Labour: English's homes saga not over

Bill English says his integrity is intact after the housing allowance furore. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Labour will not stop its attacks on Deputy Prime Minister Bill English over his housing allowance despite the watchdog of public spending clearing him of wrongdoing yesterday.

Labour seized on a finding in the Auditor-General's report that Mr English did have a financial interest in the trust that owned his home despite declaring otherwise.

Mr English had to declare he had no financial interest in the property in order to have it deemed a ministerial residence so he could claim rent from the Government of $700 a week. He did this based on advice from Parliament's registrar of pecuniary interests.

The Auditor-General's report said its view was that the advice Mr English relied on to make his declaration "was not applicable to this situation" and "based on too narrow a test".

"We consider that Mr English does have an indirect financial interest in the trust," it said.

The Auditor-General's report was based on "preliminary enquiries" which found there were no grounds for a full investigation.

Mr English has already paid back all $32,000 he claimed since becoming a minister in November and given up taking the allowance in the future.

Mr English said he had met the test put to him by the registrar of pecuniary interests when he made the declaration. He had acknowledged he had a financial interest in the broader sense when he stopped taking the allowance and paid money back.

But Labour MP Pete Hodgson said the Auditor-General's finding showed Mr English should never have received the allowance in the first place. He said it showed Mr English's decision to pay back the money was not voluntary: "We now know he had to."

Labour would continue to question Mr English in Parliament about the arrangement.

"Most New Zealanders would think if you have a house in a family trust, you have a financial interest in it. Yet Bill English, as Minister of Finance, claimed otherwise for months and signed a declaration to that effect," said Mr Hodgson.

Mr English said he believed his integrity was intact after the saga.

Much of the controversy centred on whether Mr English's "primary residence" was his home in Karori where he lives with his family, or the property he owns in Dipton in his Clutha-Southland electorate.

The Auditor-General found the current system is designed to establish whether an MP maintained a current residence outside Wellington rather than to decide where an MP lives in an everyday sense.

It also found Prime Minister John Key's new policy of giving a lump sum to ministers for accommodation meant the question of whether a Minister has a personal financial interest in a property would no longer be relevant.