But ministers said the previous fees needed to be lifted to be competitive in attracting talent to the positions, which often oversee billions of dollars of spending and assets.
One increase that has caught Labour’s eye is that for Kāinga Ora board chairman Simon Moutter.
According to a written parliamentary question (WPQ) response from Bishop to Labour, the minister approved Moutter’s fees increasing from $98,000 to $152,000 (a 55% increase), effective from January this year. Fees for the deputy chair and members also received the same percentage increase.
Labour has pointed out that the increase has come despite Moutter saying in 2024 that he expected his agency to shrink as a result of Government policies.
In a letter to then-chief executive Andrew McKenzie, Moutter wrote of various changes that he believed would have an impact on Kāinga Ora.
These included “material reductions in funding for Kāinga Ora’s build programme, an instruction to stay within a specified debt envelope (which will tightly constrain the amount of construction and retrofit work from FY26 onwards), very significant operating cost reductions baked into Budget 2024 and a requirement for the refreshed board to deliver a ‘turnaround plan’ for financial sustainability by November 2024”.
“Given Government’s commitment to these changes, it seems inevitable that Kāinga Ora is going to become a smaller organisation in both scope and scale of the outcomes it is accountable for,” Moutter wrote.
The Herald asked Bishop about the appropriateness of the pay increase in the context of Moutter’s expectation that the agency would become smaller, and whether the minister believed Kāinga Ora had shrunk.
He responded by saying the increased pay reflected the updated board fee ranges and “the fact that Kāinga Ora board fees had not changed for many years”.
“The previous Kāinga Ora chair fee of $98,000 was set when Kāinga Ora was established in 2019 and was based on the fee previously paid to the Housing New Zealand chair. In practice, those fees had remained largely unchanged since 2015. The chair’s fee now sits within the applicable range of the updated Cabinet fees framework.”
Bishop said Moutter had “led a refreshed Kāinga Ora board tasked with delivering a credible turnaround plan to return the agency to financial sustainability”.
“The board has delivered that plan and Kāinga Ora is now making encouraging progress in improving its financial performance and refocusing on its core role as a social housing provider.”
The agency’s chief people and assurance officer, Tracey Kaio, reiterated that the increases were the minister’s decision in the context of the updated fees ranges.
“While Kāinga Ora has become a more focused organisation through its reset, its financial performance has improved significantly, and it continues to own and manage about 78,000 homes across the country, worth around $46 billion.”
But McAnulty said the pay increase wouldn’t “sit well with Kiwis” in the current context, mentioning reports of increasing homelessness and what he said was Kāinga Ora not delivering on its purpose.
“Then we find out that the board’s getting a pay increase that’s higher than literally every single person that’s in a Kāinga Ora house gets in a year”.
Various community organisations have reported increases in rough sleeping, a matter that received renewed attention this week amid debate over the Government’s target to reduce the number of families living in emergency housing. Ministers, however, have pointed to additional financial assistance announced for support services helping those sleeping rough.
McAnulty said people “should be paid for the work that they do”.
“The purpose of Kāinga Ora is to build houses for those who need them, and they’re not.”
He said any houses being currently built were “just to replace those that they either sell or demolish”.
“The number is not increasing.”
According to the latest Ministry of Housing and Urban Development figures, growth in Kāinga Ora’s social housing stock over the past decade has plateaued since the middle of last year.
As of May 31, Kāinga Ora’s stock sat at 72,798, up 107 since May 2025, or up 5115 since November 2023. When community housing provider stock is included, the total is 88,145, up 1402 over the past year or 7750 since November 2023.
In Moutter’s June letter, he said community housing providers were “being contracted to deliver most of the growth in social housing in the foreseeable future”.
Kāinga Ora’s turnaround plan, intended to address financial issues and focus the agency, sees it maintain current stock numbers. Bishop said last year that it would be involved in around 1900-2000 “construction events” a year, offset by demolitions and sales.
“This means the number of KO social houses will not reduce over time, and existing older or unsuitable housing stock is refreshed.
“Kāinga Ora sales will focus on older properties in high-value areas, with the proceeds going to provide multiple other units in different areas. The sales programme will also focus on houses which are not fit for purpose, where the typology is ill-suited to the particular area, or which are simply uneconomic to maintain or redevelop.”
Moutter is reported as saying at the time that the number of houses would stabilise from 2026 “at around 78,000, unless of course the minister instructs Kāinga Ora to add to our housing stock beyond that date”.
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.