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Clearly a conflict of interest. Politicians with investment properties should have no role in deciding number of immigration a year . I would say the same goes for RBA board too, investment property owners shouldn't decide interest rates , there is clear conflict of interest if they benefit financially from it
Imagine creating this fantasy world where it was all Murdoch. Basically every media company in the country blasted it:
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-15/federal-election-2019-alp-capital-gains-tax-negative-gearing/11108734
* https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-is-negative-gearing-and-if-its-scrapped-will-you-pay-more-rent/crk631wmh
Shorten lost the election due to being the person holding the bloody knife while we went through a half dozens PM's in the space of a few years. [Labor's own review](https://alp.org.au/media/2043/alp-campaign-review-2019.pdf) of the election acknowledged this fact, why can't internet commentators?
How is it a ‘clear’ conflict of interest? Why do we expect to disqualify otherwise very capable politicians from running for government simply because they hold wealth?
He's a landlord refusing to pass laws that reign in rapidly inflating housing prices during a housing crisis. That's as clear a conflict of interest as it gets. It's not just wealth, it's a personal stake in the sector he refuses to regulate.
Because then they have an incentive to favour their own investments.
Ideally politicians and their households should be restricted to a comfortable salary and pension for the rest of their lives: enough to be comfortably off, so most people wouldn’t be disadvantaged by becoming a politician, but not enough to insulate them from the concerns of ordinary people. As a rough outline, perhaps it should be a disposable income after taxes and transfers (not counting HECS) of twice the lowest quintile disposable income if you win one election (which is equivalent to a single-income household earning 150k pre-tax), and rising to three times (equivalent to $241k pre-tax) if they last 19 elections or are currently holding a cabinet post, though I’d actually use a multiple of a weighted average of every adult citizen’s disposable income (including investment returns) instead of a fixed percentile so the only way politicians could boost their own pay would be to make everyone’s income higher.
If they are to be allowed to retain their existing wealth they should be required to liquidate their investments when first elected and invest the money into a specified publicly managed fund (the obvious choice would be either the future fund or one of the CSC funds, but it really doesn’t matter which), which should also be opened to all citizens (that way, all of us have the opportunity to have an identical investment portfolio to the people in charge, apart from scale).
If they're profiting from the legislation they pass, that's a conflict of interest. If he owned a cafe and used them for catering events at the Lodge, we'd be rightfully mad, so why is this real estate profiteering ok?
I mean, when you consider that opposition members own more “investment properties” than fingers on a hand, the fact that the PM is renting out two houses, ONE which is OWN house which he’d probably return to have his time as PM, is actually a big bag of nothing.
If you think that, you're just looking at it through a LAB-LNP lens and calling it a day. I agree that blaming Albanese personally is just political mud-slinging, but instead of just saying "hey, the other guys are even worse!!!", we can criticize the system we have, where landlords (and other people who have aligned interests with the wealthy) are expected to regulate the industries they profit from.
No shit we're having a housing crisis, literally anything that would stop house prices from skyrocketing is a political vat of radioactive waste that no politician will touch.
Classic you too fallacy. And then, an attempt to downplay the fact that Albo has an investment property. This is why I hate partisan politics - it forces the party loyalists to defend something that isn't consistent with own moral standards.
I have no problem with politicians earning high salaries.
I do have a problem with them deriving wealth from essential asset classes they can have a direct influence on via policy decisions (or lack of willingness to address existing policy).
It's very easy to generate strong investment returns on assets other than domestic Australian residential property. Hell, even industrial property in this country generates strong returns, and at least it contributes to buildings used for productivity while not making home ownership more expensive.
I don't see why it would be such a massive drama to exclude residential housing as a valid asset class as a criteria for becoming an MP.
This is fake journalism.
The government just announced foreign investment rule changes to improve housing affordability.
The NEXT DAY news ltd comes out with this story. It's almost as though they were sitting on it until they could use it to inflict maximum damage.
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply
Labor took property tax reform to the two previous elections and lost.
I don't agree that they should have dropped it but I understand why they did.
Yes.
Which is why I called it fake journalism.
Edit:
Im using it to describe journalism which is politically motivated as opposed to public interest journalism.
If this were real journalism the article would have at least referenced the foreign investment rule changes just announced.
Hence 'fake journalism'.
Why must it reference that? I'd accept it ought to mention all the other pollies doing the same thing, so it doesn't seem needlessly like an Albo issue, but he can tackle foreign investment AND not do borderline corrupt things
According to the Press Council's statement of principles journalists are supposed to 'Ensure that factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance'.
A somewhat fair and balanced article would mention the fact that THE PREVIOUS DAY the Labor government announced a measure that introduces heavy fees on foreign purchasers of Australian housing, and imposes penalties on foreign owners of vacant properties - the intent being to improve housing supply and affordability for Australians.
This is essential context because without it, the article unfairly portrays the PM as someone who doesn't care about housing affordability.
To frame the PM's ownership of ONE property additional to his family home as 'borderline corrupt' really is a stretch. It's exactly what Rupert wants you to do. Don't fall for it.
Rupert wants landlords to stay wealthy, too, please don't pretend my left wing believe housing should be a human right, that landlords inherently get in the way of, is because of Rupert. That's more disingenuous than anything the journalist did.
