Public Address | Cafe | OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese

Joe Wylie

Thu, 13 Aug 2015 12:16:18 +1200

Of course, there was no racism here until "Labour did it":

Blame "Farmer Bill" Massey, whose Reform Party presided over the forced breakup of Chinese-Samoan marriages, after braving a single German gunboat to invade the place.

Steve Barnes

Thu, 13 Aug 2015 12:04:37 +1200

Here is a tangible piece of evidence that demonstrates the underhandedness of your recent conduct.

How outrageous, somebody found an example of racism in New Zealand. Whooda thought?.
Of course, there was no racism here until "Labour did it":

Jeff Goh

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:25:51 +1200

Attention: Little, Tywford, Parker.

Here is a tangible piece of evidence that demonstrates the underhandedness of your recent conduct.

A Samoan lady accuses a Chinese Restaurant owner of racism when allegedly asked to pay for her meal before eating:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/71071617/diners-said-it-was-racism-restaurant-said-it-was-just-a-misunderstanding

The Samoan lady says to the reporter "And to think…

Steve Barnes

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 18:26:47 +1200

Excellent work David, it looks like migratory bird routes in an encyclopaedia from my youth. ;-)
But...
Its not just houses you know....
NZ a 'virtual economic trade prisoner of China'
I better get the popcorn in.

David Hood

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 17:14:46 +1200

While it is probably not of interest to most people, the record of making it is here

https://github.com/thoughtfulbloke/migraphion

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 10:24:30 +1200

I thought it was a planet
it definitely looks organic...
(hell would make a nice new world flag ...)

and thanks for the Key link, too, David.

Paul Campbell

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 09:08:08 +1200

I thought it was a planet

David Hood

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 17:55:25 +1200

It is the fine print URL down the very bottom
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 17:25:47 +1200

Is there a Country Key?

Sofie Bribiesca

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 16:21:25 +1200

That is very cool. Well done you.

David Hood

Mon, 10 Aug 2015 14:59:25 +1200

In the weekend I made this for a course assignment (make a network graph from data of your choosing). It is showing the country/region that is the major source of immigration of each country in the world in 2013 from UN migration data. Great Britain is the major source of…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 20:12:26 +1200

Ah. The housing market doesn’t exist because some people don’t/can’t participate in it or don’t view it as a market. Might as well add the rental market, car market, and flea-market to the list of dumb phrases that should be outlawed, by that logic.

If the ‘housing market’ really is…

Jeff Weir

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 14:31:32 +1200

not all community’s of people who hold land titles, view housing as a market.

Ah. The housing market doesn't exist because some people don't/can't participate in it or don't view it as a market. Might as well add the rental market, car market, and flea-market to the list of dumb…

Jeff Weir

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 13:58:36 +1200

Is your home more than a roof, walls, windows and doors that lock – letter box, Internet connection and power supply?.

If you use the definition "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household" then I guess not. But again, you've lost me.…

chris

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 13:50:49 +1200

How patronising was that guy? Cultural imperialism at worst. The second and foreign language users now outnumber the natives quite significantly. Keep telling yourself what they need to know.

Second Language Users and Emerging English
Designs

Conclusion:

As problematic as the label “ESL student” already is for students themselves and…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 13:36:30 +1200

my disdain for imperialist rules

The English language evolved amongst the ordinary working people of Middle Ages England, at a time when their lords and masters spoke French and used Latin for governmental and religious purposes. It isn't imperialist, and using it correctly in discourse merely indicates that you've taken…

Jeff Weir

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:50:29 +1200

How would you feel about the seabed and foreshore being privately owned? Not great. I don't follow your point, though.
Is it realistic, to live without having to own rent or lease land? Not for me. I rent. But again, I don't follow your point.

Jeff Weir

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:07:53 +1200

Sorry, Steven, you've lost me. Can you elaborate? Is the housing market any more abstracted than any other market?

Jeff Weir

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 11:02:52 +1200

There’s a pretty good compliment to owning a house. It’s called renting and saving. I do it. It’s not the end of the world. My landlord who receives my hard earned cash is a non-resident. He lives in Japan. Probably owns property there, too. He certainly owns lots of properties…

Kumara Republic

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 22:19:04 +1200

It’s pretty hard to know whether the same level of bitterness would be felt if the buyers were foreign but not Chinese. My gut feeling is that it would be much the same. If Germans were buying 40% of the houses for sale in Auckland and prices were skyrocketing beyond…

BenWilson

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 19:15:38 +1200

So “resentment” doesn’t come from sellers – it comes from the local buyers trying to compete.

Yup, I don't think any sellers are going to be resentful about getting extra cash, unless they are really, really racist. Greed trumps racism, easily, especially when it's such large sums.

Buyers could feel…

Katharine Moody

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 18:46:39 +1200

And the fact that those non-whites own more than just a few smallpoxed blankets and a couple of rusty old muskets

Not necessarily. QE/ZIRP policy makes offshore finance cheap and loose. Most of these purchases are leveraged, aside from those that want to move money offshore for other reasons.

