The long-standing NZPIF president reveals his biggest regret and proudest moment
The long-standing president of the New Zealand Property Investors Federation (NZPIF) has retired after a quarter of a century advocating on behalf of property investors.
Andrew King, one of NZ’s top lobbyists, is quite literally riding off into the sunset, embarking on a seven-month motorbike journey with his wife from San Francisco to Santiago in Chile, as part of a plan to motorbike around the Americas.
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In a letter to members, King said some achievements included stopping capital gains taxes from being introduced “not once, not twice, but three times,” continuing to “halt a rental property WOF and draconian rental freezes,” and supporting compulsory smoke alarms and insulation, and most of the Healthy Homes requirements, “while preventing ridiculously expensive suggestions,” Stuff reported.
The decision to retire was not taken easily, King said, and the timing had made it more difficult, as he considered the next election as the greatest reckoning for investors since capital gains taxes were proposed.
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That was due to the government’s policy of removing investors’ ability to deduct mortgage interest on rental properties from taxes.
King said that while National has promised to overturn the change, a federation survey revealed that if Labour remained in power, the policy could lead to a fifth of investors being forced to sell up.
King said his greatest regret was his failure to convince the government to not implement the policy.
“It does feel a bit like unfulfilled business, but also, I think maybe we need someone new. I think I’ve done my time,” he said.
King’s proudest moment, on the other hand, was helping come up with the Winter Energy Payment scheme.
“There were about 43,000 kids who ended up in hospital because they were living in cold, damp houses, and we were blamed basically,” he said. “We did a survey, and we found even when our members were installing heat pumps the tenants weren’t turning them on. We raised that with the Otago medical school.”
That supported findings that energy poverty was occurring. This basically meant tenants without much money opted not to spend what they had on heating.
“I came up with the idea, and I’m really proud of it actually, that the money wouldn’t go directly to the tenant because they’ve got a lot of pressure to spend it somewhere else,” King told Stuff. “The idea was the money would go directly to the energy provider. Phil Twyford was their spokesman on housing at the time and I mentioned it to him that I thought it was a good idea, so he expanded it.”