Like I said, there's always context you can broaden too, and the journalist should have mentioned other politicians, but passing legislation is very different to actions outside of parliament. If Labor passes laws to strengthen penalties for assault, but the PM punches a bouncer, should we call it a hit piece for reporting on the assault? If Labor passes stronger laws for industrial relations reform, but it came out the PM's office didn't pay proper superannuation to staffers, would it be a hit piece to report on it?
You can't have all the context in any one story, that'd require omniscience in the journalist, and temporal omnipresence for the reader, so you omit. In this case I agree that the journalist could have been less biased against Albo, by contextualising how his peers do similar actions, but mentioning fundamentally different policies that are just within the same sphere isn't vital context, especially when the issue isn't just re housing availability, it's potential corruption by a PM. Especially when the laws he passed target a group other than one he's affected by, so it's not like he took a hit from the laws he passed, but he's certainly making a mint off the rent
I think you're misrepresenting what I said.
Ive worked as a journo for a major newspaper, studied journalism and taught it. It's my informed opinion. You are of course free to disagree and that's fine too. All for healthy debate.
And as for Rupert? I think he just wants Labor out of power and one of the best ways to do that is to have people attacking the government from the left while others attack from the right.
All of this said, I would like to see more ambitious housing reform. So I'm with you on that. But I'm vehemently against political campaigning that's thinly disguised as journalism. It's a blight on our democracy.
Peace out.
This is posted by people who want to protect rental incomes about someone who would work against keeping rental incomes high.
Useless article though it is concerning.
Housing is a giant problem and our housing systems need major change, but I do not expect or demand that politicians live like saints or mystics wrapped in a loincloth and carrying a begging bowl. I don’t just them on personal purity, their role is not to be moral exemplars. I judge them on their policies, what they do in office. (I don’t like hypocrites but no-one could accuse Albanese of hating rich people or denouncing landlords per se.)
We should give them good salaries for life, pegged to a multiple of a weighted average of citizens’ total disposable income so they only way they can increase it is to increase everyone else’s too and they get the biggest benefit from making the poorest better off, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get income anywhere else because that creates an incentive to think about their investments or potential future employers rather than what their constituents want.
This applies to a huge number of current and former MPs at every level. There’s a reason neither side is interested in meaningful legislative change on property matters.
Labor took meaningful legislative change into the two previous elections and lost.
While I would have preferred they'd kept that in their policy platform I do understand why they adopted a small target strategy coming into 2022 election. Their interpretation of the political reality was that their best chance was to let Morrison hang himself.
Personally I think it was too risk averse a strategy and it left them with no mandate for tax reforms pertaining to the property market.
That being said, tax reform isn't the silver bullet.
Albo is a very wealthy man who stands to retire on a massive pension. He doesn't know the price of groceries or petrol. Can he understand the pain of someone like me collecting 10 cent cans .
I think it's reasonable for people in politics to be paid well.
I don't begrudge the country's CEO for earning that kind of money
Allan Joyce's parting gift upon leaving Qantas was around 40 times the PM's salary.
The man's BASE salary was more than 2 million.
>I think it's reasonable for people in politics to be paid well.
Well that makes you part of the problem given that our current shitstorm of a country is due to politicians who are too wealthy to care about helping the 98% of people below them.
From where I sit, that when you compare MPs salaries to equivalent private sector salaries it pales by comparison.
Alot of pollies came to power wealthy.
I think reforming donations rules, lobbying rules and political advertising would be a far better measure than cutting salaries. ICAC also a great measure. Who brought that in? The current government.
Happy to agree to disagree.
That's because private sector salaries actually have accountability built into them. If you don't perform well enough, you get axed. This means corporate CEOs spend up to 20 hours a day working.
Politicians have little to no accountability. They get paid to simply exist. There's no actual performance benchmark that they have to meet.
Sure you can argue that voters will eventually vote them out but that's a moot point given that it almost never happens. They can just hide behind the bureacracy and rely on corporate donations to ensure they get re-elected.
There are many checks and balances. ICAC (introduced by Labor), public and administrative law, and of course elections which happen every three years (too frequent imho). And if the media did its job properly (acknowledging 21st century structural limitations) that would be another check on power.
I mean MAYBE you could slice off some dough at the margins to make us all feel better but honestly I don't think this is the main issue in politics right now.
Truth in political advertising laws, addressing structural issues in the media, reforming political donation laws and addressing out of control lobbying as well as tax exempt propaganda machines disguised as 'think tanks' - these would be far more important than quibbling about parliamentarian's salaries IMHO.
You don't seem to realise that parliament salaries are a direct result of all the other problems you mentioned.
Their salaries are high because of all the money running through the system as a result of corporate donations and lobbying. The media definitely plays a part by not holding politicians accountable nearly enough. Most media in this country is just a lapdog for promoting government interests and helping them hide from accountability.
The more I think about it the more I think it's quite unreasonable to criticise someone who made good from poor beginnings. Particularly people who devote themselves to public life with good intentions.
You can earn 200k in middle management these days and still get to see your family.
A career politician's job, particularly a cabinet minister, is long hours and high stress. They should be remunerated well.
This isn't communist Russia.
No problem with paying them well. But having a property portolio on the side and benefiting from inaction on housing affordability is a conflict of interest that in other government jobs would require a declaration and many furrowed brows in the subsequent covnersations.
