Luxon fires back at Hipkins for ‘attack’ on his finances

The Prime Minister has fired back at Chris Hipkins over what he says was an attack on his personal finances.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins criticised Christopher Luxon on Wednesday for making hundreds of thousands of dollars – tax-free – in recent property sales.

“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?”

The Labour Party announced on Tuesday it would campaign on a capital gains tax on property, excluding the family home and farms, at a rate of 28% from July 1, 2027.

Speaking from South Korea at the ASEAN summit, Luxon said comments about his finances were a political diversion.

“I’m aware that they’ve had a pretty rough week, with the capital gains tax – the policy that’s their fourth failure I think in the last two weeks.

“I don’t attack his personal finances, I wouldn’t expect him to attack mine.”

Luxon said the capital gains tax policy was not about him, but about New Zealanders affected by the policy.

“I understand why he might want to target it on me because it’s been a bit of a disaster I imagine as a launch of a policy that was a flagship one for him.

“It’s actually not about me, it’s about Kiwis that own a beach house, the Kiwi mums and dads who have a rental property that are going to get taxed, it’s about every business that operates in New Zealand, that has to operate out of a commercial premise that’s now going to have a tax and a cost applied to it.”

Hipkins made the comments in a response to a series of attack ads National launched on social media in response to the policy.

When asked about the ads, Hipkins said he was more than happy to debate 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.”

rnz.co.nz