Labour says it would consider restricting foreign ownership of residential properties to help ease pressure on the housing market.
Labour's finance spokesman David Parker has previously said the party would restrict foreign ownership of rural land, but as recently as May he said restricting foreign ownership of residential property was not Labour policy.
However, Mr Parker appeared to soften his position on TV3's The Nation this morning, saying Labour "would consider" foreign ownership of residential land.
He would not go into details about what the party was looking at.
"But we're worried about these issues. We think that the suite of solutions that we have - that deal with both demand pressures and increased supply, both important parts of the equation - would make a fundamental difference."
Perhaps there's another explanation though; maybe Labour is spooked by all the speculation that Winston Peters is about to dance off into a third term sunset with John Key (and it is only speculation from 3News at this stage). Maybe this policy is the first of a whole "suite of solutions" designed to lure NZ First to join the LabourGreenNZFirstMana Party and contest next year's General Election on a single ticket.
With Labour's current leadership vacuum, anything is possible. It could even be that David Parker hasn't completely lost the leadership aspirations he had in 2011, and is looking to become the compromise leader of a compromised four-headed monster.
Labour's flip-flopping though does remind us of a famous quote from Groucho Marx:
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
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