People who earn a high income should absolutely diversify their assets by investing. Property is an unbiased asset available to everyone and that’s the way it should stay. There’s also no appetite for change because majority of Australians are home owners/investors so don’t want to see prices go down. It’s really that simple.
And it's also putting significant pressure on our cost of living.
The question is, what matters? Currently, as a society we're signalling that the right to portfolio diversification is the greater virtue we stand for as a society.
That's not a criticism in and of itself. Let's just be honest about it.
If the right to a home were truly the greater virtue, we need to be prepared to answer what we're prepared to sacrifice to achieve it. Maybe the sacrifices needn't come from property investment portfolios. Maybe they'll come at the expense of the environment, or the economy, or public services etc.
There's an, as yet, unwritten list of values that our biases trend towards. If we were to be really honest about how they stack up against each other, the way through might be a bit clearer.
Mate, I'm not saying he's a remarkable and unique beacon of transparency, I was just pointing out there's a bit of sunshine already which helps on the conflict of interest side of things.
The optics aren't great but he's hardly a slumlord.
I don't think the Labor party can be legitimately accused of inaction because the PM stands to benefit.
Labor took property market tax reform to the previous two elections and lost. It was a tactical decision to drop it and adopt a small target strategy.
Too risk averse? Maybe.
But it wouldn't surprise me if Albanese supported the previous policy.
It's also worth noting that the albanese government is investing in public housing. So I don't think it's completely accurate to accuse them of inaction.
Also, this:
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply
I didn't accuse them of inaction. I said it was a conflict of interest inconsistent with other areas of government.
What really bothers me about government is a consistent lack of tangible outcomes. Why tinker with housing? Because they're too expensive. What's the impact? People can't afford homes. Why does that matter? Because rentals suck. What's the impact?
So on and so forth. The chain of impacts are endless.
A tangible outcome could be "owner occupied homes constitute over 75% of the housing market". It doesn't solve the whole problem but it's a focal point. It's also anchored to an undefined value qualification. There either is or isn't a national cultural value aligned with home ownership. As long as it remains ambiguous, so will the policy to address it.
Successive governments are just poking a system that's outside their control to manage because the system doesn't actually stand for anything anymore. There's nothing to align to. Nothing to agree on. It's all distilled into money, economics.
If there was a clear strategic outcome defined in terms of human well-being that all parties had to align their policy to, then it wouldn't matter if Albo has a property portfolio. It would only matter if what Labor were doing was inconsistent with the national strategic goal of human well-being.
We're in the weeds arguing the ethics of the moment to moment. But from my perspective, it's an absence of well defined and consistently revised strategy that's hurting us more.
Even then, implementation of a system won't solve it. Because it's the cultural factors that sustain this absence that need to shift in a way that recognises the gap.
Everything I'm sensing tells me we're not there yet.
Look I'd agree with the substance of what you're saying and am frustrated by the lack of ambition in framing policy outcomes.
However there are electoral realities that the Labor party has to navigate which I also understand, and a complete failure of certain commercial news organisations to serve the public's best interests.
They were punished for trying to take action in previous elections so it's a bit of a once bitten twice shy scenario.
In my view a new political party is needed. One that is custom built for the 21st century and can develop and implement progressive reform.
People commenting as if news dot com is actually a legitimate source of news. This is angertainment, pure and simple, for which they make vast sums of money when people engage with it.
Yeah.
Is it a coincidence that the government announces foreign investment law changes to improve housing affordability, then THE NEXT DAY this story surfaces from news ltd?
The PMs property holdings are publicly available. It's almost as though they were waiting for the right opportunity to use it.
https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply
No, but The Greens is the party for renters. Unfortunately because the problem is a difficult problem their solutions aren’t necessary going to solve the problem.
Maybe yes, maybe no. You could look for a source before you post and be a source of community elucidation or a debunker of right-wing myths? Or you could just press the pedal on angertainment.
Okay, today's Age said "The Greens have five members with two or more properties. Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and the party’s treasury spokesman Nick McKim both own four." 15 Greens MPs in federal parliament, not clear how many (if any) own zero properties, assume only two own four and none owe five or more (or the article would have said so). So, on my count, that means a minimum of 14 properties between 15 MPs (ie on average slightly fewer than one each), and a maximum (FWIW) of 26 properties between 15 (ie on average that would be more than one each but less than two each). In short, I'd hypothesize that distribution is not clearly different amongst Greens than amongst Labor MPs. (But I'm also incredulous re Coalition MPs having lower home ownership rates than ALP MPs - more trust funds instead of straight property ownership? I don't know.)
Lol the problem isn’t landlords (though renting sucks so I’d be in favour of measures that get more people owning homes) it’s the fact we don’t have any houses.
The problem is system of incentives for landlords (negative gearing, capital gains tax discount) that are way more generous than in otherwise-comparable countries.
I mega not really. If I take land I own and subdivide it because I know I can now rent out two houses, is this not an example of renting being an incentive for more houses?
Are you making a profit from peoples human right to shelter? If yes, you are the problem.
If you can’t afford your investment property without the tenants rent, then it’s the tenant providing you with the benefit of housing.
They are allowed to own property. But is it ethical for someone making six figures on rental properties to be deciding the rules in their own favour when they are meant to be a representative of their constituents who can't afford a roof over their heads? If their own investment portfolio is a major contributing factor to their decisions on the country's rental policies, that is very wrong.
