Taxpayers have spent roughly 6 million dollars over the past decade helping retired politicians and their spouses fly around the country and overseas, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon now says he wants advice on whether the scheme still makes sense.
The figures come from reporting on a travel rebate that has quietly built up over decades. The arrangement is open only to people who entered Parliament before 1999, and it hands them a lifetime entitlement to subsidised travel long after they have left public life. Eligible former members can claim rebates on up to 12 domestic return flights a year, plus one international return airfare each year capped at the value of Air New Zealand’s cheapest business-class return between Auckland and London. The longer someone served, the more generous the rebate becomes. Three terms in Parliament earns a 60 percent subsidy, and five terms pushes it to 90 percent.
According to reporting by The Press, the largest identified beneficiaries are former National cabinet minister Philip Burdon and his wife Rosalind, who have claimed more than 200,000 dollars through the scheme since 2014. Some of those flights have been business-class trips overseas, claimed years and in some cases decades after the recipient left office. The travel rebate cost the public about 1.5 million dollars in 2025, and this year’s Budget set aside a further 1.6 million dollars for it.
That is not the only perk attracting attention. The government has also been spending around 300,000 dollars a year providing Crown limousines to some former prime ministers and their spouses, a service the cars are reportedly often not even used for. Against the backdrop of a cost-of-living squeeze and a fuel crisis that has pushed petrol prices to painful levels, the idea of business-class flights and chauffeured cars for people who left office long ago has proved a hard sell.
Speaking to reporters, Luxon was careful not to commit to scrapping anything. “I’ve asked my office to get more advice on that, because it’s a very complex area that has actually built up over many decades,” he said, as reported by RNZ. The language is cautious, and for good reason. Many of these entitlements are governed by long-standing rules set by the Remuneration Authority rather than by the government of the day, and unwinding a lifetime promise made to people decades ago raises tricky questions about fairness and legal certainty.
The amounts claimed by individual former leaders are, in fact, fairly modest. In the past year Dame Jenny Shipley claimed 3,877 dollars and Helen Clark claimed 2,567 dollars under the travel scheme. The political problem is less about any single claim and more about the principle. At a time when working families are being asked to tighten their belts, a lifetime travel rebate available only to a closed group of pre-1999 politicians looks like a relic from a different era.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has signalled his party is open to change. He said some of the perks were “very, very hard to justify” and that Labour would “have a good look” at fairer and more transparent alternatives. That puts both major parties in roughly the same place, at least in public, which is unusual for an election year. With the general election set for 7 November, neither side wants to be seen defending generous benefits for retired politicians while ordinary households feel squeezed.
There is also a sharper criticism doing the rounds. Some commentators have pointed out that the Prime Minister has directed his office to look at the benefits flowing to former MPs and former prime ministers, but has been noticeably quieter about the entitlements claimed by sitting members. Stuff reported that the focus on retired politicians sidesteps the more awkward question of what current MPs receive. That matters because the entitlements debate flared up partly over present-day allowances, including a minister reportedly receiving around 1,000 dollars a week in accommodation support while staying in an apartment she owns.
For most voters the detail of who claimed what is probably less important than the underlying message. Public trust in politicians is fragile, and perks that look like they belong to an exclusive club do real damage to that trust. The pre-1999 cut-off means the scheme is slowly shrinking on its own as the eligible group ages, but slowly is the operative word. A lifetime entitlement does not lapse until the holder does, which is why claims keep appearing in the accounts year after year.
Whether any of this translates into actual change before the election is far from certain. Asking for advice is not the same as announcing a reform, and the complexity Luxon described is real. Past attempts to trim parliamentary perks have a habit of stalling once the hard work of drafting new rules begins. Still, the political pressure is unlikely to ease while household budgets stay tight, and both main parties have now put themselves on record as wanting a closer look.
If you want to see where the parties stand on this and other issues before you cast your vote, you can compare their positions using our voting tool.
What do you think about lifetime travel perks for retired politicians? Should they be wound back, grandfathered out slowly, or left alone? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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