National Party MPs dominate the Parliament's property ownership list, according to the 2018 register of pecuniary interests which was made public on Tuesday.
By law, MPs are required to make an annual return of all their pecuniary and other specified personal interests.
These include properties, company directorships and controlling interests, gifts and superannuation schemes they're members of.
Adams, MP for Selwyn and National's finance spokesperson, owns three residential properties in Cromwell, West Melton and Wellington. She has another two in Templeton and Temuka and owns two areas of bare land in Darfield and Te Kauwhata, as well as a farm property in Aylesbury. Her eight disclosed real property interests are unchanged from last year.
Otaki MP Nathan Guy is second on the list, with seven real property interests, but interests in 15 other commercial properties, up two from last year.
Four of his properties are farmland, dwellings and buildings north of Levin, where he also owns a family home.
Although the only real property he owns, or jointly owns is a family home in Whangaehu, Labour MP for Tai Hauauru Adrian Rurawhe has interests in 26 Maori land blocks in the Aotea District and 11 blocks in the Takitimu District.
Other MPs with multiple properties include Nationals’ Parmjeet Parmar (seven), Gerry Brownlee (six), Nicky Wagner (six) and Anne Tolley, who owns and jointly owns four properties plus six shops in Napier.
National’s Ian McKelvie has declared ownership of four real properties but an NZ Herald report in 2013 said he had properties spread across 53 legal titles owned by “various entities,” totalling $68.4 million based on 2013 capital valuations.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern owns one property, and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters owns two houses and land in Northland.
Of the 120 MPs in Parliament, just five don’t own property – Barroch Ball (NZ First), Marama Davidson (Greens), Kieran McAnulty (Labour), David Seymour (ACT), and Chloe Swarbrick (Greens).
Gifts and company interests
As to be expected, Ardern received the most gifts last year, many of which were from overseas dignitaries.
The register also shows she was given tickets to see pop star Adele last year by Regional Facilities Auckland.
And it’s not just the Prime Minister who is a fan of the Grammy Award-winning artist.
Five other MPs, including Jonathan Coleman, Steven Joyce, Nikki Kaye (who got two tickets) Louisa Wall and Judith Collins all declared the tickets as gifts.
Collins was busy too, declaring 10 separate sets of tickets to events ranging from All Blacks games to boxing matches.
National Leader Simon Bridges declared no gifts.
MPs also have to declare all other forms of employment under law. Although very few have incomes from other jobs, Seymour declared income from Media Works for his work as a “celebrity dancer,” for his appearance on Dancing with the Stars.
In terms of gifts, National's Chris Finlayson declared; "An alcohol drinking flask in the form of what seems to be a sheep or a goat (quite difficult to identify the species) made of a form of dark or green-coloured material, possibly bronze or iron – [from a] visiting delegation from the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China."
Former Speaker of the House, National’s David Carter, declared interests in 11 companies or businesses, including Heartland Bank, Silver Fern Farms and Alliance Group.
Nathan Guy declared interests in six other companies, five of which involved in commercial property development and National’s Barbara Kuriger has interests in seven farming related businesses.
Read the full Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament here.
66 Comments
Ah true to form there's TM2, a property "investor" defending the property "investor" party, what a surprise, apparently there's a wee bit of discontent down your way with National - https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/103928695/former-earthquake-recovery-m…
You might want to find another horse to back, as if those angry comments are anything to go by, National aren't going to see the light of day in your home town for a while.
You conveniently forget that NATIONAL never promised to build houses for everyone n their election policy, Labour did promise to do so .
National knew it could not be done , so did not lie to the electorate .
Labour lied to the gullible and the stupid who voted for them
Labour have yet to consent a single house ................ and thats after half a year
Forgetting the properties held by various Labour MPs when the last Labour Govt also did nothing about housing, are we? Also, especially ironic given that Labour's flagship Kiwibuild policy now offers the same pricing the Axis programme did for affordable housing. There have been dozens of homes delivered under this initiative, but it's not really convenient to talk about that, is it?