Kiwis…

linger

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:51:11 +1200

Kiwis don’t resent selling to Chinese —they resent the fact that who they have to sell to are non-whiteThere is greed and resentment, sure, but I don’t think this is quite where it lies. Others on this thread have mentioned the frustration experienced at phone bids winning auctions. In that…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:18:25 +1200

By easy I mean NZ as a whole can stop it if they wanted to—-problem is there is little governmental will —because of exactly what I said in my previous post.

Kiwis are kicking up a stink about the Chinese, but secretly they will happily sell to them —probably including…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:10:39 +1200

The not liking Chinese, however, is probably a much smaller factor. Racism is definitely at work here. But is it all that’s at work?

Yes racism is a big factor. Or at least racialised resentment.

Here’s why.

A vast majority of kiwis would sell to a foreign buyer (including Chinese)…

BenWilson

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 17:00:23 +1200

That is what is stirring the angst — not the fact they are buying, but the fact they can buy.

I'd say it's both. If they could, but weren't, there wouldn't be a call for bans. If they couldn't...they couldn't, and there would be no call for bans.

They can…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:50:34 +1200

To rephrase: “you are worried that you (and more generally, others like you) are losing some control over your own lives”.
(i) Is that an illogical stance?
(ii) Is it necessarily “racist”?

I’ve said I support a ban on foreign buyers, if nothing because I’m hardly part of the local…

chris

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:49:28 +1200

because of this people often mean han culture han people when they refer to chinese.

But isn’t it high time that we break down that stereotype in the interests of reducing ignorance and learning something from this whole shitfest, increasing our awareness? Or is that too idiotic to attempt?

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:45:46 +1200

Why just Han? Sounds fairly exclusionary, which was my point, strangely.

Because that's the way others see us and the way Twatford has used the data.

China actually insists that it is a multi-national state, and in fact actively suppresses any racial or ethnic villification in its media.

Within China,…

chris

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:37:53 +1200

By Chinese sounding names we mean names that belong to the dominant Han ethnicity, dominant by numbers you idiot.

Why just Han? Sounds fairly exclusionary, which was my point, strangely.

Just like if we said English sounding names, we would probably mean ‘Smith’ or ‘Watson’

So no Blair or Cameron…

Alfie

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 15:15:19 +1200

I fear the poor soul may have got lost on the way to WhalePoo.

Katharine Moody

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 14:13:00 +1200

Indeed, bigoted in his objection to bigotry .. in a big way.

Danielle

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 13:50:30 +1200

NB3: We're not hugely keen on gendered insults like "crying like a girl".

linger

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 12:24:31 +1200

Problem with people like you is you can’t stand the fact that a non-white power is rising and non-white people have money.
“…People like you…” Ah, such othering language.
To rephrase: “you are worried that you (and more generally, others like you) are losing some control over your own lives”.…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 03:03:04 +1200

I support foreign investment which helps our country to grow – but selling off the family silver is short-term thinking.

Actually I agree. But the fact that you are jumping up and down like a bitch on heat over the Chinese shows what a racist prick you are.

If your…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 02:57:22 +1200

This is antiquated: distinguishing between the name’s Ng and Nguyen, perpetuating this perception, the perception that no Vietnamese person has ever crossed that border to China and kept their name.

What an idiotic post.

By Chinese sounding names we mean names that belong to the dominant Han ethnicity, dominant by…

Kalka River

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 02:49:59 +1200

The reason China is mentioned so often is that they're the predominent foreign buyer worldwide.

What bullshit. And even if it was the case so effing what? China has the biggest population.

On a per capita basis China is way behind Australia, the US, and other Western countries.

In absolute…

BenWilson

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 17:31:49 +1200

But it’s an interesting assumption you make, this assumption that I am a second language user, based on my disdain for imperialist rules, my unconventional word usage or my total contempt for punctuation.

LOL ooops. I really thought you were saying English was hard for you, reaching for the dictionary…

David Hood

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 17:18:20 +1200

To be honest, I don't want to as I would feel icky trying, even more so for succeeding, but there are a few thousand people around China who probably feel they owe me a favour and might fill me in on internal subtleties of ethnicity.

It is something that can…

chris

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:55:02 +1200

I assume for the car offer, it is OK to match against secondary sources, just as labour also used other sources to match against? I should perhaps give you the option to reconsider the offer first though.

While I could think of a hundred better things to spend your time…

chris

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:53:38 +1200

It sure must be exasperating to talk politics in a second language

English is not my second language, as you say, “the feeling was conveyed all the better for it”. You understood, you’re just not sure what it meant, not at a level you can intellectualise, it’s just train of…

David Hood

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:09:18 +1200

I should also note, that when it comes to my data matching skills Kylie Matthews (who inherited a historical data set I had linked together) once wrote

“As a side note, I took over responsibility for keeping David’s database online and available for the public after he left our common…

Soon Lee

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 15:46:21 +1200

I'm a Malaysian Chinese New Zealander...

