Posts by Rob Salmond
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Sacha,
Please do go back and listen to his interview again. I understand you do not want to believe that’s what he said, but it is. Plenty had no trouble hearing him.
So let's see a quote...
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Emma Hart,
You used ethnicity as a proxy for nationality. People said your analysis was a sound way of determining ethnicity, but if ethnicity is not the problem, but nationality, why do that?
First, we never used ethnicity as a proxy for nationality. Never.
Second, the reason do to ethnicity-based analysis was because of the large disconnect between the ethnic makeup of Aucklanders and the ethnic makeup of Auckland house buyers. To us, that *disconnect* is further evidence - on top of all the other circumstantial stuff we've seen - off offshore speculation driving up Auckland house prices.
I simply cannot believe people actually thought that if they defined a problem in terms of race, it wouldn’t be discussed in terms of race. You were the ones who used “Chinese” to mean “foreign”. Of course that made NZ Chinese people feel othered and threatened. Could you not find a NZ Chinese person to run it by before you released it? Did that not occur to anyone?
No, Labour never used "Chinese" of mean "foreign." Yes, we did consult some people who are ethnically Chinese on this issue. They understood our position, and were supportive.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Sacha,
But that is not what Twyford said at all, is it? His words were very clear, hence the immediate anger they aroused.
If someone has a quote of Twyford pitting all Chinese house buyers, resident and offshore alike, against hard-working NZers, let's see it.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Kalka River,
So who to blame:
(1) the national govt for not doing anything about it right now
(2) the labour govt for the terms in the FTA that allowed this to happen
(3) the greedy NZ homeowners —many many of them white, holding out for a good price.I'll take door number 1, please!
Certainly I agree that the offshore speculators, while being the cause of the problem, aren;t to blame for it. They're simply taking advantage of a permissive set of rules. The keepers of those rules, which in NZ is currently a National-led government, are to blame for the rules that allow it all to happen.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
You know what you call “the liberal outrage machine”? I call them citizens and electors who are allowed to get as uppity as they damn well please. If they’re not able or willing to treat all this as some rhetorical game or stats-wanking thought experiment? Deal with it.
Yes, Craig, people are indeed "allowed to get as uppity as they damn well please." And I'm allowed to disagree with them, even colourfully, because I, too, am "allowed to get as uppity as I damn well please." So, what's your point?
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Jeff Weir,
So you’re not worried about speculation from *offshore* investors of *all* ethnicities? You’re only worried about the Chinese ones?
No, Labour is concerned about offshore speculators, no matter where they come from or their ethnicity. That's why our policy is to restrict foreign ownership of residential property for all offshore interested, no matter where they are from.
Our discussion last week focused on Chinese offshore buyers because (1) the *data* indicated this group was a major outlier; and (2) because of all the other evidence, accumulated over many months in NZ andf consistent with experience in UK, Australia, US, and Canada, that it is money from China that's a prime contributor to housing issues in all those places.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Ewan Morris,
My questions for Rob are: Isn’t property speculation the issue, rather than where someone comes from? Is property speculation OK if done by New Zealand residents? And most importantly: what actual policies does Labour have to address property speculation, particularly now that it has backed away from a capital gains tax?
Thabnks for the questions, Ewan. Here are some answers:
1. The location matters. Offshore property speculation causes a net loss to the NZ economy, for no productivity gain. (Real estate investment doesn't create jobs or improve business practices.) Onshore property speculation has the same lack of productivity gain, but the gains accrue within the NZ economy. So onshore speculation is better for the NZ economy than offshore speculation
2. Labour's policies are to restrict offshore speculation. With Labour, non-resident non-citizens will find no longer be able to buy existing residential houses. That takes some heat out of the market, allowing more NZ families of all backgrounds to own the roof over their head.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Sacha,
Labour cares about this because the Kiwi dream of home ownership is rapidly slipping away from young New Zealanders of all ethnicities.
And how hard would it have been to make that the message, rather than Twyford explicitly and repeatedly pitting ‘Chinese’ against ‘hard-working NZers’ as if the groups couldn’t possibly overlap.
I don't think Phil Twyford ever pitted *all* Chinese buyers against *non-Chinese* hard-working Kiwis. He only ever pitted *offshore* Chinese buyers against *all* hard-working Kiwis. Andrew Little's comment are also, phrase-for-phrase, very close to the formation I gave and you approved of here.
I think this is another side of the message-sent vs message-received issue that Russell raised and I addressed above.
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Recently, a lot of people were marking the 29th anniversary of the passage of the Homosexual Law Reform Act. Labour is, and should be, very proud of it’s part in that. But does that mean LGBT and allies are never allowed to be critical of Labour ever again? Nope, Rob, that’s not how a parliamentary democracy works.
1. Agree with your conclusion. Nobody gives fealty forever.
2. Wasn't what I said. Nobody demands fealty forever. -
Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Russell Brown,
@Russell: Certainly I acknowledge that some heard a different message than we were sending.
For Labour, the distinction was always about speculation from *offshore* Chinese investors vs hard-working Kiwis of *all* ethnicities. How much of the blame for that disconnect in message-sent vs message-received lies with Labour, and how much of it lies with the liberal outrage machine amplifying the message-ultimately-received, exemplified by Phil Quin, is a topic I don't have enough distance to judge.
I can't be any clearer in my repudiation of any blaming of NZers who happen to have Chinese ethnicity. That group is not at fault, at all.