Nepali protesters recently burnt down the homes of their political leaders, a protest driven by anger at the increasing disparity in wealth between Nepal's politicians and ordinary people. In New Zealand, people are doing it hard in the face of the Government's austerity agenda and a cost-of-living crisis. At the same time, it has been revealed that our 123 MP's collectively own $379 million in property wealth. While New Zealand is not Nepal, writes Bryce Edwards, what happens when the gap between New Zealand's ruling class and everybody else becomes too visible to ignore? What happens when politicians making housing policy own property portfolios worth millions while their constituents can’t afford the rent?
What sparked this rage? Yes, the immediate trigger was a government ban on social media platforms. But the deeper fuel was something else entirely: the visible wealth gap between Nepal’s politicians and ordinary citizens. Retired Supreme Court Justice Balaram K.C. captured the mood perfectly when he said, “That is the frustration of the common people... You people who are supposed to run the country in an honest way, you are taking care of yourself and your relatives and no one else.”
Protesters systematically targeted symbols of elite wealth. They weren’t just angry about policy failures. They were furious about politicians accumulating property empires (mansions in Kathmandu’s posh districts, villas in Dubai) while 40% of Nepali youth emigrated for work. One viral manifesto read: “They sip champagne in parliament while we queue for rice. This is not governance – it’s theft.”
New Zealand is not Nepal. We have far greater wealth, stronger institutions, and a more stable democracy. But before we dismiss Nepal’s upheaval as irrelevant to our circumstances, it’s worth asking: what happens when the gap between rulers and the ruled becomes too visible to ignore? What happens when politicians making housing policy own property portfolios worth millions while their constituents can’t afford rent?
Today, the NZ Herald’s data journalist Chris Knox has published an investigation that should make every New Zealander sit up and take notice. Our 123 MPs collectively own $379 million in property wealth. That’s an average of $3.16 million per MP - more than four times the national median house price. During a housing crisis that has locked roughly one million New Zealanders out of homeownership entirely, our lawmakers have amassed property empires.
WHO OWNS WHAT
Knox’s investigation goes well beyond the official Register of Pecuniary Interests. He’s cross-referenced MPs’ declarations with council records to get actual property valuations. The results paint a stark picture.
Topping the list is National’s first-term MP Suze Redmayne, with $24.3 million in property holdings. Her portfolio includes an $18 million farm, a family home valued around $3 million, and an Auckland apartment worth another $3 million — all held in trusts. Redmayne represents Rangitikei and farms at Tunnel Hill in coastal Turakina with her husband Richard, running sheep, beef, forestry and the award-winning Coastal Lamb brand.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon comes in second at $15.2 million. Despite selling four investment properties last year amid public scrutiny, he still retains two Auckland residences and one investment property. His Waiheke property and Remuera home are each valued at around $7 million—making them the most valuable houses owned by any MP.
Barbara Kuriger, the MP for Taranaki-King Country, sits at number three with $14.6 million. A former DairyNZ board member, Kuriger’s wealth derives primarily from two dairy farms in Taranaki valued at $11.5 million, plus family homes in New Plymouth and Te Awamutu, and a Wellington apartment.
Fourth is National’s Carl Bates at $13.6 million. Bates’ position is particularly interesting—and we’ll come back to him. Fifth is ACT MP Parmjeet Parmar with $11.1 million, including seven Auckland properties: two residential rentals, four rental townhouses, a family home held in a trust, and a commercial property.
The top 20 property-owning MPs are dominated by National members. No Green Party or Te Pati Maori MPs crack the top 20. Winston Peters breaks the National/Act dominance at number 11 with $7.3 million. Willie Jackson is the first Labour MP on the list at number 17, with $5.6 million including three family homes and a Wellington apartment.
THE PARTY DIVIDE
Knox’s data reveals stark differences across party lines. On average, National MPs have interests in property worth more than double the Labour average — $4.6 million versus $2 million. Even when farms are removed from the calculation, National MPs’ property holdings still sit at nearly double those of Labour MPs.
This breakdown tells us something important about the class composition of Parliament. National draws heavily from farming and business communities where property wealth is concentrated. Labour, despite its working-class origins, still produces MPs with substantial property holdings — just not on the same scale. The Greens and Te Pati Maori have MPs with the most modest portfolios, which may partly explain why these parties have been more willing to advocate for policies like capital gains taxes and stronger tenant protections.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
The majority of MPs’ property interests are in family homes. These make up the bulk of the assets, accounting for $230m, or 61% of the total. This includes the Wellington apartments many MPs use while Parliament sits. Between $53 million and $69 million is in rental properties. The range exists because many MPs list properties as simply “residential” without specifying whether they’re rentals or additional family homes.