David Hood

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 15:29:02 +1200

My wife’s family name is Tang, I will give you a free car if you can tell me her ethnicity, not simply the country her name originated from, but her actual ethnicity, I’ll give you one guess.

I'm not guessing yet, but she has only a 1/11146375 of being connected…

mark taslov

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 15:14:54 +1200

What I fear with that Craig is that Labour really aren't reading the game, already this year we've seen National slip in a watered down CGT. On May 10 Grant Robertson appeared on Q&A, refloating Labour's election policy regarding the introduction of incentives for migrants to go to the regions. A…

BenWilson

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 14:37:16 +1200

As fascinating as that was Ben, and I’m not being sarcastic

Neither was I. Etymology of names is quite an interesting field.

But it was a fantastic day.

And a good post too. I'm not sure what all of it meant, but the feeling was conveyed all the better for…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 08:58:41 +1200

Known Unknown: What would have happened this last week if Labour had passed on race-trolling with dodgy data and instead put all the energy and political capital into talking up sensible small-business tax reforms?

Guess we'll never know...

chris

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 21:23:09 +1200

Leave the ethnicity of my car out it Steven! um, yes.

chris

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 21:22:32 +1200

I have no idea, I was possibly a bit blunt with Nina earlier in my criticism of them focusing too much energy on us making farewell cards for John Campbell while the Saudi sheep controversy was emerging. Either my junk food advertising feedback was too much or when I ticked…

chris

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 21:03:24 +1200

She’s from Raro?

No car for you today sir, perhaps we could get Rawshark onto it eh?

chris

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 21:02:39 +1200

As fascinating as that was Ben, and I'm not being sarcastic, in the express interest of curtailing property speculation, especially with regards to offshore investors;

as self reported by people in NZ with those names

we appear to have made no headway whatsoever so...

Why would I try?

is a…

Sacha

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 19:57:57 +1200

She's from Raro?

very good

Sacha

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 19:57:22 +1200

I mean a single individual is only one of the ethnicities anyway

Multiple ethnicities per person are becoming more and more common here.

nzlemming

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 19:40:57 +1200

My wife’s family name is Tang, I will give you a free car if you can tell me her ethnicity, not simply the country her name originated from, but her actual ethnicity, I’ll give you one guess.

She's from Raro?

(I'll just get my coat and hat...)

Katharine Moody

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 17:28:11 +1200

I was booted off the Action Station mailing list for providing too much feedback when prompted, feedback along the lines that stopping the advertising of junk food doesn’t really begin to address all the junk food that isn’t advertised

Do you mean they blacklisted your email address? Or are you…

BenWilson

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 17:25:19 +1200

As I said above it’s those traditional names native to the land area covered by the Ming dynasty. There was a limited name pool.

Fascinating though the ultimate origins of the names is, I don't think any effort at all would have been spent on that by a statistician trying…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:36:00 +1200

This country – the intelligentsia, the pundits, the commentators, the politicians, the talking heads, the left, the right, the inbetweeners, the journalists, Nabour, Lational- has gone so far up it’s own ass you can see the trees. Meanwhile a 70 year old waits 2 years for a hip replacement, immobilised.…

chris

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:27:49 +1200

He would have built up a table of names from such official data as he had that linked names to the actual ethnicity of the person

As I said above it’s those traditional names native to the land area covered by the Ming dynasty. There was a limited name pool.…

BenWilson

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:45:28 +1200

Did they do any breakdown of probable ethnicity for sellers beyond just ‘Euro’?

Don't know, sorry. I don't even know what roll they used :-) All I can say with high certainty is that Rob Salmond didn't go through a list of names picking numbers out of his bum about…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:06:29 +1200

Leaven it up to you...
...happy to accept half-baked statistics* from Labour?
*Actually, I don’t think they went near the oven.
Houses and house-buyers are much affected by the 'kneady' and the 'doughy' – rather than put their floury and watery 'statistics through the normal 'proving' pass, Labour chose to…

Katharine Moody

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:43:53 +1200

61.7% of the sellers in the data were Euro, but only 56% of the population, and only 40.7% of the buyers.

Did they do any breakdown of probable ethnicity for sellers beyond just 'Euro'?

On the matter of foreign direct investment, I'm thinking a lot of that might well be…

BenWilson

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:23:11 +1200

This would suggest that the answer to that is “very”.

Maybe. Resident Asians could well have had secret caches of money stashed away from their NZ earnings just so they could go on a buying bonanza now. A bit silly of them to wait until prices got so high, tho.…

Sacha

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:18:42 +1200

We don’t know the exact details of how Salmond got his name proportions, but he says it was from census data

wasn't it the electoral roll?

