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Scoop
5 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
New Zealand Rich List Exceeds $100 Billion Amid Cost-Of-Living Crisis
New Zealand's Rich List, compiled annually by the National Business Review (NBR), boasted last week that the country's wealthiest are now collectively worth more than $NZ100 billion. The figure increased from $95.55 billion in 2024, despite a brutal cost-of-living crisis and two recessions in the past 18 months. The nation of just 5.3 million people now has 18 billionaires, up from 16 last year. A dozen newcomers, with $4.3 billion, are among 119 individuals and families profiled by the NBR, who altogether have a total of $102.1 billion—equal to more than 40 percent of the country's annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Like similar reports posted internationally, the NZ list points to soaring wealth among a tiny privileged layer, even amid a gathering global economic crisis. Nine years ago the 2016 Rich List's wealth was just under $60 billion, rising to $72.6 billion two years ago. Commenting on the rapid increase in the concentration of wealth, Bryce Edwards, director of the Integrity Institute, noted: 'We are witnessing inequality grow towards heights approaching those of the early 20th century.' He described it as 'a roadmap of oligarchic power in New Zealand, complete with policy wish lists, political connections, and breathtaking displays of luxury that would make a Gilded Age robber baron blush.' New Zealand is already an extremely unequal society. According to Statistics NZ's Household Economic Survey in 2021, the richest 5 percent of individuals owned 43.1 percent of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50 percent held just 2.1 percent. Brothers Nick and Mat Mowbray, who with sister Anna Mowbray, founded Zuru Toys in 2003, topped the Rich List with $20 billion. The pair have been outspoken about their ambitions to be 'the next Apple, Google, Tesla' with a target of $10 billion in revenue within five years. Former list leader Graeme Hart is second, with an estimated net worth of $12.1 billion. Hart built his global packaging empire following his purchase of the state-owned Government Printing Office, for a vastly undervalued $23 million, during the 1984–90 Lange Labour government's public asset fire sale. Others to feature were prominent filmmaker Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh, at fifth richest with a net worth of $2.6 billion. This year the NBR also launched a Women's Rich List, headed by Anna Mowbray and Lucy Liu, co-founders of online payments company Airwallex. Liu's company was valued at more than $10 billion in a capital raise in May. The publication profiled 14 women, all of them estimated to be worth between $20 and $100 million. The celebration of a handful of super-rich women comes after the right-wing coalition government last month passed the Equal Pay Amendment Act, designed to make it almost impossible for workers in female-dominated professions to claim that they are underpaid because of gender-based inequity. The primary source of the Rich Listers' fortunes is not the production of socially necessary goods and services. Their vast wealth derives almost entirely from parasitic activities such as financial investment and property speculation. Viaduct Harbour Holdings, owned by the Gibbs, Wyborn, Farmer and Green families—all of whom regularly appear on the Rich List—leases out areas of the expensive Auckland harbour waterfront to the hospitality, sports and accommodation sectors. The Gibbons, Guntons, Carters, and Wallaces have all built their fortunes on property development. A 2023 Inland Revenue Department (IRD) investigation into the wealth of the country's 311 richest individuals found that only 7 percent of their income is in a form subject to income tax. The remaining 93 percent comes from returns on investment, including financial assets and capital gains—all of which is either not taxed, or taxed at a lower rate than incomes. This privileged layer paid tax on their earnings at a rate of just 8.9 percent—less than half the 20 percent rate paid by someone on the average wage. Well-off New Zealanders are paying less tax than their peers in nine similar OECD nations, including Australia, Canada, the US, the UK, and five European countries, according to a Victoria University of Wellington study commissioned by Tax Justice Aotearoa last year. In 2024, New Zealand and Belgium were the only two OECD countries not to have a capital gains tax—though Belgium had other wealth taxes, which New Zealand does not. None of this prevents the wealthy elite from endlessly agitating for cutting corporate taxes, privatising public services, slashing welfare and cutting government 'bureaucracy,' all while seeking incentives for private sector 'risk takers.' The recent King's Birthday Honours awards celebrated former National Party finance minister Ruth Richardson, appointing her as a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit. Richardson is reviled in the working class for her infamous 1991 'Mother of all Budgets' which savagely cut welfare and thrust thousands of beneficiaries into poverty, imposing conditions of misery that still exist. The main opposition Labour Party meanwhile has consistently rejected any significant increase in tax on wealth. Despite campaigning in the 2017 election for a modest capital gains tax, in 2019 Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ruled it out. Her stance was endorsed by current leader Chris Hipkins. The Labour Party-Greens government from 2017-2023, like others throughout the world, exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to engineer a huge transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich. Property values and corporate and bank profits soared due to millions in subsidies, bailouts and tax concessions, and the Reserve Bank's quantitative easing and ultra-low interest rates. While the country has since had near back-to-back recessions, the impact has fallen entirely on the working class. The NZX50 index increased by 1,500 points or 12.74 percent during 2024, its best performance since 2020. The Reserve Bank's official cash rate cut from 5.25 to 4.75 percent last October gave the share market, dominated by investments in utilities, infrastructure and real estate, a strong boost in the final quarter of 2024. Political connections play a critical role in maintaining and boosting the wealth of the richest at the expense of ordinary people. Last year the