but thats ok will never happen in NZ so i am told daily and we have JK leading us to?
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.com/2015/07/23/does-john-key-know-part…

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National governmeht today stands exposed and are so intoxicated with power abd yes men around them that have totaly lost and cut of with most Kiwi except few ellite like them.

Their well wisher, if have any should make them aware that the more the denial and inaction, more the anguish in people which they are not be able to feel in their arrogance.

Let them see the comments in interest.co.nz or any other website to gauge the mood of the nation - friendly advise.

Their time is up and can see from their body language when they come on TV to defend their lie. It is their goodfortune that media in NZ is not as strong as should be otherwise if put hard facts to them in straight talk will not know where to hide.

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"A drop in income or a rise in interest rates might see some struggling to meet their mortgage payments," he said.

Yeah? Then raise them I say.

"In short, inflated Auckland house prices are a risk to New Zealand's financial stability and the economy more generally."

Should of killed this ponzi scheme years ago, but no....they kept feeding it and feeding it.......

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Yeah kill the ponzi scheme, get the foreign money out of our property market and the market will correct itself back to what NZ'ers can support. Hopefully not a crash. If you raise interest rates you punish NZ'ers and the foreign money will flood in and buy the lot.

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A rate rise will only wipe out the Kiwis with Skin in the game. All the foreign investment will survive and then grab an even bigger slice of the pie.

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Everyone is blowing the same trumpet .... and sound the same alarm to frighten the horses ... the only horses which will hold steady are the foreign ones, because they don't care...regardless of the colour of their money, they're either buying with cash or o/s borrowings ...
Sure , speculators will have their fingers burned ...but that's a good thing! .. any prudent investor with some grey matter knows that the tide will turn around and most are prepared for that ,,, most are there for the long haul anyway .... however those who swim naked will be exposed when the tide goes down ...as Warren Buffett says!!
Savvy Investors are not the bad boys !!

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This problem of rising in multiple on daily basis is result of overseas/ non resident buyer and not local investor as it is non resident buyer who pay premium of 20or 30% premium to chanelisetheir moneyas a result lsst sell becomes the benchmark and so on.

High Time governmentaccept the fact like Australia and Canadaand act asap to control the bubble.

The question is : Is The PM still in denial ?

Would like to see the government response now and would be funny for them to still deny and say that it is not a crisis but sign of prosperty.

Words fail to explain our government but really looking for their response and exposing themself.

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Exactly. Why blame NZers for the natural outcome of the Govts deliberate policy?

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The only good news is that as every month passes the % of LTV mortgages above 80% falls. It has fallen from 18% 2 years ago to 13% in March.

http://tonyalexander.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/WO-June-16-2016.p…

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a price correction of 10% will eat this up in a flash

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I'm not sure how they do they calculations. Do they up the valuations when the CV increases?

A 10% fall is nothing as it would just take us to where were a few months ago. A 25% drop would create a few worries in the the markets and I think any property owner needs to prepare himself for move.

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Who would have thought?! Any other pearls of wisdom from Treasury?

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Not sure how it is land speculation. The council has slashed land supply to Auckland in half. The land that is available is going to cost more and more. Ratepayer backed profit.

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The council isn't responsible for the population growth, that's govt's mess.
The council is trying to cope with a flood of immigrants on its budget, of what infrastructure it can provide.
Subdivisions need roading, water, electricity, sewerage, parks, stormwater, medical facilities etc etc.
Artificial population growth is trashing this country. Trashing the NZ lifestyle. Don't blame the council, blame the govmt.

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Don't worry treasury, JKs just done an informal survey of highly leveraged speculators who told him that house prices never go down..

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...Was the sample drawn from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce?

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Don't worry treasury, JKs just done an informal survey of highly leveraged cabinet ministers who told him that house prices must never go down..

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Why do I have that gut feeling that a number of countries reserve banks are starting to panic over their inflated domestic asset prices and the consequences of price declines.

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Has the treasurySecretary said something that is not in public domain.

He should be telling the government as everyone else - by everyone I mean literally each and every kiwi except our honPM knows the truth but not John Denial Key.

