“Labour should stop vilifying residential property investors and start listening to them,” says ACT’s Housing Spokesperson Brooke van Velden.

“Labour promised to be a government for all New Zealanders, but today’s comments in Parliament take us down a divisive path.

“It’s no wonder the Government is pushing ahead with such damaging housing policies when the Revenue Minister appears to believe that every landlord owns 70 homes.

“Asked in Parliament today whether he was concerned that landlords would sell up and boot tenants out of properties, David Parker said they’d be fine, pointing to one example of a landlord owning dozens of properties.

“Almost no one is in that situation – Parker must know this. 78 percent of Mum and Dad investors own just one rental property each.

“Dismissing the concerns of 120,000 New Zealanders by pointing to an outlying example is appallingly disingenuous.

“However, Parker did promise that submitters wouldn’t be railroaded and that the public is able to persuade him to change the details of his proposals through the consultation process. The Government must honour that commitment because the process thus far has been extremely shoddy.

“The Government ignored the experts at Treasury and IRD who advised it against proceeding with the changes.

“Parker then said on Tuesday the Government had no idea how many taxpayers the policy would affect or how much revenue it would raise.

“He was also unable to answer basic questions about how the policy would work in practice.

“Even if the Government does withdraw its divisive proposals, the damage is already taking effect, with landlords intending to hike rents, and tenants being booted out of rentals.

“New Zealanders are now starting to demand a much higher standard of law-making.

“Almost 13,000 people have now signed ACT’s petition to reverse interest deductibility changes and repeal the bright-line test completely.

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