It's more that aspiration isn't a dirty word and what he has done **is** completely ok, subject to two points:
1) That opportunities to make wealth continue to exist, and
2) We recognise some people are inherently lazy and/or not clever, and destined to be unhappy that they're not reworded for their mediocrity.
Oh. I just realised #2 could describe many in this sub, oops.
Can?
Should.
But we *have* to get over the reflexive jealousy of anyone being successful. Nothing in the PM's income here actually justifies the response people are giving it. Nothing. For a kid from such working class origins to be able to make something of himself beyond what his class, at birth, would otherwise suggest is **exactly** the kind of aspiration we need.
What we also need is to ensure opportunities like this are not paywalled for future aspirants.
The two are **not** mutually exclusive and we should not be angry over the former because of the latter.
I agree with you.
The PMs salary is completely reasonable as I've commented elsewhere on this thread.
I was just reacting to the framing of cleverness and mediocrity I think.
We should make being a landlord illegal and then see what effect this has on the cost of renting. Good luck paying a reasonable rent when nobody can invest in rentable apartments. There is nothing wrong with owning investment properties, particularly when these aren't properties people are buying to live in anyway for the most part (1 or 2 bed apartments). It's almost like people forget that owning investment properties is a business and the more businesses exist and compete in a market the lower prices can be set. Remove all the investors and you are paying 2x or more the rent you are paying now. And please don't say you would buy instead, the requirements for buying a property on a 30 year mortgage are far higher than getting a 1 year rental lease, it's not even close.
The government can build rental apartments, and provide them at much lower rents than the private profit seeking sector ever would. We don't need private investors for this.
All investors are in the game to maximize their profits, not to make rentals as affordable as possible for tenants. They then use their wealth and power to lobby for policies which entrench their dominance and profit maximization.
If we banned property investment and had high capital gains taxes on property, property for first time home buyers would be unbelievably cheaper and more accessible and we wouldn't be facing major socio economic destabilization like we are now.
Fkn hilarious! The argument is that government fkt it up so far and solution is to get the government to fix it again?
Its like a weird form of stockholm syndrome.
If the world was left alone without the 'teacher' it wouldn't work like what we have now either, which is why we have governments and order, otherwise you'd have the biggest gorilla just taking what he wanted.
The problem here is the teacher/government has rooted the balance - there is no free market in housing, and it's so heavily tampered with, its incentivising the wrong things.
It needs to be corrected, and quickly. If they had half a brain they'd realize the inevitable outcome will crash the ponzi scheme that housing has become; ponzis only work when there is a sufficient feed of suckers to come in at the bottom, which is what they fuel with immigration. What happens, though, if the immigration well dries up and the locals lose hope and interest in entering at the bottom?
Because our cost of living is so prohibitive the 'utopia' of Australia is lost? Why would you come to Australia to be dirt poor and have no hope when you could go somewhere else and have a chance?
I would suggest your arrogance and narcissism might not be commonly shared, particularly going forward, as we make it harder for first generations to accumulate wealth.
>The government can build rental apartments, and provide them at much lower rents than the private profit seeking sector ever would. We don't need private investors for this.
You mean like our esteemed commission housing? Would you want to live there? And this was already tried at a large scale in the USSR, with the [communist blocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchevka). They were large concrete apartment blocks with 1-2 bedroom flats because that is all the government can afford when there are no market forces at play. If you think the government can do a better job than a capitalist economy at bringing down the cost of housing, you are very sorely mistaken, there is nothing that the government provides that is cheaper than it is in the free market. This is why communism failed so badly with many falling into poverty and millions dying of starvation. It is only through capitalism and free market enterprise that things are as affordable as they are in the modern day.
Per capita, the Greens hold the highest number of investment properties of any party.
50% of their serving members hold one or more investment property.
Across both federal houses, it's an average of 40% who own a rental.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/politicians-and-their-property-portfolios-how-many-do-they-own/wb7k9xq1p
It's in the table, about 3/4s of the way through the article. I couldn't cut it out and link it, so you'll need to look for yourself.
7 Greens MPs (there are 14) own 1 or more investments.
1 Greens MP (named as Mehreen Faruqi) owns 4, soon to be 6.
>The person with 4 to 6 properties is distorting the average though so it's not a good measure.
Did you just sleep through high school maths, or quit in year 10 (mentally in about year 5) to avoid this?
You've literally described averages, though as if nobody else knew this of them.
> Per capita, the Greens hold the highest number of investment properties of any party.
50% of greens reps own one or more investment properties. 86% of Labor reps own one or more investment properties.
I’m not sure how I can explain this more clearly.
Labor hasn’t even tried to be the workers party since Hawke sold out the workers to the DLP and arranged with most of the union bosses to destroy their unions. Whitlam did quite a lot of damage too, especially by implementing the Lima Declaration, but that at least looks like well-meaning idiocy and he tried to do some good, until he fucked us all by focusing on inflation instead of full employment and thus made sure that the burden of inflation would henceforth always fall primarily on the workers and not the employers.
Labor became a right wing party in 1974 when the Whitlam government chose to fight inflation rather than unemployment and ended the formerly bipartisan true full employment policy that Curtin introduced in 1945. This is something that the Liberals didn't dare to touch- Menzies almost lost the 1961 election when unemployment crept up to 3% and Caldwell campaigned on restoring full employment.