NERO FIDDLED WHILE AUCKLAND BURNED

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this is like the boy that cried wolf, has been going on for years and everybody has got sick of the cries.
we are now all waiting for the correction and what form it will take, what pain it will cause, and what kind of country we will have after it happens

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Nah, it'll be fine.

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Makhlouf should preach to the Govt who is stubbornly clinging onto its strategy of increased immigration, increased foreign ownership, denial of the truth of the true magnitude of the foreign or proxy buyers of property,
Increased international students purely for income to prop up universities etc with shortfalls, etc.
Most Aucklanders buying a house are victims of a ruthless government who have little regard for the citizens they were elected to govern.
What would Treasury like NZers to do? Rent forever? Avoid home ownership?
Treasury have long been a strong advocate of increased immigration, export education, globalisation, foreign purchasing of NZs assets - now they warn/complain about the consequences of that unwise strategy.
Treasury is complicit in their devaluing of NZ, NZers, NZ assets, and NZs heritage.

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Funny when 40,000-50,000 Kiwis moved to Australia annually over the last 15 years.

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crow22. easy NZ residency, was used by immigrants to get into Ausie. We were the back door. A lot of those 50 to 60,000 kiwis you love to quote weren't born in NZ. Ausie backlash is they have changed how they treat so called kiwis.

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The treasury secretary gives a flowery talk about Auckland, yet uses national mortgage debt not Aucklands, and indeed national debt to income , as a way of hiding Aucklands hideous debt load. In terms of financial stability, he does not mention the rate of interest only loans currently being taken out by speculators/and any other pleb as the only way to support current prices, gives no mention to rental yields which in no way support current Auckland pricing. Waffles about Auckland providing 35 percent of GDP, yet it is so intimately linked to housing . Fails to mention that so many homeowners in Auckland are not selling because they simply expect prices to rise further, argues a supply shortage when all that is happening is we are squeezing more into rental properties, (which are continuing to increase in number in Auckland), and listings being churned by every noble real estate agency in Auckland to improve the statistics.We marched them up to the top of the hill....where some will meet an increasing number of dairy farmers.

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Good question - was thinking that while reading the article

What is Auckland's share of the $216 billion mortgage debt?

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Iconoclast, latest outstanding mortgage figures will be around 220 Billion for May month. I have extrapolated figures all the way back to 2004 when Auckland numbers were known , using other odds and ends I accumulate for fun , I believe Auckland's mortgage debt is between 136 and 148 Billion. (62-67 percent of national total), about 284000 per household .Of course , Auckland with the lowest home ownership other than Gisborne, that mortgage debt is further concentrated .Its a mess.

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A chinese law firm comes clean on true extent of housing market impact: - 3 News tonight:

The boss of an Auckland-based Chinese law firm says Chinese buyers will get around the ban by banks on foreign lending. Royal Reed also disputes the Government's claims that Chinese buyers aren't pushing up the housing market, saying the figures on offshore buyers are unreliable.

"There is a phrase in China that is called '上有政策,下有对策' which when you translate it is saying 'when the Government has a policy we have a way around it'."

Ms Reed was born in Taiwan but has spent most of her life in New Zealand, and is now practising as Mandarin-speaking lawyer dealing with Chinese clients.She says Chinese are used to their own Government's stringent policies, and "consider non-compliance as a first option for any newly introduced policy", preferring to find a practical way around it.

Land Information New Zealand's data for January to March showed 3 percent of buyers were "foreign tax residents" but that didn't capture temporary workers, student visas, businesses and trusts.Ms Reed says this shows the Government hasn't gathered anywhere near enough data to have an intelligent discussion about offshore buyers, and the 3 percent figure could really be far higher.

"There is not enough questions in our current transactions system to allow us to know who really owns the property and how the funding of the property really comes about." She says the banks' ban will result on more arrangements with locals being used to front loans, which is already happening in New Zealand.

"It's very common someone would take a piece of real estate up to China and talk about how wonderful it is and the potential involved, and over a dinner table of ten people we will decide 'yeah, this is such a good idea we can all do it, or if you do it, I'll do the next one.' "Then you have this very amicable hopeful bunch of investors who are trusting this 27-year-old, who has identified this lovely property in the school zone that any one of them could benefit from in the future. So for practical reasons and for ease of management they may put it in this lovely young person's name."