Think about that for a moment. MPs collectively own somewhere between $53 million and $69 million worth of rental properties while making policy decisions that directly affect landlords and tenants.
As Knox points out in his article that MPs make decisions that heavily impact property values. MPs constantly tweak the settings that determine asset prices, making decisions that are inextricably linked to their own net worth. Recent policy decisions have included: “Should foreign buyers be allowed? What should the immigration settings be? What should urban planning zoning rules be? Should agricultural emissions be taxed? How much public housing should Kainga Ora build? Should there be some form of capital gains tax?”
Knox points out that “When the current Government took office it took only 114 days for it to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties”. The MPs benefitted directly, according to Knox. He argues that for MPs in the 39% tax bracket with around $50,000 in annual mortgage interest payments on investment properties, this policy “puts nearly $20,000 back in their pockets” each year.
Similarly, the Prime Minister personally profited by hundreds of thousands of dollars from the absence of a capital gains tax when he sold properties. When questioned about his nearly $500,000 in untaxed property gains, Luxon was explicit: “No, we don’t have capital gains tax in New Zealand. We think it would be bad for New Zealand.”
THE TRUST LOOPHOLE
Knox’s methodology matters because it reveals how inadequate the official Register of Pecuniary Interests really is. MPs have to list what they own, but they don’t have to say what it’s worth. A “family home” in the register could be a $400,000 flat in a provincial town or a $7 million mansion in Remuera. There’s no way for voters to tell the difference.
More problematic is how trusts obscure actual control. Nearly half of MPs disclosed being beneficiaries of trusts, which is a proportion likely far above the national average. While there are valid reasons to use trusts for estate planning, they can make it much harder to determine who effectively owns what.
The Carl Bates case is instructive. A Herald investigation revealed that Bates is linked (via family trusts and companies) to 25 properties, making his family one of the largest landlords in the Whanganui region. Yet his official pecuniary interest declaration barely hints at this. Before entering Parliament, Bates held shares in two family-owned property companies that owned those 25 houses. Shortly after election, he transferred those shareholdings to a newly created entity owned by a trust where Bates is a beneficiary.
This two-layer structure allowed Bates to claim he personally had no direct interest in the real estate. A Parliamentary inquiry cleared him of wrongdoing, ruling he wasn’t required to declare them under current rules. But the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests recommended Parliament review those rules. The loophole remains open.
THE REPRESENTATION CRISIS
Democracy theorists distinguish between “descriptive representation”—where the political body demographically mirrors the population—and “substantive representation”—where representatives act in constituents’ interests regardless of their own characteristics. The hope is that good people can substantively represent interests different from their own.
But there’s substantial evidence this hope is often misplaced when it comes to wealth and class. Studies have found that when the top 10% of income earners disagree with lower income groups on policy, outcomes consistently favour the rich. Wealth shapes political attitudes. MPs who own multiple properties worth millions have fundamentally different stakes in housing policy than renters struggling with damp, cold homes.
The data bears this out. Only nine MPs (7%) own no property, compared to 34% of the general population. Cabinet ministers average three houses each while the social housing waitlist stretches past 25,000 households. MPs are becoming less representative of housing insecurity with each election cycle.
Consider the simple fact that New Zealand’s homeownership rate has plummeted to record lows, and generational divides in property ownership are stark. Yet Parliament is overwhelmingly filled with people who have never experienced being locked out of homeownership. How many MPs know what it’s like to be at the mercy of a landlord’s whims, to spend 50% of your income on rent in a cold flat, or to move every year because you can’t find stable tenure? A handful, perhaps. For the most part, our lawmakers are insulated from the housing precarity that a growing segment of their constituents endure.
POLICY OUTCOMES
The pattern is unmistakable. Policies that would increase housing supply, reduce property values, or shift power away from landlords are consistently rejected or undermined by a Parliament dominated by property owners.
Carlos Cheung, with five Auckland rental properties, voted on these changes. So did Parmjeet Parmar, with multiple rental properties. So did Mark Mitchell, with three rental properties. They were making rules that directly affected their rental income streams.
LESSONS FROM NEPAL
I opened with Nepal not because I think New Zealand faces imminent revolution. We don’t. But Nepal illustrates what happens when the gap between a political class’s wealth and the public’s struggle becomes insurmountable, and “integrity” issues morph into a crisis of legitimacy.
