{"id":466149,"date":"2026-06-08T01:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466149\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T01:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:34:10","slug":"ultimately-its-my-money-chris-hipkins-defends-using-taxpayer-funded-private-super-scheme-for-holiday-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/466149\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ultimately, it\u2019s my money\u2019: Chris Hipkins defends using taxpayer-funded private super scheme for holiday home"},"content":{"rendered":"

These private schemes often own property, like second homes in Wellington or holiday homes. MPs can use the homes that are owned by their superannuation schemes. Melissa Lee, Jenny Salesa, Erica Stanford and Judith Collins declared similar schemes in the most recent register of pecuniary interests.<\/p>\n

Hipkins confirmed in a media conference today that contributions to the superannuation scheme can be used to pay the mortgage on his holiday home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a savings scheme, so yes it can be. It\u2019s just the same as you contribute to a managed fund, for example,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, it\u2019s my money, it\u2019s my retirement savings so I am investing my retirement savings.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hipkins did not appear to think that funnelling a portion of his retirement savings, plus taxpayer contributions, into the home was inconsistent with Labour\u2019s policy of wanting to pivot savings towards highly productive investment.<\/p>\n

In his State of the Nation speech earlier this year,<\/a> Hipkins said \u201cfor too long, too much capital has been locked up in housing speculation \u2013 driving up prices, while businesses struggle to find the investment they need to grow\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a holiday home that my family has owned for about 40 years. I feel very fortunate that I am in a position where I can have a holiday home, and I don\u2019t begrudge any other New Zealanders who have that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is a different argument to that we sort of have a default setting in New Zealand where people own lots of rental properties.That has been sort of a default, and a reliable investment for a lot of families and they have gone into that market with all of the right intentions. But we do need to tilt the playing field away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hipkins\u2019 pecuniary interests have declared the ownership of a second property in Raumati, a popular holiday area north of Wellington, which is owned by a superannuation trust.<\/p>\n

He has declared a property in Raumati since he became an MP, although it is not clear it is the same property \u2013 his first declaration said it was a rental. In his 2013 register of interests, the existence of the private retirement scheme was registered for the first time.<\/p>\n

The private retirement scheme is named after the street on which the holiday home is situated, suggesting the scheme and the house have a strong association.<\/p>\n

Hipkins would not say whether the contributions to MPs\u2019 super schemes were fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like more of a focus on retirement savings for all New Zealanders. And there is certainly more opportunity for us to do more in that space,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He would not say whether employer contributions should rise to the level enjoyed by MPs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an ideal world, employer contribution rates would be higher,\u201d Hipkins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not making that commitment but I would like to see higher retirement savings rates. The salaries that Members of Parliament get are high by the standards of everyday New Zealanders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These private schemes often own property, like second homes in Wellington or holiday homes. MPs can use the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3276,99524,3039,2109,2082,25812,54101,13480,189,1345,302,6721,13489,300,16400,4977,111,139,69,1136,7241,3170,213,313,314,93483,46003,3382],"class_list":["post-466149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-chris","tag-defended","tag-defends","tag-family","tag-for","tag-funded","tag-generous","tag-hipkins","tag-holiday","tag-home","tag-its","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-money","tag-mortgage","tag-my","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-private","tag-publicly","tag-scheme","tag-sports","tag-super","tag-superannuation","tag-taxpayerfunded","tag-ultimately","tag-using"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}