A new analysis of federal politicians’ register of interests shows that many MPs and senators own multiple properties in addition to their primary residence.
The nation’s 151 MPs and 76 senators collectively own 237 houses or apartments, including their primary and Canberra residences; they have also declared interests in 210 other properties including holiday homes, investment properties and agricultural land.
Some 38 of the nation’s elected representatives own residential properties in Canberra or Queanbeyan; they are entitled to claim a travel allowance of $299 a night for parliamentary business for these properties, even if they do not stay in there while parliament is sitting:
Among the biggest property owners in parliament are:
- The shadow home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, who owns her residence in Clear Island Waters (Queensland) and six investment properties.
- The leader of the house, Tony Burke, who has residences in Punchbowl (New South Wales) and Belconnen (ACT) and four investment properties.
- The Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost, who owns her residence in Cumberland Park (South Australia) and four investment properties.
- The Nationals MP Andrew Willcox, who owns his residence in Bowen and five investment properties in Brisbane and Townsville…
Some of parliament’s new faces are among its biggest property owners. The independent MP Sophie Scamps declared a family home in Avalon beach, farm in Wee Jasper and three investment properties.
The Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah declared four properties as “residential/investment … joint holding with spouse”.
The Coalition MPs Gavin Pearce, Nola Marino and Colin Boyce declared interests in five or more properties each, although several of these were leases on agricultural land…
Greens party-mates Nick McKim, Mehreen Faruqi and Elizabeth Watson-Brown were among those to declare ownership of multiple properties in addition to their primary residences.
If you have ever wondered why Australia’s politicians never implement genuine policies to improve housing affordability, you only need to follow the money.
Genuinely improving housing affordability necessarily means that dwelling prices must fall. But with the majority of Australian households being homeowners, any decline in home values also means a reduction in value of their biggest source of wealth.
Our politicians’ high degree of property ownership acts as a second strong disincentive to implementing fundamental reforms to fix Australia’s housing affordability issues.
Having so much ‘skin in the game’ obviously makes enacting genuine housing reforms more difficult.
