Chinese does not mean foreign

The Herald reports:

Labour MP Phil Twyford says he will not be intimidated by an alleged smear campaign that is apparently backed by foreign property speculators.

Labour’s housing spokesman will reportedly be targeted by controversial political consultant Simon Lusk at the 2017 election because of his strong stance on offshore buyers.

TV3’s Duncan Garner said last night he was told Mr Lusk was being funded by “Chinese money” to carry out a “direct mailout” that would focus on the Te Atatu MP.

Asked to respond this morning, Mr Twyford said: “I think it’s interesting that foreign property speculators are so concerned to defend the tax-free mega-profits they’re making in the Auckland housing market that they’re willing to hire the National Party’s dirty tricks machine to do their work for them.”

Phil Twyford makes the same mistake as he made in his research in which he claimed up to 40% of Auckland house purchases are made by foreigners because they have Chinese sounding surnames.

I don’t know anything about this rumoured campaign, but Chinese money is much much more likely to refer to local Chinese who felt greatly offended by Twyford claiming that most purchasers with Chinese surnames must be foreigners.

You see the interesting thing is that Twyford is the MP for Te Atatu.  And Te Atatu’s electorate profile shows 24% of residents are Asian. So I guess he has pissed off a huge number of his own constituents, and they’re the ones who want a new MP – one who doesn’t insult them.

So Twyford has just gone and made it worse for himself by referring to his own constituents as foreign property speculators.