David

PARKER

Export Growth and Trade Spokesperson

10 November 2015

Groser bungle means Koreans can ban NZ buyers but we can’t ban theirs

Trade Minister Groser has been forced to admit in Parliament that South Korea can ban New Zealanders buying Korean homes after refusing to acknowledge this previously, Labour’s Export Growth and Trade spokesperson David Parker says

“National has blundered badly in its Korean free trade agreement.

“It is incredible that Koreans can ban New Zealanders buying their houses, but we can’t do the same here.

“This is incompetence of the highest order. Tim Groser and National have been negligent in negotiating this free trade agreement.

“This has a flow-on effect to China and the TPPA.

“Not that the acting minister Todd McClay understands that. He denied that the China FTA protected our right to ban foreign buyers of New Zealand homes, and for China to ban NZ buyers – as it has since done in some of its cities.

“Ministers Groser and McLay ought to understand this. They probably do, but deny it because they know 80 per cent of New Zealanders think they are wrong.

“Plenty of other countries ban foreign buyers from purchasing existing houses in their land, including Australia and Switzerland.

“Surely Tim Groser can’t have intended this to happen. The right thing to do would be to admit he is wrong and fix this issue.

“But that’s not going to happen – Tim Groser has sold us down the river,” says David Parker.

ends

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