COMMENT:
In light of the Government's recent housing announcement last week I canvassed our MPs' property interests but only managed to get through A-K of the alphabet.
With the rate of home ownership falling to just 65 per cent - the lowest rate since 1951 - arguably home ownership is over-represented in Parliament.
Mike Hosking weighed in, so too did Chris Bishop. "For the record, I fly Jetstar all the time," he said.
Without further ado, let's look at L-Z thanks to information gathered from the Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests register.
Health minister Andrew Little jointly owns a family home in Island Bay, Wellington. He has enlisted the help of a property manager in the past to feed his cat while he was away. Occasionally that same property manager house-sits his dog. I didn't pick Little to be a cat person.
Moving on.
Marja Lubeck owns a family home and rental property in Rodney, which is held in trust. Jo Luxton has two family homes - one in Ashburton, one in Akaroa. Nanaia Mahuta owns a family home in Ngāruawāhia and a rental property in Hamilton. Trevor Mallard owns a house in Wainuiōmata and jointly owns a rental property in Dunedin. Keiran McAnulty is one of the few Labour MPs who doesn't own property.
Stuart Nash jointly owns a family home in Napier, and an apartment block, which is owned by a superannuation scheme. Damien O'Connor owns a family home in Upper Moutere. Greg O'Connor has a share in property in Westport. David Parker has a home in Dunedin that's owned by trust, part let. He also has a holiday home held in trust in Karitāne, Otago.
Willow-Jean Prime jointly owns a family home in Pakaraka, Northland. Priyanca Radhakrishnan jointly owns a family home in Glen Eden, Auckland. We'll have to wait until the end of the month to find out what Angela Roberts owns, but she said she has never been a landlord or engaged the help of a property manager. Grant Robertson jointly owns a family home in Wellington.
Adrian Rurawhe jointly owns a family home in Whangaehu. He also has interests in 26 Māori land blocks in the Aotea District, one Māori land block in the Tai Tokerau District, two Māori land blocks in the Tākitimu District, 11 Māori land blocks in the Waipounamu District, and a Waipū general land block in Rātana Pā.
Deborah Russell owns two houses with her husband - one is a family home in Auckland and the other is a house Russell used as her parliamentary accommodation in Wellington. It was a rental for about seven years while the couple lived in Australia. She purchased her first home when she was 24 in 1990.
"I wasn't comfortable with being a landlord, so we had a policy of trying to be good landlords. So we were fine with our tenants having pets, or painting rooms, or in one case choosing replacement curtains. It wasn't (and still isn't) a flash house, but it's a perfectly comfortable and workable family home."
Jenny Salesa has a jointly owned family home in Auckland, an apartment she uses while working in Wellington, and another property in Auckland where family members live. Salesa is a landlord, but her family members pay well below the market rate, she said.
"My parents and I jointly bought a residential home together in Auckland in the early 1990s when I was in my mid 20s. The only way we could afford to purchase a house at the time was to pool the savings together of four adults and combine our overall earnings in order to secure a mortgage."
Carmel Sepuloni owns a family home in Titirangi. Aupito William Sio owns a house in Manurewa and a house in Māngere Bridge. Jamie Strange owns a family home in Hamilton and an apartment in Wellington.
Jan Tinetti owns a family home in Tauranga, which is jointly owned by Merton Tinetti Family Trust, and an apartment in central Wellington. She and her husband were landlords years ago, and their tenants were "very happily in their home for 11 years", she said.
Rino Tirikatene owns vacant land in Rātana Pā and has interests in various South Island Māori land blocks in North Canterbury, South Westland, and Southland. Phil Twyford jointly owns a family home in Te Atatū. Louisa Wall owns a family home by way of trust in Manurewa, a jointly owned whānau home in Taupō, and a jointly owned rental property in Tūrangi.
Angie Warren-Clark owns a family home and rental property in Papamoa, Tauranga. She also owns pine blocks in Northland via trust. Duncan Webb owns a family home in Christchurch by way of trust. He purchased his first home in the early 1990s and was a landlord until 1994.
