Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford at his wedding to Hannah in January.<\/p>\n
Since McCallum\u2019s comments, three more MPs have denied Paul\u2019s claims, including National\u2019s Tom Rutherford and Shane Reti, who retired from Parliament last week.<\/p>\n
A National spokesperson said it was not true the pair had bought homes to rent out since laws changed.<\/p>\n
Rutherford said in a Facebook post he had married since becoming an MP and his wife already owned a home before their relationship began, \u201cwhich has now become ours\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am sick of this kind of politics. I prefer to play the ball, not the person. It is disappointing to see the Greens make false claims in Parliament just to score political points. They should hold themselves to a higher standard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul also claimed Act MP Parmjeet Parmar had bought \u201cfive new houses since they changed rental laws\u201d.<\/p>\n
Act MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Parmar owns the largest number of properties of any MP this term.<\/p>\n
An Act Party spokesperson said this morning: \u201cTamatha Paul\u2019s claim is false\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr Parmar has not purchased a single new property since the coalition was elected, the register changes resulted from the development of five houses on existing sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government\u2019s policy changes were not a factor in her investment decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davidson, speaking to reporters this afternoon, said she stood by the principle of Paul\u2019s speech. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese property investor MPs, wealthy property-owning MPs, and their crocodile tears, while we have a homelessness problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have intentionally benefited from legislation in this house personally, that\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davidson said the MPs could write to Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee if they wanted an apology.<\/p>\n
The interest deduction rules were reinstated in 2024 after Labour phased them out over the previous two terms. <\/p>\n
Landlords can claim 100% of interest incurred on residential property mortgages as a tax expense. The Opposition has often described the reintroduction of the deductions as \u201ctax cuts for landlords\u201d.<\/p>\n
Paul posted clips of her speech to TikTok and Instagram, with the former attracting more than one million views.<\/p>\n
National MP Grant McCallum.<\/p>\n
McCallum corrected the record in the House, denying he had purchased a Wellington property and was paying it off with the accommodation allowance.<\/p>\n
McCallum later took to Facebook to deny the allegations again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did buy another home in Paihia. The reason is simple. It was so I had somewhere to stay when I was working in the mid and Far North of my electorate. I do not rent it out,\u201d the post said.<\/p>\n
He said his investment in the property saved taxpayers money as he didn\u2019t need to stay in motels. <\/p>\n
McCallum requested that Paul apologise, \u201cpreferably in Parliament\u201d.<\/p>\n
Newstalk ZB asked Paul whether she planned to apologise to McCallum.<\/p>\n
A copy of his assets declared in pecuniary interests was included in the request, which did not list property in Wellington.<\/p>\n
Green MP Tamatha Paul. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
The statement Newstalk ZB received listed a number of donations from \u201cthe property industry\u201d the coalition received during the 2023 election, which Paul said were \u201call on the public record\u201d.<\/p>\n
Paul also included that landlords received a \u201c$2.9 billion tax cut\u201d since interest deductibility was reinstated.<\/p>\n
Davidson, speaking last week, said the record had been corrected and she was happy for the issue to be left at that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the heat of the moment in the chamber, things are often said off the cuff by MPs across the House.\u201d<\/p>\n
This morning, Davidson was challenged over whether the Greens believed misinformation and disinformation was bad for political discourse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do, and that has been corrected in the house,\u201d she told Ryan Bridge TODAY.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about online? What about in the court of public opinion? What about the internet?\u201d Bridge pressed.<\/p>\n
Davidson responded that the party had \u201cput up the correct information into the dialogue\u201d, though she did not elaborate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe principle remains the same \u2013 it\u2019s to show how disconnected privileged MPs are from the experiences of ordinary people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven more so when you can buy a whole extra property and you don\u2019t need any help to pay it off. You can just have an extra property in your back pocket, in your handbag.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCallum said he was disappointed the Green Party\u2019s leadership was letting the matter go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it reflects poorly on them and their leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people of New Zealand, they want to hold other politicians to a high standard and have them do it to themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McCallum said he still believes an apology from Paul would be appropriate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bay of Plenty MP Tom Rutherford at his wedding to Hannah in January. Since McCallum\u2019s comments, three more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1443,1117,74,5098,4500,2741,2562,16843,104285,7237,2518,3339,1362,130,6368,17318,111,43,139,69,4762,17357,21497,1356,814,5659,20863,175483,1335,2846,1961,1529],"class_list":["post-587989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-about","tag-accused","tag-after","tag-buying","tag-changes","tag-claim","tag-claims","tag-false","tag-falsely","tag-governments","tag-green","tag-housing","tag-made","tag-more","tag-mp","tag-mps","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-party","tag-paul","tag-pauls","tag-properties","tag-property","tag-say","tag-she","tag-tamatha","tag-term","tag-them","tag-this","tag-three"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587989","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=587989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}