Former National finance spokesperson Steven Joyce has accused today's policy announcement to ban foreign speculators from buying New Zealand homes as lacking detail and "not ready for prime time".
Following the second Cabinet meeting of the new Labour-led Government this afternoon, Jacinda Ardern said from early 2018 foreign speculators will no longer be able to buy existing houses in New Zealand.
The policy is aimed at stopping overseas speculators from pushing up house prices.
"There's absolutely no detail so it's a very interesting way to release a new policy," Mr Joyce said.
"You get a one page press release and then told that a lot of decisions are yet to be made, definitional decisions, how it would work, all those sorts of things which suggests to me it's very much not ready for prime time."
Asked if the National Government ever thought of implementing such a ban on foreign real estate speculators, Mr Joyce explained the problems his party saw with it.
"It just seems there's a number of problems with it," he said.
"Firstly is that it's very bureaucratic. I mean imagine if you, if I can say, have a foreign sounding name and you want to buy a house you would effectively have to go to the real estate agent and prove your citizenship before you would be able to buy a house under this proposal.
"Whereas how else do they check it? Or do they have to put in applications in for clearance?"
Joyce also said the new real estate ban, wasn't technically a ban at all because under the new government policy an overseas investor could still apply to buy a house under the "sensitive land" sales clause in the in Overseas Investment Act (OIA).
Foreign speculators could still apply to buy a home outside of this sensitive classification, Mr Joyce said.
"In effect, unless you go the second leg and ban sensitive land sales, which would have other ramifications, it's not actually a ban, it's just reclassifying they type of land into a different category under the OIA," he said.
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