Chris Hipkins criticised Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's property sales while the Labour leader was promoting a new capital gains tax. Photo / Mark Mitchell
By Anneke Smith of RNZ
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has had a crack at the Prime Minister’s real estate portfolio while making the case for his party’s new capital gains tax (CGT) policy.
The Labour Party announced on Tuesday that it would campaign on a CGT on property, excluding the family home and farms, at a rate of 28% from July 1, 2027.
Part of Hipkins’ pitch on the tax policy has been that it’s a simple approach that would capture one in 10 New Zealanders but deliver three free GP visits each year, for everyone.
National has been poised to jump on Labour’s long-awaited tax policy and has already pushed out a series of attack ads on social media.
Asked about those advertisements, Hipkins said he was more than happy to debate Christopher Luxon about his personal finances.
“Bring it on. He sold four houses last year and made more money, tax-free, from doing that than he made in the Prime Minister’s salary, which he paid tax on every dollar of.
“Why should he be able to make more than $600,000 in one year from flipping properties, whilst the people who go out and work hard every day for a living pay tax on every single dollar that they earn?”
Luxon was registered as having two residential properties and one investment property in Auckland, in the 2025 Register of Pecuniary Interests.
He had two residential properties in Auckland, one residential property in Wellington and four investment properties in Auckland in last year’s register.
Labour has previously criticised Luxon for making money, tax-free, from property sales in an effort to argue the tax system is unfair.
Asked about his own property portfolio, Hipkins said he owned a family home and a beach house. He said he would happily pay a capital gains tax if he sold that beach house after July 2027.
Speaking in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, Luxon disputed flipping properties.
“I haven’t flipped properties,” Luxon said. “But it’s not about me, it’s about New Zealanders, and I’m just saying to you, taxing Kiwi businesses is not the way forward.
“We want to grow Kiwi businesses, we want to back entrepreneurs that want to grow companies and build companies, and actually, this is a tax on every single business in New Zealand.”
Asked about the GP workforce’s ability to meet Labour’s policy of three free GP visits a year for everyone, Hipkins said it wouldn’t kick in straight away.
“We’ve set ourselves a year and a half implementation timeline, so the full eligibility will kick in from July 1, 2028.
“That gives us a year and a half to make sure we’re working through the commitments that we’ve made around freeing up the four and a half million extra GP visits so that our GP practices can actually cope with any increase in demand.”
Hipkins hinted Labour would be releasing further policy aimed at getting more GPs into the health system.
“There’ll be further announcements between now and the election. Of all the other aspects of our health policy, workforce is clearly going to be a focus for us. We know that our health workforce is under a lot of pressure.”
The Labour leader spoke at a Council of Trade Unions (CTU) conference at Te Papa on Wednesday afternoon, telling union reps he was determined to make the coalition the country’s first National-led one-term Government.
The CTU earlier called on opposition parties to deliver fair pay agreements, automatic union membership and contractor reform in the first 100 days of a new Government, if elected next year.
Hipkins committed to reinstating fair pay agreements “quickly”.
“One of the things that I think we can reflect on from last time is, because it took such a long time to get fair pay agreements in place, we weren’t seeing the benefits of that enough by the election.
“I want to make sure we don’t repeat that mistake, so get them back in place quicker.”
Hipkins also committed to reinstating the 30-day rule so new workers are automatically covered by collective agreements, and said Labour would have a fully costed commitment on pay equity before next year’s general election.
Pushed on how open he was to changing Labour’s tax policy, in light of the Greens advocating to go further, Hipkins said he would not be budging on it.
“Labour will vote in favour of the policy that we are campaigning on and we will not go beyond that,” he said.
Hipkins said he was not “a complete pushover” like Luxon.
“I don’t think the smaller parties should call all of the shots,” he said. “You don’t have to be like Christopher Luxon, roll over and let Winston Peters and David Seymour tickle your tummy.”
Hipkins said Labour members were disappointed that details of the party’s capital gains tax policy had been leaked before they were officially announced.
Reminders that these processes were confidential before the time of their release had been sent to party members, he said.
– RNZ