National Party-led government delivered a massive tax cut for landlords, estimated to have cost $NZ2.9 billion, falsely claiming this would lead to more affordable rents. At the 2023 election, Rich Listers were among the most generous donors to the coalition parties, National, NZ First and ACT. Nick Mowbray gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to both National and the far-right ACT Party. Graeme Hart donated $700,000 to the right-wing parties over two years—$400k to National, $200k to ACT and $100k to NZ First. The rich are not shy about flaunting their wealth. Along with mansions and overseas apartments, several, including Peter Jackson, own private jets. Hart runs a multi-million dollar, 102-metre superyacht. A bid by Anna Mowbray and her husband, rugby player Ali Williams, to put a helipad on their property in the exclusive Auckland suburb of Westmere currently faces strong opposition from nearby residents and community groups. Speaking for the entire ruling class, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon gushed over the NBR's report: 'Isn't it fantastic that we have got people with ambition, aspiration and positivity, and we should be celebrating success.' But under Luxon's government, there is an escalating social disaster. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs and Radio NZ reported on June 9 that the net worth of all households declined by $4.185 billion in 2024. Already in 2023, 36.1 percent of households were scraping by on income that was either 'not enough' or 'only just' enough, according to Statistics NZ. In 2024, the Treasury estimated that nearly one-in-five children, 17.7 percent, were living in poverty. The New Zealand Food Network estimated this year that 500,000 people, a tenth of the population, is regularly dependent on food parcels. 16 June 2025
Scoop
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Keeping Politicians Honest
Politicians claim there are rules in place to make sure they don't have conflicts of interest - but an increasing number of incidents suggest those rules might not be strong enough. For years now, over several terms of different governments, New Zealand's system of trust against corruption and undue influence has been tested. A revolving door of pressure groups, MPs turning into lobbyists as soon as they leave Parliament, cabinet ministers blabbing secrets to donors, dodgy fundraising, failures to declare or be open about conflicts of interests. Politicians of all flavours have been caught bending or breaking the rules, and questions have been raised about the integrity and structure of new legislation. Think of the companies named in new Fast Track legislation; changes in tax rules that appear to come directly from the tobacco industry's playbook; and MPs staying silent about their interests. Now an increasing number of pressure groups, such as Transparency International NZ and the Helen Clark Foundation, are calling for better systems to be put in place. And a new lobby group - the Integrity Institute - has been formed specifically to hold politicians to account. Newsroom political editor Laura Walters says there are growing calls for independent oversight. "We do live in a high trust society in New Zealand... we are open, we're transparent, we have integrity, we're low in corruption, we always do well in those indices that come out every year. We sort of pat ourselves on the back and move on, and think 'there's nothing to see here obviously, we're fine'," she says. "But there are many examples now that are raising question marks around whether there has just been complacency and the level of integrity and the level of corruption is not perhaps what we thought it has been, and the systems in place are not good enough to weed out these examples and to try and manage these conflicts in a better way." Walters says the issue speaks to the trust in our core democratic institutions and the cohesion of our society, which is something that we are increasingly talking about and concerned about - not just in New Zealand, but around the world. "There is a lot of trust and faith dropping, kind of as a general trend, and at the same time we're also seeing a public that has more access to information, wanting to critically analyse things, they're wanting answers and they're wanting to see more transparency. "So there's kind of a convergence. It would be hard to know whether the instances of these types of things are actually rising or whether there is just more focus on this because of the moment in time that we are in. But there have been quite a few examples recently, and not just under this [current coalition] government but also under the previous Labour government." The Detail today also talks to Newsroom senior political reporter Marc Daalder, who says the main safeguards against conflicts of interest are focused on ministers who have executive powers, and not MPs. "In so far as they're safeguards, they're very soft ones. They're more convention, I think it would be fair to say, than hard rule. There's the Cabinet Manual which requires ministers to disclose to their colleagues any conflicts of interest or scenarios where there might be a perceived conflict of interest." Then there's the Cabinet Office which reports every six months on those conflicts of interest and what's being done to manage them, if anything. But "you just don't get the actual detail of information that you'd actually want," he says. "And yes, you can go and ask the minister, which I have done, but they're under no obligation to disclose it. And while there is an active OIA seeking this information, past experience would suggest the OIA isn't an effective tool for disclosing this kind of information. Usually the Cabinet Officers and Ministers are able to ward it off." Walters says other countries such as the UK and Australia have stronger controls than we do, and greater levels of detail can be revealed. She says what is put out for public consumption here is "quite bare bones. And I think that's something that a lot of the public, and special interest groups that are calling for more transparency... that's where the issue lies. They want to see more information available to the public. It's not suggesting that there's something untoward or underhand happening here. It's just that... the public should have more information so they can have greater trust in the integrity and political ethics of those who are making these really important decisions on behalf of the country." Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.
