Labour’s Kieran McAnulty claims housing perk to live in wife's apartment

Tuesday, 11 June 2024

Kieran McAnulty lost his Wairarapa seat at last year’s election and is now a Labour list MP.

Labour MP Kieran McAnulty is claiming a $36,400-a-year housing perk to rent property from his wife.

McAnulty owns a four-bedroom, $655,000 home in Masterton.

When Parliament is in session he stays at a flat in Lower Hutt, owned by his wife Gia Garrick, for which he claims the accommodation allowance.

McAnulty said his Masterton home, which he has owned for two years, is a 1 hour 40 minute drive from Parliament. “Yes I do claim it, like many others.”

Since October, he has claimed $12,067.

“For most of my time as an MP I used the allowance to rent a small flat in Wellington. Now when Parliament is sitting I stay in Petone. I got married in January …The flat was purchased by my now wife before we were married.

Ōtaki MP Tim Costley owns a $1.4 million riverside home in Waikanae, two rental properties in Palmerston North, and a Wellington flat. He claims the taxpayer-funded perk for the capital property, where he stays during the weeks Parliament is sitting.

“I do not own the flat, nor am I on the mortgage. The registrar of pecuniary interests advised me I’m not required to declare the flat but I declared it in the interests of transparency. I pay my share to stay there when Parliament sits.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Ōtaki MP's Tim Costley's choice to claim a housing allowance is fair because he lives outside the commuter zone for Wellington.

On Monday, The Post revealed Ōtaki MP Tim Costley, who lives just 58km from Parliament, is claiming the housing allowance for a Wellington apartment that he owns.

MPs are entitled to claim $36,400 a year if their main residence is “outside the Wellington commuting area”. But the rules don’t specify a minimum distance.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon defended Costley on Monday.

“For a backbench MP, who then finishes here at this place at 10pm, 10.30 at night, and could have up to an hour, an hour and a half to get back home and then as expected to be back here again at 7.30 in the morning. I'm very comfortable with it.”

Costley’s commute is 45-60 minutes by car, or an hour on a train.

Luxon was forced into an embarrassing U-turn earlier this year when it emerged he was claiming $52,000 a year for his mortgage-free apartment in the city. As prime minister he was entitled to live at the official residence, Premier House, but chose not to.

At the time, he said he was “entitled to the entitlement”, but later admitted the public backlash was “quite full-on”.

“My own experience is different in the sense of it was becoming a distraction. I didn't want it to be one. So that's why I made the decision I made,” he said on Monday.

In October, The Post revealed at least 20 out-of-town MPs were claiming the perk to help pay off mortgages on their Wellington property.

That included Labour’s Duncan Webb, Jan Tinetti, Deborah Russell, Willie Jackson, Arena Williams and Jenny Salesa.

From National, Andrew Bayly, Gerry Brownlee, Judith Collins, Barbara Kuriger, Melissa Lee, Mark Mitchell, Stuart Smith and Louise Upston all claimed, alongside ACT’s Simon Court.