Ms Reed says this often results in unclear, trust-based arrangements which can fall over if the young person has used the property to mortgage against or has sold the property and run away. "Messy situations start from the fact we don't know enough about who owns this property."

She makes it clear that her views aren't politically motivated -- and says she's not attacking the Government because she concedes it's not an easy fix. "Even if you want to push through the law just for fixing the Chinese investors or any Russian investors if you like to call us the evil two, then there will be many of us who are also equally uncomfortable.

"There are cases against local doctors who can't explain their cash deposits, they are doctors, you'd think they're not the same as the dodgy Chinese who have just landed." She says a policy that required property buyers to disclose the source of their funding would make a few New Zealanders squirm.

"Property is always a toy of the rich and the rich do not talk very much. "So you don't ask them 'where did the money come from?' because that's highly offensive in any culture."

Ms Reed says she wanted to speak up to shed light on what's happening in the offshore property market because the Government's systems are naive and trusting. "That's where we've let ourselves down, we have trusted for so long hoping everyone that comes in is a clone of a Kiwi average reasonable person."

Newshub.

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I wonder if this lovely young man story actually happened....

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A certainty bad robot - the foreign students are tasked with part time work sourcing real estate for the family back in the homeland. They need somewhere to stash the cash and NZ is the easiest place to put it thanks to Shonkey. Head done to the Barfoots auction rooms tomorrow and you will see many lovely young 18 to 25 year olds buying up large. All cash - no need for finance.
https://www.barfoot.co.nz/Auction-Search?l=34+Shortland+St&s=22%2f06%2f…

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@ BigBlue; Yes there maybe no need for Non-resident Investors to have finance from NZ to buy up property here. But the chances are that they're still getting finance for their homeland.

What is really worrying is that there have been a lot of recent reports about the rapid increase in unregulated finance from China, which has lead to an increase in risky home loans and home loan defaulting.

How many of those risky home loans were used to purchase NZ homes? Which we have no control over what so ever!

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Over and over and over and over

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..you forgot to mention the short clip on the same item that had Jong Key in denial....yet again.

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Must be a few Nat voters starting to wonder if they actually voted for some sort of Chinese run party!
In the last few weeks Shonkey has been heavily focused on sucking up to the Chinese and of course his sidekick crusher Collins also has a strong Chinese connection.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/local-blogs/willie-jackson/9…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/79063174/nz-open-to-chinese-in…

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/201802964…
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/301830/alibaba-to-smooth-import…

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11659…

http://thestandard.org.nz/key-attends-secret-lunch-to-raise-cash-for-fl…

Why is Key so obsessed with selling out NZ to the Chinese?

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Key knows that his time is short, so he is speeding up the process of selling NZ
.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1604/S00341/pm-promises-to-streamline-…

Has a deal been made to secure continuing milk powder sales to China? While Key promises land, housing, farms, etc sales? Now the new deal is to allow Chinese infrastructure investment and building.

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Last few weeks? Lol. It's been a LOT longer than that.

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Hi Bigblue, The point is not if it quick fix or not but what is extremely annoying is the fact that government is in denial and lie which is known to all. Why the lie and denial. Government has lost total trust.

You tell me how do you trust a government who is not ready to acept the obvious fact and lie without blinking.

Their entitre argument of not taking any action is based on the overseas data that was released earier and eferyone knows that the data is faulty so does it not mean that the government policy of inaction is failty as is based on faulty data.

Heart to heart even they know but as it suits them are talking nonsense though no newzealanders trust them but ask them and they hide behind the data.

How hard is it to correct the fault and get correct data ?

Assuming that the next data covers all the faults of the earlier data and is not manipulated annd shows which will that the earlier data was wrong by heaps - the government will just come out and blame the agency, which they are expert in.

No one likes to comment bad on the government whom you voted but when see their arrogance and attitue it is a shame.

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Kerry McDonald was taking about the failure of the civil service and Public administration. Their naïve and trusting approach around property is just another way they have let us down.