The protesters who burned politicians’ homes weren’t acting on careful policy analysis. They were expressing rage at visible wealth accumulation by leaders while ordinary people couldn’t make ends meet. One person’s obscene mansion becomes a symbol of everything broken in the system.
New Zealand is currently in what you might call the “smouldering” phase. Knox’s data on MP property wealth is the smoke indicating a fire of inequality that, if ignored, could burn through the public’s trust in democracy itself. We’re not at the breaking point. But every time a story breaks about an MP failing to declare properties or earning tax-free capital gains while voting against reforms, public cynicism deepens.
Unsurprisingly then, trust in New Zealand’s political institutions has fallen below the global average: 47% compared to 56% globally. Among those struggling financially, only 40% trust Parliament. Young people facing permanent lockout from homeownership increasingly view politicians as self-interested and out of touch. The ingredients for political alienation are all there.
The structural bias doesn’t require bad intent. It operates quietly, in background incentives and blind spots. The public interest in affordable housing has consistently taken a backseat to the private interests of property owners — of which MPs are an extraordinarily wealthy subset.
Some dismiss concerns about MPs’ property wealth as “tall poppy syndrome” or envy. Carmen Vicelich from the real estate industry told Herald NOW this morning: “if you’ve worked hard and decided to put your money in property, then great! Good on you! I think we should celebrate it I don’t think it needs to be front page news”.
But this misses the point entirely. It’s not about individual wealth, it’s about systemic bias and democratic representation.
WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE
The obvious reforms remain politically untouchable under the current government. A capital gains tax would align New Zealand with virtually every other developed economy. Comprehensive wealth taxes would address extreme inequality. Stricter conflict of interest rules could require MPs to recuse themselves from votes when personal financial interests are directly engaged.
None of these will happen soon. Too many MPs have too much to lose.
But there are steps that could be taken immediately. The Register of Pecuniary Interests needs serious strengthening. The Standing Orders are due for review in 2026. This is a golden opportunity to close the trust loophole. If an MP has a beneficial interest in a trust that holds assets like houses or shares, those assets must be declared just as if the MP held them directly.
MPs should be required to disclose actual values, or at least value bands, for their property holdings. The current system where a $400,000 flat and a $7 million mansion both appear as “family home” is absurd. We need look-through transparency for trust-held assets.
Additionally, we need stronger oversight. Relying on journalists to find undeclared properties is not sustainable. An independent integrity body could cross-check MPs’ disclosures against public databases and investigate discrepancies.
THE $379 MILLION QUESTION
Chris Knox’s investigation has given us the numbers. Parliament controls $379 million in property wealth. Every 10% drop in property values would cost MPs collectively $37.9 million. That’s a powerful disincentive to policies that might cool the housing market.
Follow the money. $379 million in property wealth explains more about New Zealand’s housing dysfunction than a thousand policy papers. Knox’s investigation makes visible what has always been true: Parliament has a vested interest in maintaining high property values because MPs are, collectively, one of the largest property-owning cohorts in the country.
They’re not neutral arbiters trying to balance competing interests. They’re players with skin in the game.
The system is broken by design. Not through conspiracy, but through composition. When the people making the rules are the same people benefiting from those rules, you get policy that entrenches existing advantages rather than promoting fairness.
Nepal’s September upheaval won’t happen here. But the mechanism of resentment is identical. Politicians insulated by their wealth cannot viscerally understand the pain of policy failures. Even if technically legal, the accumulation of wealth by MPs while the public struggles is increasingly viewed as moral corruption. When the public believes MPs are “taking care of themselves and their relatives,” trust collapses.
In New Zealand, this might not look like arson. But it could look like extreme voter disengagement, the rise of populist disruptors, or a total breakdown in social cohesion. We pride ourselves on relatively clean politics. But when it comes to housing, we’ve let a soft corruption of self-interest take root.
Knox’s $379 million figure represents more than impressive wealth accumulation by 123 individuals. It represents a fundamental threat to democratic representation and policy legitimacy. When lawmakers make housing policy during a crisis, and those same lawmakers hold $379 million in property wealth, benefit from mortgage interest deductibility worth thousands annually, pocket hundreds of thousands in untaxed capital gains, and collect rent from the very constituents they represent, we’re entitled to ask: whose interests are being served here?
The policy outcomes answer that question clearly. Parliament of the propertied, by the propertied, for the propertied. The $379 million question is whether anyone with the power to change the system actually wants to.
This article was first published by the Democracy Project. Dr Bryce Edwards is the Director of the Democracy Project.
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