BenWilson

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:10:11 +1200

Actually, looking a bit closer, Euros are overrepresented on the sales side. Not massively compared to the proportion in the population, but pretty massively compared to how many are buying. So you could conclude "Euros are selling out the country to Asians" if you wanted to put both the acceptable…

Dismal Soyanz

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:56:05 +1200

Kiwi Asians could be 4 times more likely than other Kiwis to buy property in Auckland. The question then becomes “how likely does that seem?”.

This would suggest that the answer to that is "very".

BenWilson

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:08:30 +1200

We don't know the exact details of how Salmond got his name proportions, but he says it was from census data and some other things left unspecified. So I don't think that he would have gone about just forming opinions on what names were Chinese etc. He would have built…

chris

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 17:48:21 +1200

Most interesting for me is that they targeted traditional names from the Chinese land area circa the Ming Dynasty. They weren’t looking for Uyghur names like Sabir, Tibetan names like Cezhug, and you won’t see many of those names because for the most part like the Maori and Islanders here,…

nzlemming

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:40:10 +1200

Quite disappointed in this article and the half-baked statistics and analysis, you really don’t attempt to address the actual issue of foreign investment at all and just put more fuel on this racist sideshow.

So, let’s get this straight. You’re disapponted in what you see as “half-baked statistics” from Keith,…

ma1f

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 23:47:32 +1200

Ok, few issues – so 127,000 – can 0-18 year olds buy house? Do 65+ often buy houses? Figure is meaningless.
Instead how about we use dwellings, so 9% is about 42,000 owned by chinese origin, now ~3,500 is ~8% increase per quarter… starting to see where this is heading?…

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 17:50:46 +1200

The Zhang Heng Code
The 'problem' may go deeper – Twyford may have lifted the lid on a millennia old Dynastic land grab plot!
A new study has revealed that millions of modern Asian men have descended from 11 powerful dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago, including…

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 17:34:01 +1200

Data journalism is a recognised and vital sector ...
http://blog.udacity.com/2014/11/data-science-job-skills.html?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=syndication&utm_campaign=outbrainQ3

Sacha

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 18:15:07 +1200

straw Twitterati

ooh, like a boater?

Sacha

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 18:14:18 +1200

Those almost make kiwibog look like a voice of reason.

Same general tribe..

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:44:12 +1200

I just find it hilarious personally that suddenly a lot of those on the right are suddenly falling all over themselves defending minorities in NZ. How unusual....

Does that cancel out my mirthless laughter watching a lot of those on the left who are now terribly relaxed (to coin a…

Joe Wylie

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:03:47 +1200

I just find it hilarious personally that suddenly a lot of those on the right are suddenly falling all over themselves defending minorities in NZ. How unusual....

There were a few examples turned up in Dirty Politics. Donning the sheep's clothing must seem like a splendid wheeze at the time…

Q Williams

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:54:41 +1200

I'm not apologising, I have nothing to apologise for. I am simply saying that it is unfortunate that Mr. Ng has been made to feel unwelcome in his own country. we all feel abit like that at times, I'm 6th generation apparently on my mums side... but ti still don't…

Russell Brown

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:37:18 +1200

Eek. Those almost make kiwibog look like a voice of reason.

Yes. But remember, it's New Zealand's leading business publication!

Grant McDougall

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:30:28 +1200

Labour's claims bring to mind – and I'm normally not given to quoting him – what a certain James Brendon Bolger once said in the early '90s about playing the race card:

"Good news on Friday, bad news on Monday."

In other words, it might get you some short-term media…

nzlemming

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 14:04:09 +1200

where did you think some of our new commenters came from?

Eek. Those almost make kiwibog look like a voice of reason.

Sacha

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 10:41:36 +1200

where did you think some of our new commenters came from?

jh

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 09:20:50 +1200

Sorry but hard to see this as anything other than ham-fisted politics. Phil has turned a legitimate economic issue related to the impact of foreign speculators on Auckland housing affordability to a singling out of Chinese investors based on ropy stats. So the political opposition gets to frame labour as…

Russell Brown

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:59:52 +1200

NBR has republished Keith's post (with permission), and with comments on.

Russell Brown

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:43:58 +1200

data journalist? what’s that? Media bias?

Data journalism is a recognised and vital sector – and, yes, Keith does data journalism.

jh

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:19:43 +1200

Twyford's 'racist', 'cynical' Chinese property buyer statistics de-bunked

However, data journalist Keith Ng, writing on the Public Address blog, responded to the claims and tore down the statistics point-by-point, exposing clear holes in the methodology used to determine them.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/twyford-s-racist-cynical-chinese-property-buyer-statistics-de-bunked-q00964

data journalist? what's that? Media bias?

TracyMac

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:11:05 +1200

Regarding the govt not collecting the relevant stats, is that the fault of the bleeding heart lefties – or whatever Mr Semmens kindly classified me as by implication, can’t be bothered rereading the ad hom – or by our awesome capitalist overlords at present who would probably not want too…

tussock

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:09:24 +1200

Clearly not intended as one, eh Sacha.

