Episode Details

Quite frankly, it's all getting a bit much. We're all tightening our belts, we're making decisions about where we're spending our money, what we're spending it on. The rates keep rising, insurance levies keep going up, the cost of everything is through the roof. And for many, many people, there's not a lot of disposable left at the end of the day. Even people who are earning pretty good salaries are suddenly finding there's not as much left at the end of the pay cycle as there used to be.  

Meanwhile, our House of Representatives are seeing the members gouging the taxpayer for every last cent they can get out of us. Louise Upston is claiming the full $1,000 a week ministerial housing allowance, which she's perfectly entitled to. It's designed to support MPs based outside Wellington with the cost of maintaining two homes. And you understand that. When you become a Member of Parliament, your business is in Wellington, but you might be representing the people of Timaru. You have a home there, a family there. So where are you going to live while you're in Wellington? Your employer should pay your expenses given you're required to be there. So the employer does. It offers an allowance to MPs who are not from Wellington to live there. That is us, the taxpayer. So, fair enough.  

But Louise Upston owns an apartment in Wellington and according to the register of financial interests, which all MPs have to fill out, there's no mortgage on it. Again, good for her. She's paid off the mortgage on that apartment and presumably her home. But what costs does she then have to claim? There are none. She owns the apartment outright. So she's claiming a cost she's legally entitled to, but should she be? She said at the time, it's an entitlement, I'm well within the rules, I can do it. Louise Upston's case unfortunately came just a week after she reduced the eligibility of homeowners to claim the accommodation supplement payment. She said we want to target support for the accommodation supplement to those who need it most. They are renters, they're not people who are using taxpayer support to increase their own asset. Hello! Are we looking in the mirror?  

She's not the only one, of course. Labour's Kieran McAnulty, Jan Tinetti, they have properties in Wellington, although they may still have a mortgage. New Zealand First's Andy Foster's doing it. He was the mayor of bloody Wellington and now he's claiming an accommodation allowance for a home in Wellington. Then we find the MPs in the parties, the different political parties, and again, all of them are doing it. Yeah, we wonder why they don't work together more often. Oh, they do, when it comes to their perks and allowances. We find the MPs in parties that own commercial property, which they rent to Parliamentary Service to operate as their own electorate offices. So they own the building, they say to Parliamentary Service, have we got a deal for you? We'll rent this and you pay for it because it's our electorate office. They defend this by saying the offices are rented at below market rates, and again, everybody does it.  

And then there's the superannuation. Chris Hipkins has defended using a generous taxpayer funded private super scheme to buy his family's holiday home by saying it's my money, I can do what I like with it. And it is, he can. But Heather du Plessis-Allan this morning interviewed Chris Hipkins, and I think outlined in an excellent manner just how it looks. 

HDPA: None of us are getting $60 to $70,000 popped into our superannuation funds every year by our employer, in your case the taxpayer, which we're then able to withdraw and buy a beach house with. This is the ruling class who has a different set of standards from everybody else. It's not right, is it? 

HIPKINS: The superannuation provisions that Members of Parliament get are gene