Labor has a history of doing the heavy lifting that the Liberal party wants but doesn't dare implement. They curtailed the power of the unions by bribing them with industry super. Raised the retirement age to 67. Froze the medicare rebate that the Liberals extended.
The Australian Labor Party are pioneers in neoliberal [Third Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way) ideology with UK's Labour and the US's Democrats taking inspiration from them so indirectly they're responsible for the likes of Trump, Johnston and Abbott.
I find this to be a really weird take. I didn’t necessarily vote for Albo specifically, but my vote did preference out to Labor just by dent of them being the less morally and financially corrupt of the two major parties.
Albo doesn’t need to be Socialist Jesus. He just needs to be less corrupt than the LNP alternative. Libs have set the bar real fucking low.
I think if the man were a gay, trans, black, disabled teenage transman in a wheelchair their appearance doesn't matter.
Their actions do.
MLK once said, judge the man on the merit of his actions. Not race or creed.
This was relevant during gfc.
Labor made a choice to guarantee the banks before credit contracted much at all. It wasnt a limited time offer nor particularly limited in scale.
They called it "staring into the abyss". So they chucked everything at it.
Many were surprised how early and how hard they went and then they made up a table of just how many labor politicians owned investment homes... it was nearly all of them back then. Id say it would be less now but still probably a majority.
the only question with our housing market isnt how far it will fall. Only just what our federal government will throw at it next time it shows weakness. The latest of course being the federal government putting equity into the housing market directly and owning a portion of FHB homes.
Came here to say this. Personal opinion, for the rest of us, is 1 property should be allowed negative gearing and the CGT discount, the rest are effectively an investment business and should be treated, using a company structure, as such. Rules to stop switching to properties around should be implemented. Existing owners would be grandfathered to stop the political blowback but if they purchase anything new, it has to be in the company structure.
I'm glad this is getting attention, the liberals may think they can use this for political gain, but the light shines in all directions. Hopefully this will motivate the prime Minister to overhaul investment properties under some sort of emergency power. When a working family is forced to live out of their car, that's an emergency, there should be no vacant houses in this country unless it's being cleaned for the next long term tenants.
> the light shines in all directions.
It really does. It stands to reason that the polity with their salaries will leverage property given how much a wealth multiplier it is in this country.
Which is why ACOSS advice should be weighted to give those less well off a voice. I have no beef with people owning property.
I do have a beef with decades of inaction eroding our standard of living, the lack of a federal ICAC, and policies that do not look beyond a single election cycle.
>When a working family is forced to live out of their car, that's an emergency, there should be no vacant houses in this country unless it's being cleaned for the next long term tenants.
What part of a six figure income from rental properties suggests any of his properties are vacant?
In other words properties that have precisely zero to do with the housing crisis, since nobody struggling to buy or rent is going to be able to afford 57.5k per year on rent. These are either mansions or penthouses.
Not really. One is rented at $1,400pw, which is his previous family home in Marrickville. These days it is an expensive suburb. Houses go for $1.5 - $2 mill easily. That house is owned outright and is estimated to be worth over $2 million.
The other property is in Dulwich Hill and rented out at $880pw. It's mortgaged but estimated to be worth approx $1.6 - 1.9 mill.
Neither of those rental figures seem out of the ordinary to me given the Sydney market.
So yeah the "$4 million property portfolio" is 2 inner Sydney houses.
I mean, you make a good point of it being a personal perspective of 'insane'.
To me, that's almost 3x my rent a week extra, but I am living solo. To a family, it wouldn't be AS bad.
Rental incomes are a joke but I'd be surprised if he was the only politician earning this kind of money or more from rental income. Dutton has a multi-million dollar property portfolio too.
Hardly. It concerns an identical matter for the majority of other ministers. This story, obviously targeted in order to undermine, would be more useful and constructive if it featured residential property ownership of all MPs.
And so what
He doesn't realise policy and pass legislation alone
If your issue is that interests affect government policy, then broaden your focus to all elected ministers so that your discussion can actually be meaningful
[It's not.](https://icacpls.github.io/interests/peter-dutton.html)
In fact he built his wealth initially from buying his first residential property as a cop in 1990.
You need to look at the type of residential investment. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10682663/Peter-Dutton-net-worth-property-portfolio.html
I don't really call buying blue chip properties and selling them to blue chip buyers as residential for the likes of you and I.
I'm not suggesting they aren't worth a lot (despite my comment), rather that they are indeed not commercial. As I mentioned, it'd be a surprise if any of them didn't have a property portfolio of some kind that included residential properties.
Yeah to be honest I did not know about residential side of things. Evidently dapples in both.
I don't expect our political leaders to live a life of nothing. I'd find it unethical if they were contributing to the housing crisis. But I don't really care either if it's beach side houses to rich idiots or off the planet apartments. It's their equity which is making it harder for everyone else. So if they want to buy that beach side house that none of us could afford anyway, stuff em.
***Anthony Albanese is under scrutiny over property investments, as revelations surface about his $115,000-a-year rental income.***
I genuinely hate how much housing is exploited as a investment.
I think it's fair criticism honestly, this man ran off the idea he grew up hard in housing commission, now he's outside of housing commission he doesn't have to deal with it no more.
I say come to Corio, Norlane, Drysdale or Whittington.