You know who drives up the price of houses in Auckland though? The government does, stupid, Labour and National both. Low interest rates, low monetary inflation, high capital inflation, massive and basically unlimited rent subsidies, free money to do up rental places, free…

Sacha

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 19:52:01 +1200

I'm sorry if the author of this article feels offended.

Not an apology.

Q Williams

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:12:19 +1200

Hmmm interesting, what this article does not do, is prove that foreign investors, including a lot of asian investors, are NOT pushing up house prices.
Occam's razor says that the simplest answer is often the correct one, ie that a large portion of house sales, far greater than the proportion…

JonathanM

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:11:39 +1200

Yeah – agreed, we need to collect data on who is buying/selling in order to better get a handle on it. Fortunately the Govt is finally doing that come October. Ideally the 'public' info on sales would also be available to the public, rather than available to the public but…

Joe Wylie

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 18:03:03 +1200

Anyone else noticed the troll squad out & about promoting live sheep exports to Mexico? Someone who'd been let loose on Facebook after apparently passing Creative Trolling 101 took the interesting line that opposition was motivated not by economic or animal welfare concerns, but by racist sentiments towards Mexicans.

While I…

Russell Brown

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 17:55:45 +1200

Keith Ng stop your moaning we’re trying to solve a problem not stitch up the local Chinese.

On what I had expected to be a quiet weekend, we're doing a pretty good job of arguing about a very sensitive topic without it turning into a shitfight.

This is particularly welcome…

BenWilson

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:12:13 +1200

Yes, making other industry more productive than snapping up capital would make more capital switch to other industry here. But there are a million ways to skin that cat. You're suggesting making foreign investment build new property? That's one way to get more property built, although it doesn't change the…

JonathanM

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 15:29:19 +1200

Sure, but pretty much the only way to move investment from housing to productive businesses is to make the latter comparatively more profitable. Use the current imbalance to increase supply thus decreasing profitability in housing.

Sacha

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 14:36:18 +1200

It's a problem for the same reason as it is when locals do it – diverts funding from productive businesses.

JonathanM

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 13:44:41 +1200

Hmm, why is adding residential investment a problem? Surely if we encouraged/forced all property investors to only invest in new housing supply it would help solve the housing problem? (Reduce demand for existing stock, increase supply and quality as houses are new).

simon g

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:37:14 +1200

But of course it is exactly that.

Labour have proposed a range of policies, some of which the gov't has half-heartedly taken up, and others (CGT) that the voters have supposedly not wanted (I would question that, but it seems to be Labour's revised position, post-election).

They were addressing the…

blue_pen

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:20:54 +1200

Oh yes you knocked it on the head. It's all about Labour's polling. Jesus wept.

simon g

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:18:09 +1200

Keith Ng stop your moaning we’re trying to solve a problem not stitch up the local Chinese.

The problem being ... Labour's polling?

blue_pen

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:11:39 +1200

Keith Ng stop your moaning we're trying to solve a problem not stitch up the local Chinese.

Jim Cathcart

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 23:19:34 +1200

Hot money is a dangerous thing for a small, open, export-reliant economy. And a tax regime that favours non-productive activities like property speculation is crazy. These are real political issues that I feel strongly about.

Actually, if we compare this with a washed up property market such as Tokyo, it's…

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 22:16:20 +1200

doctor martens boots

jh

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 22:12:36 +1200

It's all settled then racist, racist, racist?
Why is Labour bombing? Look no further.

David Hood

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 21:48:54 +1200

Nobody got to upset when the Australians began buying up in NZ in the early 2000s after Australian tax authorities allowed negative gearing on overseas investment properties. But then, the 1 month after Australian tax changes to 2007 foreign buying was by people with European New Zealander sounding surnames.

James Green

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:35:57 +1200

CODA – Someone usefully pointed out that I haven't accounted for couples in my analysis, so you could probably reduce those estimates, but I also haven't accounted for investor activity, which will push them back out a bit again.

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:33:38 +1200

I'd prefer to see Labour attacking this government for adding residential development to the acceptable investments for migrants buying their way into NZ.

Eddie Clark

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:25:56 +1200

Just curious if any of the "it's not racist ok" crowd are of Asian descent or have Asian loved ones. Because my Canadian-born Chinese partner is about to move here, and I'd be embarrassed as hell to show him this thread. Easy to be pious and clueless when it's not…

James Green

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:25:48 +1200

I realise I forgot to spell the final point out. If your surname doesn't sound Chinese, then it would appear that there is 1 sale per home owner every 30 years*. Which is really freaking low.

* There's quite a bit of kludge in this, but doesn't seem worse than…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:20:04 +1200

No, because this issue is not about a race of people – this issue is about country of origin (the origin of QE/ZIRP money, that is) – hence the analogy.

James Green

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:13:56 +1200

Don't ask me why I'm wading into this.

