Pecuniary interests registers shed light on lives of local councillors

Keen-eyed local government watchers will have noticed that the first of the new Pecuniary Interests Registers have started to appear online, with councils like Greater Wellington, Palmerston North, Kāpiti Coast, and Christchurch City being some of the big names to get them online, shedding new light on what interests our local government politicians have outside of their elected roles.

While elected members in local authorities have always been required to declare their interests, Labour’s Palmerston North MP (and former Deputy Mayor of Palmerston North City) Tangi Utikere was successful both in getting his Local Government (Pecuniary Interests Register) Amendment Bill drawn as a Members’ Bill and getting it passed by Parliament this term, which brought these declarations much more in line with what is expected of Members of Parliament.

So what do some of the early registers that are available online reveal? As you might expect (and was often the case previously), you get details on how many and the nature of any properties owned as well as any companies (including shareholdings outside of managed investment funds) and trusts that they’re involved with. There’s also details on what, if any, employment elected members hold outside of their council roles.

For example, Christchurch City Council’s register shows Mayor Phil Mauger owned multiple properties, which given they’re not specified as being rental properties suggests those outside of Christchurch City may well be holiday homes. It’s worth noting that the Christchurch City Council register covers 12 January 2022 to 12 January 2023, so they appear to have gotten onto it well ahead of the February cut off date.

Meanwhile the register at Greater Wellington Regional Council reveals Chair Daran Ponter with a rental property in Petone, a holiday home in New Plymouth, and - somewhat surprisingly - he apparently works for (or has worked for in the past 12 months) the central government agency Te Puni Kōkiri. Given the role of chairing Greater Wellington Regional Council is remunerated as a relatively senior full time role at a cool $176,609 a year, it may surprise some people to find that Councillor Ponter has time to hold down another role somewhere. In fairness, this information was visible to anyone who checked out Ponter’s LinkedIn profile, though it wasn’t readily apparent whether this was just something he had never gotten around to updating.

Another interesting one from Greater Wellington is that of Councillor Thomas Nash, who recently revealed his family’s own struggles in the tough Wellington rental market, where it’s come to light that he has interests in two rental properties - one in Northland and one in the United Kingdom, as well as an interest in a residential section in Island Bay, and finally being the beneficiary of a trust that holds property via the “family home” the trust owns in Palmerston North too.

Palmerston North’s Mayor Grant Smith has a comparatively quiet register, with interests in a business administration company, all his various entities he’s been appointed to via his role as mayor, as his family home, a holiday home in Mount Maunganui, and commercial property in Palmerston North itself.

Kāpiti Coast District Council’s register has Mayor Janet Holborow with one of the simpler declarations, with a trust, her family home, and interests in a company, while Deputy Mayor Lawrence Kirby’s entry shows multiple roles with various church-linked entities.

As at the time of writing Auckland Council, our largest local authority by some measure, isn’t planning on publishing their register online until 30 June, though this publication has requested the register under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.