You’d have to be living under a rock to have missed the Labour Party’s change of power this week as Leader Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation and Chris Hipkins was appointed as Prime Minister with Carmel Sepuloni as Deputy. There’s been enough chatter about her reasons, with some celebrating and others commiserating, but the fact is a very interesting election year lies ahead.
The National Party also saw a shuffling of roles, with Chris Bishop fronting the RMA reform, Judith Collins as Minister for Land Information, newly elected Tama Potaka will look after Māori Development and Associate Housing (social housing) while former Leader Todd Muller picked up the Climate Change portfolio. Read more about the changes here – we await the full Labour Party portfolio reshuffle in the coming week.
As always, Property Council remains open to working with all parties and I see our role as one of education, as we bring politicians up to speed and give them a crash course in ‘Property Development 101’.
As the calendar year ramps up, our membership year winds down, with membership renewals due on 1 April 2023. Despite rampant inflation, Property Council’s National Board has chosen to keep fee increases to a minimum, with only a marginal increase of 2-3% depending on the category.
We appreciate this may be a tighter year for many and look forward to continuing to add value to our members.
Finally, I’d like to take a moment to congratulate Logan Rainey, one of our dedicated Advocacy Advisors, who recently achieved an A+ result in his dissertation on Build to Rent as part of his Master’s in Public Policy. This is a tremendous achievement given Logan has completed his study whilst also working for Property Council – Congratulations Logan!
Ngā mihi nui.