Firstly on the ethnicity measure. Yes it's not very robust, and there will be plenty of false positives, and more than a few false negatives. But it's not totally terrible. I've seen it in one published paper (on medical school admissions, where…

Eddie Clark

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:13:32 +1200

Did... did you just compare Anti-American sentiment during the GWB years to racism? Good lord.

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:52:37 +1200

Our politics might be better if Auckland-sourced MPs entering the Thorndon Bubble did not forget what they had experienced before that. I can understand their colleagues from less diverse parts of the nation struggling a bit with racism, even nowadays.

Soon Lee

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:49:12 +1200

George Bush Jr. is not a member of the opposition party in the New Zealand.

This? This I take personally because, hey, have you seen my name?

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:39:53 +1200

So I’m just collateral damage?

Every time George Bush Jr. opened his mouth I was collateral damage.

Kumara Republic

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:38:42 +1200

Or to be entirely cynical, you know exactly how a paper with a long history of race-baiting and playing fast and loose with facts around property prices will frame it…

And not just the Granny. Pat Booth's 'Asian invasion' articles in the community papers come to mind. At the time,…

Soon Lee

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:36:51 +1200

"If this initiative pressures the Nats into finally setting up a buyers' register – success. It doesn't matter what it reveals, just as long as we finally have hard data to base some effective policy on."

So I'm just collateral damage?

I got a good look at the inside of…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:31:24 +1200

But it’s simply not strong enough to to go public with like this, especially when you can’t control the way the Herald’s going to frame it.

Or to be entirely cynical, you know exactly how a paper with a long history of race-baiting and playing fast and loose with facts…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:30:27 +1200

But this just isn’t good enough data to go out and say so with, especially when you’ve dragged residents into it.

Point is however that residents – of all ethnicity’s – are negatively affected in equal measure by offshore investors from economies running QE/ZIRP monetary policy.

There is a young…

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:06:36 +1200

what's a bit of diabetes between friends?

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:03:21 +1200

QED

Ends justify means, for some.

Russell Brown

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:02:38 +1200

simon g

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:56:33 +1200

Sugar hits work, as long as there's more sugar to come. For the next two years. With predictable – and bad – side effects.

Tom Semmens

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:54:23 +1200

This story led 3News, and plenty of NZer's would have nodded their heads in agreement with Twyford. QED.

izogi

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:32:56 +1200

If this initiative pressures the Nats into finally setting up a buyers’ register – success. It doesn’t matter what it reveals, just as long as we finally have hard data to base some effective policy on.

I think this whole episode is a clear example of why it's not in…

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 17:45:57 +1200

John Palethorpe blogs:

If David Seymour could establish the necessary political nuance to successfully discuss the issue without being called racist, xenophobic or downright fucking stupid, why couldn’t Labour?
...
Some have defended Labour, saying that the accusations of xenophobia and racism are opportunistic. But if they want to not…

llew40

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 17:22:29 +1200

David Tong

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:44:31 +1200

So, wait – if I don't take statistics that claim that I must be Chinese seriously, some people here think I'm a raging Public Address lefty?

Yeah, I'm not getting that.

Seriatim

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:39:08 +1200

I repeat – what options were there? What would you have done?
If this initiative pressures the Nats into finally setting up a buyers' register – success. It doesn't matter what it reveals, just as long as we finally have hard data to base some effective policy on.

simon g

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:38:47 +1200

It's not an either/or, is it?

To quote Keith's post:

As do I. As do…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:23:56 +1200

You say Twyford "chose to make the headlines of this story about race", which implies you think he had several options to choose from. So – what were they? What choice would you have made?

Gee, how about stop pretending to be surprised when you "leak" information to the __The…

Alfie

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:18:56 +1200

I'll say it again... this is not a race issue.

If Russians were buying almost 40% of Auckland's property, Labour would surely have called it that way. The fact is that Labour has worked with the only stats available, thanks to the Nats continuing refusal to compile meaningful purchase info.…

Scott A

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:33:00 +1200

By making the headlines about buyers with Chinese surnames, instead of the broader issue of non-residents buying property, Labour now his the risible Nick Smith leading the news bulletin, accusing them of playing the race card.

It was Labour who chose this lede. Not Smith. Not the media. Labour.

Andre

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:29:35 +1200

Multiple government organisations already hold all of the information needed to deduce foreign ownership,
Does it matter who owns our land? Of course it does. It seems like colonisation by purchase.

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:21:19 +1200

I’m more perturbed by all those who choose to see this as a ‘race’ issue, when other more mature options are definitely available.

Exactly. It's a QE/ZIRP issue. And we're a country where such QE/ZIRP policy action is not a sovereign option.

