Whether the Government will have to re-negotiate existing trade deals to bring in a ban on foreign home buyers has been left in the air, with new Trade Minister David Parker saying he's now received advice contradicting what the previous minister claimed.
Today he told 1 NEWS: "National misled New Zealanders into thinking we could have a stamp duty as opposed to a land sale ban" to control the purchase of New Zealand houses by overseas persons.
Labour has proposed banning the sale of existing homes to overseas buyers and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this week said she hoped to find a mechanism for a ban before the upcoming APEC summit in Vietnam.
During the election the idea was criticised by the National Party, which said at least one free-trade agreement - with South Korea - precluded a ban and would have to be renegotiated.
It was reported the policy would also have to exclude Chinese buyers, under a best-terms feature of the New Zealand-China FTA, until the Korean deal could be rejigged.
Ms Ardern in September accepted this and said those countries would be carved out of any policy until renegotiation.
But today, Mr Parker said new information he had received since Labour took office suggested otherwise.
"We are dealing with the advice we have received from officials since we took over, which is inconsistent with some of the statements that we had previously relied upon by National ministers," he told Radio NZ.
"Some of the information that we had before the election, relying upon questions in the house from National ministers, who for example said we could not ban foreign land sales to Korea but we could introduce a stamp duty, is wrong."
Asked whether that meant the Korea deal would not longer have to be renegotiated, Mr Parker refused to say.
"I'm not making that call today," he said.
A ban on overseas home buyers will also be a key issue for the government when it meets with other Trans-Pacific Partnership 11 states at APEC next month.
But Mr Parker shrugged off reports Japanese trade officials said if New Zealand asked for exceptions "the whole thing will fall apart".
"That doesn't mean to say we wont be able to change anything and it doesn't mean to say that also through other mechanisms, perhaps outside the TPP, we won't be able to fix other things."
APEC takes place on November 11 and 12.
No date for ratification of TPP11 has been set
Source: tvnz
Key words: national misled, Kiwis, thinking. stamp-duty, control, foreign buyers, David Parker