Meka Whaitiri owns a family home in Hastings, a family home in Gisborne (owned in trust), and is a beneficiary to interests in blocks of Māori land in Tairāwhiti, Hastings, Himatanga. Arena Williams first purchased a house at the age of 27. Poto Williams has a family home in Christchurch, and a Wellington residence. Michael Wood owns a family home in Mt Roskill.
Megan Woods owned two homes in Christchurch when the register was released last year. One of those houses was her home at the time of the Christchurch earthquakes, which was damaged.
Repairs were carried out but when she went to sell the house to move into her new property, an engineering report found that, like many other Canterbury homeowners, a re-repair was needed and insurance matters sorted. A second round of repairs were completed last year and the house was sold.
Jan Logie owns a family home in Porirua. She purchased her house after becoming an MP and she is not and has never been a landlord.
Eugenie Sage jointly owns a family home in Christchurch, 8.4ha of rural land in Buller, and a vacant residential section in Christchurch. She has not and never been a landlord.
James Shaw jointly owns a house in Wellington. Chlöe Swarbrick does not own property. Astonishingly David Seymour, Like Swarbrick, does not own property.
Melissa Lee owns a family home in Auckland and a rental property by way of a superannuation scheme in Wellington. Todd McClay owns two family homes via a trust in Rotorua, a family holiday home owned by trust in Pukehina, and a jointly owned home in Belgium.
Ian McKelvie jointly owns a family home in Taupō, farm land that is owned by various entities in Manawatū, commercial property in Palmerston North, and an apartment owned by trust in Wellington.
Mark Mitchell owns a family home in Ōrewa, an apartment in Thorndon, and a commercial rental property in Pukekohe. Todd Muller owns a family home in Tauranga. Simon O'Connor has a rental property in Auckland that's owned by a retirement scheme and a Wellington apartment owned by trust.
Chris Penk has a family home owned by the Barkley Trust in Waitakere, and a rental property owned by that same trust in Tauranga. Maureen Pugh jointly owns a family home and a jointly owned farm in Turiwhate, and 1/52nd share of property in Australia.
Shane Reti owns a commercial building in Whangarei, a rental property in Kohimārama, a residential property in Whangarei, and a residential property in the far North. Scott Simpson owns a family home in Thames, a rental property in Remuera, a family home in the Coromandel, and land in Whangapoua. All assets are owned by trust.
Nick Smith owns a family home, an electoral office, and a rental property in Nelson. Stuart Smith owns a family home, an apartment, a timeshare week, and Queenstown Mews rental property in Blenheim. All assets are owned by the Tayler-Smith Family Trust.
Erica Stanford owns a family home in Ōkura. She also has a residential property and holiday home in Ōkura, and a residential property and holiday home in Whangamata, which are both owned by her parents' family trust.
Louise Upston jointly owns a family home in Cambridge, and an apartment in Wellington.
Tim van de Molen owns a horticultural property via Caritim Limited, and two residential properties via the van de Molen Family Trust in Tamahere.
Nicola Willis jointly owns a family home in Karori, Wellington. She also owns a house in Kelburn, a house in Riversdale, and a house in Wānaka, all of which are owned by Appledore Trust. Michael Woodhouse owns a family home in Dunedin, a holiday home in Cromwell, and an apartment in Wellington.
In summary, just five of the 81 MPs canvassed don't own property. It's speculation to assume our representatives are out of touch, but the housing crisis is certainly not as close to home as many New Zealanders.
[For the record, Labour's Ingrid Leary, Neru Leavasa, Steph Lewis, Anna Lorck, Tracey McLellan, Terisa Ngobi, Ibrahim Omer, Sarah Pallett, Gaurav Sharma, Tangi Utikere, Ayesha Verrall, Vanushi Walters, Helen White, National's Christopher Luxon, Joseph Mooney, Penny Simmonds, Simon Watts, Act's James McDowall, Nicole McKee, Toni Severin, Damien Smith, Brooke can Velden, the Green's Ricardo Menéndez March, and Teanau Tuiono; and the Māori party's Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi didn't respond to my request for comment.]
Demand for bonds may well stay strong, but there's a catch.