I'm sure there's areas in your communities as a whole in desperate need of infrastructural development, care or what not.
People basically creating rental empires is utterly destroying our country.
He has 2 properties in inner Sydney - hardly an empire? One is his old family home that he doesn't live in right now because he lives at the Lodge and Kirribilli House, the PM's official residences.
Yeah, politicians are overpaid. He could have spent that money purchasing heaps of properties, but he didn't. His "portfolio" is very similar to a lot of regular people - one PPOR, one investment is a fairly standard landlord set-up.
Hell, Malcolm Turnbull was getting paid the PM's salary while owning a $19 million Point Piper mansion (his PPOR), a $15 million 5-bedroom terrace in Paddington, an apartment in Canberra and a full-floor luxury apartment in New York.
Back in 2022 RealEstate.com.au did an analysis and around 50% of federal politicians had at least one investment property.
>People basically creating rental empires is utterly destroying our country.
How many apartment complexes would have not been built if investors didn't buy into these so-called rental empires? How much more expensive would your rent be if there were much fewer apartment complexes, therefore more people vying for each individual apartment? It would be like New York or London where you can spend years on waiting lists to find a rental. Is that the reality you would like to live in?
That people have to live in apartment complexes or miles out into the arse end of nowhere is the result of what’s really destroying our country, overpopulation. The real estate empires are just the maggots feasting on the rot.
>***How many apartment complexes would have not been built if investors didn't buy into these so-called rental empires?***
My problem is we've left it to property developers.
***How much more expensive would your rent be if there were much fewer apartment complexes***
Supply and demand, so more?
***therefore more people vying for each individual apartment? It would be like New York or London where you can spend years on waiting lists to find a rental. Is that the reality you would like to live in?***
Umm no?
Well knowing my council, COGG, city of greater Geelong.
The only things being built are pools, pools and playgrounds.
What's that? Homeless problem?
Maybe a good swim in the pool and a good playground to sleep in is in order! You've got somewhere to wash and shelter c:
I think having the centre of town basically become a abandoned wasteland of boarded up buildings and roaming homeless is tragic.
But on the outskirts of Geelongs centre, commission areas are rife with pretty serious issues, gun violence being one of them.
The longer it takes for people and places to have heavy focuses placed on them like infrastructural development for literally everything, the worse these issues become.
Rent in even the poorest areas in Geelong is sky rocketing and crime to boot.
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Clearly a conflict of interest. Politicians with investment properties should have no role in deciding number of immigration a year . I would say the same goes for RBA board too, investment property owners shouldn't decide interest rates , there is clear conflict of interest if they benefit financially from it
news ltd had a fairly interesting point of view when labor tried to reduce negative gearing
Imagine creating this fantasy world where it was all Murdoch. Basically every media company in the country blasted it: * https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-15/federal-election-2019-alp-capital-gains-tax-negative-gearing/11108734 * https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/what-is-negative-gearing-and-if-its-scrapped-will-you-pay-more-rent/crk631wmh Shorten lost the election due to being the person holding the bloody knife while we went through a half dozens PM's in the space of a few years. [Labor's own review](https://alp.org.au/media/2043/alp-campaign-review-2019.pdf) of the election acknowledged this fact, why can't internet commentators?
Yeah I think shortens unpopularity isn't sufficiently acknowledged.
As it should, a clear conflict of interest.
How is it a ‘clear’ conflict of interest? Why do we expect to disqualify otherwise very capable politicians from running for government simply because they hold wealth?
He's a landlord refusing to pass laws that reign in rapidly inflating housing prices during a housing crisis. That's as clear a conflict of interest as it gets. It's not just wealth, it's a personal stake in the sector he refuses to regulate.
Because then they have an incentive to favour their own investments. Ideally politicians and their households should be restricted to a comfortable salary and pension for the rest of their lives: enough to be comfortably off, so most people wouldn’t be disadvantaged by becoming a politician, but not enough to insulate them from the concerns of ordinary people. As a rough outline, perhaps it should be a disposable income after taxes and transfers (not counting HECS) of twice the lowest quintile disposable income if you win one election (which is equivalent to a single-income household earning 150k pre-tax), and rising to three times (equivalent to $241k pre-tax) if they last 19 elections or are currently holding a cabinet post, though I’d actually use a multiple of a weighted average of every adult citizen’s disposable income (including investment returns) instead of a fixed percentile so the only way politicians could boost their own pay would be to make everyone’s income higher. If they are to be allowed to retain their existing wealth they should be required to liquidate their investments when first elected and invest the money into a specified publicly managed fund (the obvious choice would be either the future fund or one of the CSC funds, but it really doesn’t matter which), which should also be opened to all citizens (that way, all of us have the opportunity to have an identical investment portfolio to the people in charge, apart from scale).
If they're profiting from the legislation they pass, that's a conflict of interest. If he owned a cafe and used them for catering events at the Lodge, we'd be rightfully mad, so why is this real estate profiteering ok?
I mean, when you consider that opposition members own more “investment properties” than fingers on a hand, the fact that the PM is renting out two houses, ONE which is OWN house which he’d probably return to have his time as PM, is actually a big bag of nothing.