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Good article. From what I have heard NZ assets are bought with cash and the debt is overseas. The liability will be left with the overseas lender with no recourse to the assets over here. I'm not sure you will see the fire sale of assets over here as they will just walk away and sever ties.All coming out of the zombie SOE's. NZ sees a small percentage of the flows but because of the economy being so small it has a disproportionate effect.

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They don't need to get around them as Banks from China are already in New Zealand.

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Surprising a Chinese law firm who are creaming it from all this activity would actually speak out on it!

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maybe because she can see first hand how this is effecting her family and extended family.
being here 20 years on NZ wages would put her at a disadvantage against the money coming in, that and being involved can see the truth unlike our leaders who are in denial
we need more like her to tell what is really going on, bit hard for those opposed to anyone speaking out to call her racist

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Appreciate for telling the truth. Hats off to them. Wish our government understand that TRUTH ALWAYS PRRVAIL. Can hide truth for sometime but not for ever.

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Would she be seen as a traitor by the Chinese who speculate here?

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They got their name out there, didn't they? More business for them.

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Porches, Maseratis, McLarens, Lambos and the odd Rolls Royce are all becoming a common sight around Auckland. Audis, Beemers, Mercs have become positively passe.

That couldn't have anything to do with all the phantom equity sloshing about the shore and central suburbs now, could it?

I'm sure this will all end well.

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Mainly Chinese drivers?

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About 50/50. Generally younger Chinese men on the Southern Motorway and older Euro men on the Northern.

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What should make your eyes water is that when they pick the kids up from St Cuths and Kings they have to do 2 trips as they only have 2 seats...personally I think Porsche Carrera is the way to go, pick the boy up from Otahuhu and then slide the daughter and the wife into the back seat...although not sure if you will get the clearance on the Waiheke Sealink on low tide though...

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These problems real. Life is getting harder. Your guidance and wisdom flows freely like the Auckland traffic of my dreams.

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"There is a phrase in China that is called '上有政策,下有对策' which when you translate it is saying 'when the Government has a policy we have a way around it'."

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Yes take all the money and run!

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There is a saying in the West: "A Fool and his money are soon parted".

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There is another saying in the west that tells me a lot about Kiwis - "Every nation gets the government it deserves"

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Saw a very young Chinese guy parking his Bentley convertible on Queen St

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Something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-4xBWXLUi4

Driving downtown does feel a bit like that these days. Less snow, you understand, but close.

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I totally agree with this statement , kiwis are too naïve and trusting. We regard that most people will be honest in there dealings, but that is not how things are done in many parts of the world

Ms Reed says she wanted to speak up to shed light on what's happening in the offshore property market because the Government's systems are naive and trusting. "That's where we've let ourselves down, we have trusted for so long hoping everyone that comes in is a clone of a Kiwi average reasonable person."

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Kiwis are but the same cannot be said about our government. Government uptill now has beenbtaken advantage of kiwi but not any more as are exposed.

If you lose the trust of the trusting people, wiill be hard to win bank the trust.

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He has nailed a big part of the problem - lack of competitive development capacity.
We now wait for the decision on the unitary plan....

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"There is not enough questions in our current transactions system to allow us to know who really owns the property and how the funding of the property really comes about."

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Are there any consequences if someone deliberately ticks the wrong boxs? Is it a survey or do people verify that the answers are correct?

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that comes back to the kiwi attitude where we expect people to be truthful in completing forms, against an attitude of doing what puts yourself in the best position and if caught deny, lie, claim misunderstood
gee that sounds like a leader we have

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The lawyers complete the form and they are under strict requirement to get it right

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The form should clearly mention to tick, citizen, resident, work visa, student, forirgner, any other visa if any please specify.

How hard is it. One does not have to be rocket scientist.

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The data already proved 39% of buyers are either based offshore, foreign students studying here or people on temporary work visas - this matches perfectly the three months worth of Barfoots buyers - 39% of whom had Chinese names. The govt continue to ignore. Phil Twyford should be promoted to PM.

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Vote for Phil Twyford for telling the truth. Support him as no one like liers.

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How do you know they are either those things? it doesn't prove that they are foreign or local Chinese. The data came from the man who thought Maori seats were racist.