What do you expect from someone who has to resort to being a real estate agent to make a living. They are generally uneducated people or people who failed in their chosen line of work or business venture. Come to think of it a lot of our politicians in New Zealand come into this category.
How can MPs be part of objective decision making on housing policy or policy affecting housing when they have such a vested interest?
I can't see why that isn't a conflict of interest.
Especially when you own 6or 7 properties, you are clearly acting as a pretty serious professional landlord
Good point - at what time do MP's with investment properties be considered to be getting close to violating the Financial Markets Conduct Act?
Liquidity aside, surely an immigration minister with control over housing demand who starts selling or buying investment properties prior to an immigration announcement, might make some people at the FMA look twice, perhaps?
And there you have it, rather than investing in something productive for the country you chase 'easy and safe' money in a market that your own boys (National) have manipulated for easy gain.
Investment is meant to contain an element of risk, you're not meant to have the government holding you hand and steering the market to ensure a guaranteed gain. The smartest decision you made was being born when you were, congratulations on that excellent decision! Heck, almost all of the Boomers in Auckland are paper millionaires thanks to their 'great foresight' to own a house to live in.
At least your generation are now on their way out so hopefully the young will get a fair crack at things at some point. The Millennial's are lucky to own even one house these days so your comment smacks of the arrogance of someone who had things comparatively handed to them on a silver spoon.
The nz system has been beaten by the global situation, china, USA, EU all spending money they dont have to increase property values "all over the world" not just NZ. I dont believe the National govt had any say in the matter. Anything they did to stop the increases would have been futile.
I agree with this, with the exception of the high immigration rate which the government could have influenced (with the risk of course of causing a recession - which might eventuate yet). Would take a bold leader to say, hey these expensive house prices, you know what, we can't do much at all to control price inflation....
I would absolutely respect the leader that would come out and say that - instead of the head in the sand, elephant in the room National party, or the good intentions of Labour (which many have already determined will struggle to make any impact).
Sometimes the best solution is a good old fashion crash and a recession.....
You look at what John Key did - has a house in Auckland. Pumps up immigration to max capacity during his time in office. Resigns, knows Labour might reverse immigration. Sells up home in Auckland. No way of proving intent, of course he'll say it was for economic reasons (or just making GDP look good) - lets hope there was no personal financial desire involved.
So he left and set the selling process before the elections even started advertising. That is a lot of lack of faith in his own party, or just getting out of the party before the cops arrive. Either way his actions do not bode well for the national future after National's past.
"I dont believe the National govt had any say in the matter."
Seriously, do people not remember?
During Nationals term, at one stage 40% of home buyers in Auckland were foreign buyers (non citizens, non permanent residents). National could have removed this demand in a pen stroke, but the choose not to.
If you look through the list of assets/interests most MPs of all shades seem to have a lot of property.
But one thing that caught my eye was the vast number of trusts they all seem to be beneficiaries of.
Begs two questions.
What properties are in the trusts?
Can you trust people who hide a lot of assets in trusts??
you can find it here
https://www.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/mps-financial-interest…
the most obvious conclusions you can draw is the older age group are more propertied up on all sides, a lot is listed under super schemes, and national MP's hold far far more investment property than any of the other parties.
but we all knew that or those of us that bothered looking and wanted to know
so we knew when they were in charge that is one of the reasons they dragged their feet to change the system. i mean why would one try to disadvantage oneself over others if you can
one of the biggest rorts is long term senior MP's owning rental properties in wellington and renting them to first term Mp's and getting parliament services to pay down the mortgage, then when you leave or retire selling up
Exactly right, successful is flying a Jet, building a productive business or constructing a development. Not gearing up on 7 rental properties with cheap debt, tax advantages and because you can influence policy and effectively front run your investment. Tall poppy M A!
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