House buying ban won’t hit trade deal
New Trade Minister David Parker says the Korean free trade agreement will not need to be renegotiated in order to ban foreign buyers.
It has previously been the position of the new Government that the trade pact, signed with South Korea in 2015, would need to be renegotiated to ban foreign buyers of existing homes – as they have promised to do within their first 100 days of office.
But yesterday, Parker said this would not be necessary.
Acknowledging that this was a new position, Parker said new advice from officials since taking office had changed things.
‘‘We are dealing with the advice that we have received from officials since we took over, which is inconsistent with some of the statements that we had previously relied upon from National ministers before we left office,’’ he said.
‘‘Some of the information 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 from Korea, but that we could introduce a stamp duty – is wrong.’’
He repeated this statement on his way into caucus later yesterday morning.
‘‘National gave the impression – misled New Zealanders – into thinking that we could have a stamp duty as opposed to land sale ban to control the purchase by overseas persons of New Zealand houses.’’
Parker said he would detail when National had misled New Zealand in due course but has not yet provided this to media.
Asked point blank whether he was confident that the Korean FTA would not be re-negotiated Parker said this was correct and he would explain more later.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also said the previous assurances from the National government had been proven wrong.
‘‘We’ve had advice that [a stamp duty] would be in breach of our FTA with Korea despite some of the assurances that were given by the past minister of foreign affairs. It appears he was incorrect.’’
Ardern said could the ban could be done ‘‘much more simply if you use the right mechanism’’.
During the campaign, National leader Bill English said renegotiating the deal would be difficult.
‘‘New Zealand will lose credibility going back to the South Korean Government and saying ‘you know that agreement we spent five years negotiating,’ we now want to reopen it,’’ English said.
Ardern was confident her Government would be able to balance the interests of first home buyers and exporters by banning foreign buyers of new homes but not letting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) collapse, despite Asian media reports that Japanese officials think New Zealand’s modifications could tear the whole deal apart.
Some of Labour’s problems with the TPP had already been worked on.
‘‘When it comes to the ISDS (investorstate dispute settlement) clauses, some of those have narrowed since the original version of TPP, and now it is a matter of seeing whether we can narrow it further.’’
She wanted to build consensus around New Zealand’s negotiating position with NZ First and the Greens.
‘‘I would expect that there is a period where that final agreement will be brought back from discussion, but just what form that takes I’m getting advice on,’’ Ardern said. Parker was also confident. ‘‘I am told by officials that it is late in the negotiation and we won’t be able to change everything that we want to change. That isn’t to say we won’t change anything and it doesn’t mean to say that also through mechanisms, perhaps outside of the TPP that we might be able to change other things,’’ Parker said.
‘‘We’re pretty good at trade agreements; we landed the China Free Trade Agreement.’’