The RBNZ is concerned, rightfully so. And with…

Seriatim

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:16:14 +1200

You say Twyford "chose to make the headlines of this story about race", which implies you think he had several options to choose from. So – what were they? What choice would you have made?
I'm more perturbed by all those who choose to see this as a 'race' issue,…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:06:48 +1200

Perhaps new migrants might also buy health and education tokens (10% of sum introduced – say) with the capital they bring to catch up with the huge investment prior New Zealanders have made in this country – to offset the risk that the notional ‘presence’ of their capital doesn’t find…

Scott A

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:58:52 +1200

If the debate about "is this or is this not racist" is distracting from the important issue of non-residents buying Auckland housing, then that's because Phil Twyford and Labour chose to make the headlines of this story about race. When it didn't need to be, at all.

mpledger

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:56:00 +1200

"Third, it makes no sense to assume that only those earning $50,000 a year can afford to buy a house, because only 26% of people in Auckland earn more than $50k, but 61.5% of homes are owner-occupied (both from Census 2013)."

~~~~
You need roughly 3x your yearly income to…

David MacGregor

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:47:12 +1200

The problem with this entire distraction is that it doesn't resolve the issue of planning for decent, affordable, well planned communities where people live together happily and enjoy the relative paradise we could have.

It doesn't matter much to me who owns property; though it does matter to me that…

Lilith __

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:45:19 +1200

Can't believe Labour would do this. Were they not unpopular enough already?

Property speculation plays a part in driving up prices, and it's reasonable to suppose that non-resident speculators are part of that.

Nothing in that equation has anything to do with what your fucking surname is.

nzlemming

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:35:44 +1200

Baring in mind

Naked statistics?

Rae Sott

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:31:02 +1200

There is no equality in todays housing market

Rae Sott

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:29:18 +1200

Absolutely and the National govt in 2011 changing the investor category for prospective immigrants to include residential property was, to my mind, borderline criminal. I hate the whole idea of buying one's way in, fullstop. Give me, any day, the immigrant couple with the little cafe with the piano out…

Rae Sott

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:17:39 +1200

Well then if they want to live here they can sort that out FIRST not the other way around

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:02:24 +1200

Ths one could be similarly dismal if Labour has decided to try and out-do Winston First (though they lack anywhere near the right level of mongrel to pull that off).

Alex Coleman

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:39:37 +1200

And let us not forget the shameful reaction of the Labour Government when Maori asked for the return of rights to the foreshore and beaches

Indeed not. And while we are at it, let us remember that National claimed that shameful reaction was tantamount to giving in to Maori. That…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:36:51 +1200

I would have thought a more natural fit would be target the multi nationals avoiding paying hundreds of millions each year into tax base. But no.

You'd think so, Lew, but don't forget that's far too complicated for the feeble-minded sheeple to understand when a pollster calls.

Russell Brown

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:30:02 +1200

Turns out that the quantative analysis behind the story was done by another sometime PA blogger, Rob Salmond.

He responds to the methodological criticism here.

Bill Eaton

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:27:52 +1200

"hot money is a dangerous thing for a small, open, export-reliant economy"

Quite. The price-insensitivity on display in the Auckland property market is not certain to be a sign of money-laundering and foreign loot-storage but ignorance is not bliss and makes space for all kinds of wild surmise. Ignorance is,…

Andre

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:16:56 +1200

I don’t want our country to be owned by non-resident foreign landlords, having experienced the reality of this situation as a tenant on a few occasions. I want a better deal than that for my kids.
As sprogs we were brought up thinking that house ownership was as necessary as…

Tom Semmens

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:13:40 +1200

What a shame, then, that Twyford doesn’t give you any information about either.

That is because, as you damn well know, the government refuses to collect it.

The wide eyed political naivety of the PA left – to the point of your self-serving deceit – never fails to let me…

Alfie

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:11:35 +1200

What a shame, then, that Twyford doesn't give you any information about either.

Information he'd gather from where, exactly?

Steve Barnes

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:06:54 +1200

Two things...
1. There has been anecdotal "evidence" of foreigners buying up Auckland properties, many point their fingers at people from China. This "data" has been bandied about and people are asking "why isn't the Government doing something about it"
This is the racist part, that many New Zealanders are…

TracyMac

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:04:45 +1200

It doesn't matter a damn whether it's cashed-up Chinese buyers or Russian oligarchs.

What a shame, then, that Twyford doesn't give you any information about either.

Ian Dalziel

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:00:34 +1200

Adamant, redux... flush, even...
Twyford must be aiming for a position high up in Winston Peters' NZ First caucus...
I'd always heard of Twyfords' rich history in China
– but mostly of the vitreous sort, rather than vitriolic...

source: http://twyfordshistory.blogspot.co.nz/p/recipes.html

Sacha

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:59:46 +1200

I guess this answers the question of whether Labour is shifting left or right. How proud they must be at their smarts.

Alfie

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:55:26 +1200

So I wouldn’t get hung up on this “racist dogwhistle”. I think the only people getting outraged about it are some of the PA crew, who seem to love getting offended about stuff like this.
