As renters face astronomical rent rises and mortgage repayments balloon under creeping interest rates, the political debate on the housing crisis rages on.
Drawing on the rich resource that is Crikey’s Landlord List, here’s what some politicians who own multiple properties, per their parliamentary disclosures, have had to say about housing.
Liberal MP Karen Andrews (seven properties)
So housing on the Gold Coast is extraordinarily difficult at the moment. Prices skyrocketed and they started to do that during COVID. And some would say that really caused the change here on the coast when people from the southern states chose to buy site unseen and move up to the Gold Coast … So I’m looking for solutions to provide affordable, reasonable housing for individuals and families here on the coast.
Doorstop, April 4 2023
Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill (five properties)
Yesterday I met with mayor of Murrumbidgee Ruth McRae OAM and councillor John Scarce to discuss the need for affordable housing in the electorate of Farrer.
Facebook, June 14 2023
Independent Sophie Scamps (five properties)
Australians are facing a crisis in housing affordability & availability. It’s a complex and divisive issue and the debate about what to do has stalled time and again — all the while the problem gets worse.
Twitter, June 10 2023
Liberal MP Dan Tehan (seven properties)
More than 100,000 asylum seekers, including more than 73,000 who have had their claim rejected, are living in the community adding further to the housing crisis under Labor, and their cuts in the budget show they are not serious about addressing this issue.
The Australian, May 16 2023
Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah (seven properties)
On housing, when we have tonight 122,000 people sleeping rough, 80% of those are women — where women go, children follow. One in seven of those people are 12 years or less. They are children. They are babies. And [the Greens] are standing in the way … because they want policy nirvana rather than pragmatism.
Q+A, May 22 2023
Liberal MP Nola Marino (eight properties)
Member for Forrest [in WA] Nola Marino said today South West young people at risk of homelessness would receive greater support through increased government funding …
‘Reconnect provides support and assistance to young people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless,’ Mrs Marino said.
Media release, undated
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi (three properties)
Australia is in the middle of a rental and housing crisis. People renting a home and people buying a home are spending record amounts of their income to put a roof over their head. Too many renters across Australia are staring down the barrel of another rental increase that will push them into homelessness. In a country as wealthy as ours, rising rates of homelessness are a national disgrace. Meanwhile skyrocketing house prices have put buying a home forever out of reach for countless everyday families.
The housing crisis is the result of generous tax breaks for property investors, lending policies that have burdened families with record levels of debt and handed billions in profit to the big banks, the retreat of governments at all levels from providing public housing, and absolutely no protections for renters. This has turned a basic human right into an instrument for financial speculation that is enriching the already wealthy.
Speech, June 19 2023
Labor MP Tony Burke (six properties)
I guess Greens Party MP Max Chandler-Mather discovered this week — if you’ve got something to hide, probably best you don’t put it on your webpage. He asked the PM a question about building more affordable housing. The PM went straight to Max’s local campaigns: ‘The member has never seen a housing development that he wants to support, because if you look at the member’s website it currently hosts at least three separate petitions against housing supply!’
Email to subscribers, June 2023
The obvious conflict of interests in addressing negative gearing, capital tax discounts, and the appallingly pathetic social housing “solution”, should have them all prohibited from voting on the topic. Labor, of which was a supporter, once again display their utter gutlessness in the face of pressure from vested interests. I know I am not alone in my disappointment, Anthony. Beware the next election.
How about a quote from Greens housing spokesperson, MCM (zero properties)
It is a little simplistic to bag someone because they own multiple properties. What are the rents on these properties? What are the views of the tenants? Is the offending politician campaigning to abolish franking credits, negative gearing and all the other perks? Are they using the property for short-stay rent maximization at the expense of regular tenants? (If so, I will happily volunteer to be on the firing squad).
6-7 properties is still a lot to own and presumably built with negative gearing and tax concessions that arent available to first home buyers.
Agree. I’m thinking more of the 2-3 property level.
It’s really the system that’s to blame, not individuals who benefit from it. That said, it’s hard to favour dismantling a system you benefit from yourself.
True. Hypocrisy is not a crime nor even a moral failing. But not revealing one’s personal interests in an issue when making a policy statement as an MP leaves them vulnerable to criticism that will stick.
You nailed the reply there.
The comment by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi seems almost like a full frontal attack on the whole stinking tax-system-to-make-landlords-rich-at-renters’-expense, but she owns three properties; THREE! Obviously didn’t intend for that information to get out into the public sphere. And Dan 7-houses Tehan? Blaming it all on the more than 100,000 plane-travelling fake asylum seekers that started pouring in long, long before the last election, thanks to Dum-Dum-Dutton who did SFA about it while torturing people trapped in the ‘Pacific solution’. And slumlord Tony no-shame Burke with SIX places; he just turns it all into a political point-scoring rant.
Let’s hope it does stick, Keith.
