Social Assistance Legislation (Accommodation Supplement and Income-related Rent) Amendment Bill
This bill changes how the government works out housing help payments for people who have boarders living with them. Currently, the government ignores income from the first two boarders when calculating how much housing help someone gets. This bill changes that so all boarders' payments are counted. This means people who take in boarders could get less housing help money, or have their income-related rent go up. The changes take effect from 2 March 2026.
What this affects
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People receiving housing help payments who have boarders living with them will have all boarders' payments counted when working out how much help they get, which could reduce the amount they receive.
ensure that housing contributions received from all boarders are considered when calculating entitlement to and rate of housing subsidies
recognise the housing contributions (62% of payments) of all boarders in a person's accommodation costs when assessing their entitlement to and rate of an accommodation supplement
if the applicable persons receive contributions from additional residents, 62% of the sum of the contributions from the additional residents
Progress through Parliament
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Write to your MPBill text sourced from legislation.govt.nz (Parliamentary Counsel Office). Arapono’s summary and breakdown are drafted with AI grounded in that official text and reviewed by an Arapono editor for accuracy and neutrality before publishing. Arapono is non-partisan and takes no position on this bill.