Greens looking for wins from Labour and National’s battle over number of landlord millionaires

Labour and National have viciously bickered over the number of mega-landlords in New Zealand, with Labour arguing there were more than 340 landlords who owned 200 properties each, while National pointed out the data did not support such a conclusion.

The truth is, no one really knows. Data on the number of properties owned by an individual landlord is poor.

The Greens would like to change that by broadening a bill that is already before Parliament. The former Government introduced legislation to regulate residential property managers that is now before select committee. The bill has an uncertain future, with National backing it at first reading, but not guaranteeing to support it further.

Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick wants to use the select committee’s report, or an amendment at Committee of the Whole House stage, to expand the regime to include not only property managers, but all landlords. She argued property managers directly manage only 40 per cent of rentals, meaning the regulatory regime would exclude 60 per cent of the rental market.

This would create a register of people who were landlords, and give better data about ownership, and enforce better standards of property management from landlords who managed their rentals directly.

“The general proposition is that we extend or we use the vehicle of the [property managers] register and the regulation for property managers and extend that to landlords because right now, the only barrier to being a landlord obviously is the capital necessary to buy a property,” Swarbrick said.

“We don’t know about the distribution of ownership of properties, and we also don’t really have a meaningful mechanism to be able to expel or hold accountable, consistent bad actors.

“This was all just brought to light by the recent bickering between Labour and National about how many landlords there are and who are in this country, which, ironically, neither of them can answer and neither of them actually seem all too keen on answering,” she said.

Swarbrick said similar regimes were popular in parts of Europe.

Former Associate Housing Minister Barbara Edmonds introduced the bill to regulate property managers last year, saying she wanted to establish “licensing, training and education requirements; requirements to ensure industry practice standards are being met, and [provide] accountability by establishing an independent, transparent, and effective complaints and disciplinary process”.

National’s then-housing spokesman and now Housing Minister Chris Bishop said National backed the bill at first reading with a “degree of scepticism” about its necessity. He warned it flowed through into “higher rents”.

“As with many debates in this House around regulatory regimes, the question is: is self-regulation better than mandatory regulation?” he said.

Bishop hinted to the Herald on Thursday that the Government would be unlikely to back the bill further.

“We voted for it at first reading to gather feedback. The RIS was doubtful that the benefits outweighed the costs. We are waiting for the committee to report it back to the House,” he said.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.