Labour housing spokesperson has sparked a twitter storm after he used highly questionable data based on Auckland house sales and the ethnicity of purchaser’s names based on how they looked.

And he used this to try and justify stating that Labour would ban all foreign purchases of property in New Zealand, despite also saying “we have a policy review underway”.

Mr Twyford, people listening to this will think to themselves, ‘There’s only one thing certain here, which is that Labour is prepared to play the race card.’

I’m speaking out on this issue because, like most New Zealanders, I believe that the Kiwi dream of homeownership is worth fighting for. Rampant property speculation in Auckland is driving house prices higher and higher and out of the reach of young, hard-working first-home buyers. Offshore speculators are a major part of this picture. That’s what this data suggests. I think it’s as plain as day, and I think that so many Aucklanders will wake up this morning, they’ll look at these numbers, and they’ll say, ‘I told you so.’ Okay, if it is such a big issue, what would Labour do about it?

We would ban foreign buyers from buying New Zealand houses, end of story. That’s what the Australians have done. Look, there’s a reason— So long-term residents can buy, and if you buy, what, a new build, you can buy? But otherwise no?

If you’re not a citizen or a resident, you’re sitting on the other side of the world, and you want to buy a house, come and live here. That’s the way to do it. Or, if you want— as the Australians allow, if you want to build a new house and add to the supply, we don’t see any problem with that. But, look, there’s a reason that so many countries around the world – Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, and a dozen others – have enacted laws and restrictions that put limits on the ability of foreign speculators to trade local housing. Juwai.com, the preeminent Chinese website that specialises in marketing international real estate to Chinese investors in China, they reported recently that the Chinese government’s plans to free up capital controls, so that their citizens can move money in and out of the country more easily— (Source: Scoop)

So Australians, Samoans, Tongans, English, any non New Zealander would be banned from buying property in New Zealand?

What other policies do you have that would make a difference? Because the thing is, Labour ditched capital gains tax, which arguably would have made a difference, because it wasn’t popular with voters, but you’re happy to give the old foreigners a kick, because that doesn’t lose you votes?

We’re going to crack down on speculators generally, and we have a policy review underway. There are a myriad of different tax and policy approaches that we can do to level the playing field away from the current incentives for property speculation in our economy. So we’re going to do that. We’re going ban foreign buyers.

They have a policy review under way but apparently Twyford is in a position to announce this policy now.

The criticism of the data and the ban has bee fairly vigorous from across the political spectrum.

Full transcript: Lisa Owen interviews Labour’s housing spokesman Phil Twyford

Video: Interview: Labour’s housing spokesman Phil Twyford

And it turns out that Rob Salmond did the data analysis based on surnames of property buyers, he defends his analysis at Public Address: House-buying patterns in Auckland