Even some Pakeha surnames sound Chinese.

It is considered racist as it doesn't differentiate who is foreign or local Chinese. it even has surnames that are Korean & Indian in it too.

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Err, you know they didn't just go "That name sounds Chinese so we'll assume they're Chinese".... they actually weighted each last name compared to how many of respondants with that name in the census identified as ethnic Chinese.

Therefore it can be pretty much certainly assumed that someone with the last name "Xiao" is Chinese, whereas there's probably only a 30% chance of someone called "Lee" being Chinese.

These weightings were then used to estimate the number of property transactions involving Chinese ethnicities.

Call it racist if you like, but their method stands up to statistical scrutiny given the Census is a pretty large sample size for NZ

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There is also not a huge number of Chinese surnames and as China has not interacted with the world much till quite recently, those names have not changed. As you say, a name like Lee is probably unlikely to be ethnic Chinese as it will still be being spelled Li, Lee, if Asian is most likely to be Korean. It was a pretty reliable method in fact and it looks like it may have been spectacularly accurate.

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How do I write "matariki" in mandarin? We're studying immigration tomorrow.

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When they did the survey, the gubmint seized on the 4% and stuck with the message. When even they knew it was plain wrong. They just lied, deliberately, together and organised. That's their measure.

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How true KH. Now all kiwis knows that. This national govt is totaly exposed.

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problem is , no they don't know . The ones I talk to think 4% is true.

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I expect action soon, they will roll out some watered down policies to regain the middle ground.
. latest poll is nationals worst since they took power WP will be king maker
http://www.curia.co.nz/2016/06/roy-morgan-poll-june-2016/

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I'm not so sure sharetrader, I talk to family and friends who are by all accounts educated normal kiwis and their ignorance and lack of political interest is prevalent. They listen to John Key say things are great so they think things are great. Your average kiwi lives with their head in the sand. She'll be right, full steam ahead.

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The poll looks like a National landslide if there were no unholy alliances. I'd put money on a National win. Best to keep things steady and the lunatics in the basement in these times. Of course it is in my interests that they win. I also don't trust the others to be sensible. When Labour apologised to women for the actions of men it was all over for me with them. And Greens...come on.

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the problem for national are there partners, they can not govern alone.
so I expect some new policies and money to be thrown their way, especially around homeless and marae's for the maori party.
Act want paye brackets lifted, expect to see details emerge about the form of next years tax cuts

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Watch out for the Shane Jones factor. There seems to be a bit of a buzz around that he could contest Whangarei for NZF. There are also thoughts that he could be being groomed to displace Ron Mark as deputy leader.
I kind of like putting two and two together sometimes and wonder, should it turn out to be the case, just where the impetus for him to do this might have come from. There is at least one party in parliament not averse to manipulating voters.

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even though I think he fits NZ first and will win northland for them, I remember it was the nats that got him out of parliament with a cushy job.
Once back in which side will he try to influence WP to join to govern

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http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015

Perhaps the Tres-usery Secretary does not want to be involved in the next round of voting for we are without doubt, coming to the end of knowledgeable peoples disbelief, as his figures do not unfortunately...lie.

Unlike some I could name.

Distorted, yes. Top4...no.

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How is that for stating the obvious ....

With an ageing population and fears for the babyboomers Superannuation in the future things will only be worse for the next generation with incomes stagnant, GDP per capita at a standstill and house prices and therefore loans going through the stratosphere

To top it all off we have a "Do nothing Say Nothing Government" who are only concerned about getting re-elected and a Reserve Bank that's having an absolute shocker after being named the best in the world....

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anyone under 50 can forget about retiring on the pension. you will need extra funds to get by.
if under 30 better start planning for next to no state payment

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That is one major reason why New Zealand needs a bigger population as NZ won't have enough taxpayers in the future to keep pensions sustainable.

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And when that bigger population reaches pension age................? I think what is needed is a whole new way of thinking about how society operates without growth, because that is what we are facing with machines and technology taking over jobs. Not only will pensions still be needed, but also a UBI as jobs disappear. Left to just evolve will only result in more and more people in poverty, and social unrest.
That is, of course, if we haven't blown each other to bits as I fear we are very close to doing, right now.