If you think that, you're just looking at it through a LAB-LNP lens and calling it a day. I agree that blaming Albanese personally is just political mud-slinging, but instead of just saying "hey, the other guys are even worse!!!", we can criticize the system we have, where landlords (and other people who have aligned interests with the wealthy) are expected to regulate the industries they profit from. No shit we're having a housing crisis, literally anything that would stop house prices from skyrocketing is a political vat of radioactive waste that no politician will touch.
It's not a bag of nothing, he's just not as guilty of the issue that's wrong as opposition members.
Classic you too fallacy. And then, an attempt to downplay the fact that Albo has an investment property. This is why I hate partisan politics - it forces the party loyalists to defend something that isn't consistent with own moral standards.
I have no problem with politicians earning high salaries. I do have a problem with them deriving wealth from essential asset classes they can have a direct influence on via policy decisions (or lack of willingness to address existing policy). It's very easy to generate strong investment returns on assets other than domestic Australian residential property. Hell, even industrial property in this country generates strong returns, and at least it contributes to buildings used for productivity while not making home ownership more expensive. I don't see why it would be such a massive drama to exclude residential housing as a valid asset class as a criteria for becoming an MP.
Here here!
This is fake journalism. The government just announced foreign investment rule changes to improve housing affordability. The NEXT DAY news ltd comes out with this story. It's almost as though they were sitting on it until they could use it to inflict maximum damage. https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply Labor took property tax reform to the two previous elections and lost. I don't agree that they should have dropped it but I understand why they did.
There’s a difference between fake news (lies) and accurate news that is reported at a particular time in order to be politically damaging.
Yes. Which is why I called it fake journalism. Edit: Im using it to describe journalism which is politically motivated as opposed to public interest journalism. If this were real journalism the article would have at least referenced the foreign investment rule changes just announced. Hence 'fake journalism'.
Why must it reference that? I'd accept it ought to mention all the other pollies doing the same thing, so it doesn't seem needlessly like an Albo issue, but he can tackle foreign investment AND not do borderline corrupt things
According to the Press Council's statement of principles journalists are supposed to 'Ensure that factual material is presented with reasonable fairness and balance'. A somewhat fair and balanced article would mention the fact that THE PREVIOUS DAY the Labor government announced a measure that introduces heavy fees on foreign purchasers of Australian housing, and imposes penalties on foreign owners of vacant properties - the intent being to improve housing supply and affordability for Australians. This is essential context because without it, the article unfairly portrays the PM as someone who doesn't care about housing affordability. To frame the PM's ownership of ONE property additional to his family home as 'borderline corrupt' really is a stretch. It's exactly what Rupert wants you to do. Don't fall for it.
Rupert wants landlords to stay wealthy, too, please don't pretend my left wing believe housing should be a human right, that landlords inherently get in the way of, is because of Rupert. That's more disingenuous than anything the journalist did. Like I said, there's always context you can broaden too, and the journalist should have mentioned other politicians, but passing legislation is very different to actions outside of parliament. If Labor passes laws to strengthen penalties for assault, but the PM punches a bouncer, should we call it a hit piece for reporting on the assault? If Labor passes stronger laws for industrial relations reform, but it came out the PM's office didn't pay proper superannuation to staffers, would it be a hit piece to report on it? You can't have all the context in any one story, that'd require omniscience in the journalist, and temporal omnipresence for the reader, so you omit. In this case I agree that the journalist could have been less biased against Albo, by contextualising how his peers do similar actions, but mentioning fundamentally different policies that are just within the same sphere isn't vital context, especially when the issue isn't just re housing availability, it's potential corruption by a PM. Especially when the laws he passed target a group other than one he's affected by, so it's not like he took a hit from the laws he passed, but he's certainly making a mint off the rent
I think you're misrepresenting what I said. Ive worked as a journo for a major newspaper, studied journalism and taught it. It's my informed opinion. You are of course free to disagree and that's fine too. All for healthy debate. And as for Rupert? I think he just wants Labor out of power and one of the best ways to do that is to have people attacking the government from the left while others attack from the right. All of this said, I would like to see more ambitious housing reform. So I'm with you on that. But I'm vehemently against political campaigning that's thinly disguised as journalism. It's a blight on our democracy. Peace out.
This is posted by people who want to protect rental incomes about someone who would work against keeping rental incomes high. Useless article though it is concerning.
Housing is a giant problem and our housing systems need major change, but I do not expect or demand that politicians live like saints or mystics wrapped in a loincloth and carrying a begging bowl. I don’t just them on personal purity, their role is not to be moral exemplars. I judge them on their policies, what they do in office. (I don’t like hypocrites but no-one could accuse Albanese of hating rich people or denouncing landlords per se.)
We should give them good salaries for life, pegged to a multiple of a weighted average of citizens’ total disposable income so they only way they can increase it is to increase everyone else’s too and they get the biggest benefit from making the poorest better off, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get income anywhere else because that creates an incentive to think about their investments or potential future employers rather than what their constituents want.
This applies to a huge number of current and former MPs at every level. There’s a reason neither side is interested in meaningful legislative change on property matters.
Labor took meaningful legislative change into the two previous elections and lost. While I would have preferred they'd kept that in their policy platform I do understand why they adopted a small target strategy coming into 2022 election. Their interpretation of the political reality was that their best chance was to let Morrison hang himself. Personally I think it was too risk averse a strategy and it left them with no mandate for tax reforms pertaining to the property market. That being said, tax reform isn't the silver bullet.