It is listed in her register of interests, ergo it’s public
Well it’s in her public interests register, so she’s hardly trying to hide it (unlike, say, Bob Katter).
Her three properties are joint owned with her husband. One residence in Beaconsfield, two investment (Beaconsfield and Port Macquarie.
For someone who has spent most of their adult life on a relatively high income (quick search didn’t turn anything up on the husband, but given the cultural background he’s unlikely to be any less financially secure), especially starting in the 1990s before property prices went nuts in the early 2000s, this doesn’t seem unreasonable. The two investment properties are almost certainly previous primary residences that became investments when they relocated (she started in politics in Port Macquarie).
My guess is that very few people read the public interests register. The sheer scale of some of these portfolios indicates that there is a serious conflict of interest – far from the voters’ awareness – in all the parties which evince no desire or will to do anything about the tax benefits for investors or speculators on property. I appreciate your conjectures regarding Mehreen Faruqi, but I’d be surprised if she hasn’t benefited from some of the lurks she condemns in her second paragraph. As the pollies – conflicted as they are – might say in private, ‘you’d be a mug if you didn’t’.
Sure, but it’s like coming back to someone arguing for higher tax rates “but you’ve benefitted from lower ones in the past” as if that’s somehow meaningful about anything.
The system is the political fix these people benefit from because they are too gutless to cancel negative gearing.
It was the voters who rejected Shortens policy to reduce negative gearing benefits and other measures to address housing affordability.
I can’t understand the difficulties that our governments seem to have with solving the housing shortage. I mean, does the phrase: “build more housing” contain concepts too difficult for our elected officials to understand?
While I am an ALP voter (mostly) I can’t understand how the federal Labor government response to the housing shortage is to invest billions of dollars in the stock market. How can these people miss the obvious? Have they secretly sold out of housing and bought into the share market?
It’s so frustrating when our governments seemingly deliberately ignore the obvious and clearly correct answer and set out on a course of action roughly at 90 degrees to this.
Building more houses is pointless whilst we have a system which encourages people to buy multiple houses.
It means we don’t just need one house per person but multiple, and that’s impossible. It’s why Australia’s tiny population that his less than half the UK’s has produced some of the most expensive housing on the planet.
The Australian Dream of Owning Multiple Investment Properties is not conducive with the Australian Dream of Owning A Home.
We need to deal with the former including by tightening up negative gearing, lending requirements, tenants’ rights and, yes, freezing rents which has the additional benefit of forcing some investors to sell.
Obvious IMO is need for significant grants to state/local government for more social housing, plus relaxed zoning and understanding mixed housing needs?
Presume many middle aged house owners & investors do not want more supply if it impacts house prices negatively e.g. return to value i.e. lower prices?
What is often missed, is the housing types, not everyone wants or needs a detached house vs. units, apartments, regional, micro, etc..
In the case of undefined ‘immigrants’ i.e. mostly temporary churn over under the NOM of students and backpackers has been catered to, but probably crimped due to Covid, by significant homestays (paying off mortgages), hostels (till more permanent accommodation found), purpose built student accommodation on/off campus (clogged up during Covid border closures), apartments (esp. in city often private & not advertised publicly), house shares etc.
There seems to be a dearth of meaningful data on housing type demand and supply versus guesswork from headline data; more suggestive of FIRE agitprop and spruiking the market?
We don’t need more housing. We already have enough houses for everyone and some left over. What we have is a housing distribution problem where some people are sitting on multiple houses while others are sitting on the street.
If we are bringing in 400,000 migrants every year then we’re going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Our underfunded education system is groaning, our health system has all but collapsed, our transport systems are in ruins… but let’s just accelerate immigration…
Oh sorry… that’s taboo.. and then you’ll pull the racism card.
I don’t think I want to live in a country that drove its native flora and fauna to extinction in the drive to spread humans over the whole of the country.
As you’ve said we have a distribution problem so we should be able to handle more people.
You’re not racist for raising concerns about immigration. You’re just jumping onto a bandwagon. I presume you don’t worry about bars or cinemas or trains being overpopulated just entire countries, continents and planets.
The fact is you don’t know what the carrying capacity of this vast land is. You’re guessing we’ve reached capacity because you’re reaching for simplistic solutions.
And I’m not sure why you value flora and fauna over humans given you are one. Presumably you’re not objecting to your own existence just other people’s.
Your concerns will likely be addressed anyway by the farcical cost of housing here. Nobody in their right mind would move to the most expensive country on the planet for housing so I doubt we’ll hit the 400,000 or whatever. What’s more likely is we’ll experience a brain drain as people leave and others refuse to come here leaving boomers in their mansions and no healthcare.
Good onya Karen – but on the brighter side that Gold Coast real estate boom sure plumps up the values of your multi-property portfolio?
…. Did her protest at the routing of the light rail, past one of her investment properties, work?