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If NZ had kept a stable population old age would have been no problem. The baby boomers and WW2 generations had built and paid for this countries infrastructure. If population growth was not artificially stimulated with immigrants the infrastructure was built and only needed to be maintained. NZ didn't need extra taxpayers. The younger generations didn't need to build and pay for massive infrastructure development, it was done and paid for.
Population growth is not a sustainable economic recipe.

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Perpetual economic growth of any kind is not sustainable.

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New Zealand would be better off in all respects with a population of less than a million - and stable.

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Yeah KH. imagine that if there was just one million people living off our exports of 36 billion.
thats $36,000 for each person.
The population growth lobby just don't get it that we can only import the same value as we export. The more people, the less share of the export wealth for everyone.

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Jesus KH! When was that the population here? 1890?

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Population was about 1 million at the time of the first World War. But really Justice. It was only a good idea, no need to put me up there with God.

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If all tax loopholes were closed up it wouldn't be a problem.

Its not the number that matters its the amount they pay. Shortlist - Corporates, Property Speculators.

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Does national actually cares.

Their popularity is all time low but still more to come. If they continue the way they are will be in single digit and that too by few whom they are working for at the cost of the nation.

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Wrong (again). Far from an "all time low".

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Evita, they have only dropped about 1-2%

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National has got it all WONG on the issue of foreign property buyers...

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National does not want to accept the fact about overseas buyer, if they accrpt, will have to act, hence the denial.

In time to come will have to act but are denying to delay taking any action agains speculators.

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I recall an incident from the leaky building syndrome-- once we acknowledged we had a problem--every man and his dog had opinions over opinions and some of them blamed the govt. (similar to as in now where we blaming JK and his team), may be the "shoddy" chinese builders amongst others. I recall someone (could be BRANZ??) brought in a Canadian expert. He came in, wanted to see first hand, so asked to drive to some leaky homes. Within 5 minutes, he diagnosed the problem. We largely were building "meditaranian style houses suited for a weather not largely present in NZ. Although there is nothing wrong, with this style, it needed a lot of extra details to suit local conditions.

I think we have a very simple solution to the current high house price inflation, as we did for leaky bldgs.. LAND, LAND, LAND. The answer was very over cautiously presented in the AUP. The original AUP should be "strengthened without any fear of NIMBY's and adopted. Strengthen original AUP by permitting reasonable densification within existing city boundary and watch land prices stabilise. Drive around Sydney suburbs--large parts of it is like Mt. Roskill, Birkenhead, Sandringham, Northcote, Mairangi Bay etc except with new 3-5 storey res. units in between existing older and mostly original houses which are ready to receive similar treatment to their adjoining sites. Go Auckland, support the spirit of the AUP, not only that, intensify to the hilt--at least up to a radius of 5-7 km from a pin placed on the centre of auckland harbour bridge.

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It would be more accurate to say mock Mediterranean style houses suited for a weather not largely present in NZ.
It's always a worry when something looks like something it is not. In this case looks like solid stone walls..

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Great idea not a nimby, we can just find more land and build lots of infrastructure to service it.?? hopefully your paying$$$

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We're spending $17billion to develop infrastructure around Warkworth, Silverdale, Kumeu, Pukekohe, Clarks Beach.

We could stop doing that and develop land around Auckland. It would cost less, involve less sprawl and accommodate more people. If we just get rid of this sprawl loving council.

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Oh Dear - Makhlouf is worried about the Banks.....Really......the debts are guaranteed by depositors funds.....what does he think an OBR is?

NZ has a poisonous chalice and it is our bureaucracies.......and until people get their god damned stupid heads around this issue then expect prices to keep going up!!

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How many times have we seen a headline like this over the last few years?

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Maybe the Treasury should have a talk to the immigration department of it's government, they caused the mess and now are complaining about it...!!

No Auckland houses or units selling under $650K or 8x household income - when did our government start selling out NZ born citizens in favour of immigration, foreign trusts and speculators? under the guise of 'growth'

As the treasury itself has just said above it has only increased the risks....!! Get rid of JK and National who are working against NZer's

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