Keeping apartment is not rort: Goff

Labour leader promised to sell when allowance scandal broke. Photo / Natalie Slade

Labour leader Phil Goff is still collecting rent from his Wellington apartment while pocketing a taxpayer allowance to live in another place, even though he promised last year to sell the apartment.

Mr Goff has owned the property for years and has been letting it since he was a minister in the previous government, when he was living in a ministerial house. Last year he promised to sell the apartment while strongly criticising Deputy Prime Minister Bill English for his perceived double-dipping.

Although his arrangement was within the parliamentary rules, Mr English was receiving almost $1000 a week in accommodation allowances while living in his own home in Wellington, because he had declared his primary residence in Dipton, in his electorate of Clutha-Southland.

After an outcry he repaid $32,000, and he no longer claims any accommodation allowance.

Other ministers also came under fire for moving out of their Wellington apartments, then renting them out to other MPs while claiming accommodation allowances.

"The flat is currently tenanted and I plan to sell it," he said last year.

In the year to September 2010, Mr Goff claimed $20,214 in accommodation allowances.

Yesterday Mr Goff said he still intended to sell it while defending his arrangement.

"My accommodation arrangements are within Parliamentary rules. There is no rort here," he said.

"The most recent tenant departed three weeks ago after a tenancy of three years. That tenancy commenced when I was a minister.

"When I ceased to be a minister following the 2008 election, I could not move back into my property because it was tenanted. I instead moved into a rental property."

The apartment is being advertised at $380 a week, and a staffer in Mr Goff's office, Paul Grant, has been showing the place to interested parties.

"Why am I renting it out? Because it's an investment property. It's my superannuation," Mr Goff told 3 News.

Mr Goff is one of several long-serving MPs who qualify for the gold-plated super scheme that is available to MPs who have been in Parliament since before 1992.

Mr Goff said two parties were interested in buying the apartment, which Mr Grant was showing potential renters who were looking at a six-month tenancy.

Cabinet Minister Gerry Brownlee said it was not a good look for someone who had taken a hard-line on Mr English last year.

Mr Goff suggested he was the subject of a politically-motivated sting.

"Four people have viewed the property in the past fortnight with a view to renting. One of those people was a friend of Jason Ede, a senior National staffer working in the Prime Minister's office. He declined the property this morning. I was contacted by TV3 this afternoon.

"Last year I undertook to sell the property. I will do so."