Buy your furniture or we'll sell it, Crown tells ministers

Cabinet ministers are being told to buy the furniture and other chattels in their ministerial houses or face them being sold as the Crown terminates their leases and moves out of the property business.

The new bulk-funded accommodation allowance for ministers takes effect from this month, after an overhaul of the housing system ordered by Prime Minister John Key.

Under the changes, all ministers from electorates outside Wellington, except the six in Crown-owned homes, will receive lump sums of $37,500 a year, or $30,000 if they live in their own properties.

But they will now have to organise their own accommodation, pay their own utility bills, and sign leases in their own names, details released yesterday under the Official Information Act show.

An Internal Affairs Department report says a list of all the chattels in each official ministerial home is being compiled, and some items will be taken and installed in Crown-owned residences.

The remainder will be valued and either offered to ministers staying in the houses or auctioned.

Ministers will also have to get used to not having any staff to change lightbulbs or organise a plumber. They will have to insure their own goods and organise their own cleaning.

Internal Affairs estimates that scrapping the administration and maintenance of ministerial residences will save $206,000 a year.

Prime Minister John Key remains at Premier House and five other ministers – Gerry Brownlee, Tariana Turia, Simon Power, Nick Smith and Tony Ryall – can also stay in their Crown-owned homes.

But other ministers' leases begin to expire from this month, after which they must transfer leases into their own names – or move out.

The first to shift is Transport Minister Steven Joyce, who will leave the cottage in the grounds of Premier House in January and move on to the $37,500 allowance.

Premier Cottage will no longer be used as an official residence and its future is under consideration.

At least one other ministerial home is to be sold, the report says, after Vogel House is returned to the pool of ministerial houses.

Vogel House is usually occupied by the deputy prime minister but Governor-General Anand Satyanand has been living there during Government House renovations.

The Government may yet sell the rest of its ministerial houses, except Premier House, after a review next year. The moves follow controversy over ministers claiming up to $1000 a week on housing while preaching restraint to the public service.

- © Fairfax NZ News