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Christopher Luxon's houses earned him 15 times National leader salary

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 2 Dec 2021, 5:40PM
(Photo / NZ Herald)
(Photo / NZ Herald)

Christopher Luxon's houses earned him 15 times National leader salary

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 2 Dec 2021, 5:40PM

National Party leader Christopher Luxon made on-paper gains of at least $4.34 million from his property portfolio in the past year. 

That is about 15 times more than he will earn a year as leader of the National Party. 

The salary for Luxon's new job is $296,007. 

Luxon's seven properties include his Auckland home in Remuera, a bach on Waiheke island, and an apartment in Wellington. 

His Remuera home is valued at $7.68 million, an increase of $1.72m in the past year. 

The current value of his Waiheke bach is $7.36 million. Figures show the property has increased in value by $2.17 million. 

Luxon's apartment in the capital has had a more modest, but still very decent, increase of $180,070 in value in the past year, now sitting at $1.07 million. 

Luxon rents the apartment to himself, using the taxpayer-funded accommodation subsidy. 

He also owns his Botany electoral office as well as investment properties in Onehunga. His combined property portfolio is valued at more than $21 million. 

The new National leader, who replaces ousted Judith Collins, has the biggest property portfolio of any sitting MP, earning more than $80,000 in capital gains every week, as the housing crisis in New Zealand continues to worsen. 

The gains come amid a hot property market around New Zealand - the Real Estate Institute recorded national median house prices rising 28.7 per cent in the year to June. 

Wage inflation, according to Statistics New Zealand, was just over 2 per cent during the same period. 

If Luxon were to sell his properties, most of those capital gains, would fall outside the "bright-line test" so would be untaxed. 

Questioned about his properties this week, Luxon said they are "personal affairs" and refuted the idea that he is "part of the problem" when it comes to the country's housing crisis. 

"What I can tell you is we need to get moving with building houses and opening things up," he told RNZ yesterday. 

"We've got a country the size of Japan and the UK with more populations in those places, and we've got more expensive house prices and so we've got to really tackle housing big time." 

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