I agree wholeheartedly Tom. I almost walked away from this post in the expectation that…

Steve Curtis

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:51:26 +1200

Cant we clear this up by taking a reasonable sample of the names, looking up the property register and then finding out if the resident or non resident category is 5% or up to 50%.

After all the type of analysis that Tywford has done is not that far off…

llew40

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:50:58 +1200

Labour have pushed this line before, at the time I couldn't understand why they were so keen to appropriate NZ First policies.... They must have some research that is telling them it's a vote winner. Instead of dog-whistling 'foreign investors' I would have thought a more natural fit would be…

Peter Green

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:26:28 +1200

If Chinese people are disproportionately engaged in speculation, are they disproportionately selling as well as buying (that’s how speculation works, right?)?

According to the report in The Herald, yes they are.

Sudhvir Singh

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:23:42 +1200

Good on you Keith for a prompt dressing down of this. Jessica Williams brought up your analysis on the Nation this morning http://www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/thenation/panel-sudhvir-singh-jessica-williams--matthew-hooton-2015071110#axzz3fXCTJsRF

jh

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:04:52 +1200

Government is supposed to be in the best interests of New Zealanders:

Savings Working Group
January 2011
“The big adverse gap in productivity between New Zealand and other countries opened up from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The policy choice that increased immigration – given the number of employers increasingly…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:59:56 +1200

and it is unfortunate that some will leap at the 'race card' cliches instead of addressing it.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that we have a serious and complex public policy issue and the Labour Party response has been to shop bullshit junk stats to media outlets with a long and shabby…

Tom Semmens

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:38:05 +1200

And, no, I don’t know any Southeast Asians who would think Ng is a Vietnamese name.

South East Asians largely live in South East Asia. In this neck of the forest most people are not experts in the geographical origins of Chinese surnames. Therefore, if you ask any Kiwi it…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:35:25 +1200

__Barfoot and Thompson Managing Director Peter Thompson was quoted as disagreeing with Labour's analysis, but acknowledged there were many buyers from China.

"We know there's been a large portion of Asians buying property but there's no way to tell if they're one of three categories: NZ born, foreign-born NZ citizens…

TracyMac

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:24:44 +1200

Uh, making “important points” by spouting a bunch of unsupported bollocks doesn’t strike me as the best way to bolster an argument.

If you had real numbers of non-resident property owners, you might have something to discuss. Personally, I’d be much more interested in the number of people who own…

Seriatim

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:20:15 +1200

"...But when his headline is screaming “the Chinese are buying all our houses..."
On the contrary, what the headline is screaming to me is "Foreign non-resident buyers are a major cause of our housing issues, and both a foreign buyers register and legislation to address this is urgently needed."
People…

TracyMac

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:16:34 +1200

Yeah, I'm in Auckland today, and was going to pick up a paper. Well, I did, and promptly dropped it again.

For all the people bleating about lefties spending too much time on "identity politics" and "PC", THIS is partly what it's about. It's not just about sexual minorities wanting…

Tze Ming Mok

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 11:05:08 +1200

Yeah no. I'm pretty confident that the 'Chinese sounding names' are actual Chinese names; their technique may be the most credible bit of their methodology. The names on the top most part of the list are clearly Mainland Chinese surnames using PRC-standardised spellings, while lower down you have the non-PRC…

Tim Darlington

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:55:58 +1200

They have one piece of real data: “39.5% of last names in a list of house sales sound Chinese”

Even that piece of data is well dodgy. How do they define "sounds Chinese?" Raymond Ching used to get people asking him about his Chinese heritage all the time, not that…

Katharine Moody

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:54:31 +1200

Regardless of what/who is causing the price bubble – the alarming fact is in the rapidly increasing mortgage indebtedness of local New Zealanders;

http://www.interest.co.nz/charts/real-estate/mortgage-approvals

http://www.interest.co.nz/charts/credit/housing-credit

And this is occurring at a time when a large percentage of the population is likely to be (or at least should be) de-leveraging (buying…

Tze Ming Mok

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:50:31 +1200

What the actual fuck. Unbelievable, if not only for forgetting about that other stereotype about Chinese people being good at maths. FATAL ERROR.

On the upside, this is a great excuse for telling the Labour Party to stop spamming me with petition emails.

Jonathan King

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:48:18 +1200

Where do NZ publisher David Ling, politician John A. Lee or, say, English science writer Marcus Chown fit on Labour’s list? None of whom are, as far as I know, remotely Chinese but they, you know, “sound” it.

Mark Graham

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:08:37 +1200

Exactly. Our evidence is overwhelming number of Chinese buying here live here, and most of those from overseas buying here, WANT to live here. I like Phil a lot and he's taken National to take over crap housing policy but this is BS and an own goal.

Raymond A Francis

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:08:17 +1200

We like to think the Left are all about equality but when push comes to shove don't they run
And let us not forget the shameful reaction of the Labour Government when Maori asked for the return of rights to the foreshore and beaches

Scott A

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:47:38 +1200

Superb rebuttal of Twyford's racist dog whistle, Keith. Thank you.

Paul Brislen

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:44:09 +1200

So this is the Labour Party of today.

I want no part of it.

Public Address

Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:44:09 +1200

Discussion from blog post.