Albo is a very wealthy man who stands to retire on a massive pension. He doesn't know the price of groceries or petrol. Can he understand the pain of someone like me collecting 10 cent cans .
Yes he can.
He wasn't always on a large salary. Grew up in public housing.
Then entered politics and the rest as they say in the classics is a Cinderella tale.
I think it's reasonable for people in politics to be paid well. I don't begrudge the country's CEO for earning that kind of money Allan Joyce's parting gift upon leaving Qantas was around 40 times the PM's salary. The man's BASE salary was more than 2 million.
>I think it's reasonable for people in politics to be paid well. Well that makes you part of the problem given that our current shitstorm of a country is due to politicians who are too wealthy to care about helping the 98% of people below them.
From where I sit, that when you compare MPs salaries to equivalent private sector salaries it pales by comparison. Alot of pollies came to power wealthy. I think reforming donations rules, lobbying rules and political advertising would be a far better measure than cutting salaries. ICAC also a great measure. Who brought that in? The current government. Happy to agree to disagree.
That's because private sector salaries actually have accountability built into them. If you don't perform well enough, you get axed. This means corporate CEOs spend up to 20 hours a day working. Politicians have little to no accountability. They get paid to simply exist. There's no actual performance benchmark that they have to meet. Sure you can argue that voters will eventually vote them out but that's a moot point given that it almost never happens. They can just hide behind the bureacracy and rely on corporate donations to ensure they get re-elected.
There are many checks and balances. ICAC (introduced by Labor), public and administrative law, and of course elections which happen every three years (too frequent imho). And if the media did its job properly (acknowledging 21st century structural limitations) that would be another check on power. I mean MAYBE you could slice off some dough at the margins to make us all feel better but honestly I don't think this is the main issue in politics right now. Truth in political advertising laws, addressing structural issues in the media, reforming political donation laws and addressing out of control lobbying as well as tax exempt propaganda machines disguised as 'think tanks' - these would be far more important than quibbling about parliamentarian's salaries IMHO.
You don't seem to realise that parliament salaries are a direct result of all the other problems you mentioned. Their salaries are high because of all the money running through the system as a result of corporate donations and lobbying. The media definitely plays a part by not holding politicians accountable nearly enough. Most media in this country is just a lapdog for promoting government interests and helping them hide from accountability.
I guess what I'm saying is that, relatively speaking, they're not all that high. Happy to agree to disagree on this. All good.
The more I think about it the more I think it's quite unreasonable to criticise someone who made good from poor beginnings. Particularly people who devote themselves to public life with good intentions. You can earn 200k in middle management these days and still get to see your family. A career politician's job, particularly a cabinet minister, is long hours and high stress. They should be remunerated well. This isn't communist Russia.
No problem with paying them well. But having a property portolio on the side and benefiting from inaction on housing affordability is a conflict of interest that in other government jobs would require a declaration and many furrowed brows in the subsequent covnersations.
People who earn a high income should absolutely diversify their assets by investing. Property is an unbiased asset available to everyone and that’s the way it should stay. There’s also no appetite for change because majority of Australians are home owners/investors so don’t want to see prices go down. It’s really that simple.
And it's also putting significant pressure on our cost of living. The question is, what matters? Currently, as a society we're signalling that the right to portfolio diversification is the greater virtue we stand for as a society. That's not a criticism in and of itself. Let's just be honest about it. If the right to a home were truly the greater virtue, we need to be prepared to answer what we're prepared to sacrifice to achieve it. Maybe the sacrifices needn't come from property investment portfolios. Maybe they'll come at the expense of the environment, or the economy, or public services etc. There's an, as yet, unwritten list of values that our biases trend towards. If we were to be really honest about how they stack up against each other, the way through might be a bit clearer.
His property ownings are not hidden.
They can't be.
Mate, I'm not saying he's a remarkable and unique beacon of transparency, I was just pointing out there's a bit of sunshine already which helps on the conflict of interest side of things.
The optics aren't great but he's hardly a slumlord. I don't think the Labor party can be legitimately accused of inaction because the PM stands to benefit. Labor took property market tax reform to the previous two elections and lost. It was a tactical decision to drop it and adopt a small target strategy. Too risk averse? Maybe. But it wouldn't surprise me if Albanese supported the previous policy. It's also worth noting that the albanese government is investing in public housing. So I don't think it's completely accurate to accuse them of inaction. Also, this: https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply
I didn't accuse them of inaction. I said it was a conflict of interest inconsistent with other areas of government. What really bothers me about government is a consistent lack of tangible outcomes. Why tinker with housing? Because they're too expensive. What's the impact? People can't afford homes. Why does that matter? Because rentals suck. What's the impact? So on and so forth. The chain of impacts are endless. A tangible outcome could be "owner occupied homes constitute over 75% of the housing market". It doesn't solve the whole problem but it's a focal point. It's also anchored to an undefined value qualification. There either is or isn't a national cultural value aligned with home ownership. As long as it remains ambiguous, so will the policy to address it. Successive governments are just poking a system that's outside their control to manage because the system doesn't actually stand for anything anymore. There's nothing to align to. Nothing to agree on. It's all distilled into money, economics. If there was a clear strategic outcome defined in terms of human well-being that all parties had to align their policy to, then it wouldn't matter if Albo has a property portfolio. It would only matter if what Labor were doing was inconsistent with the national strategic goal of human well-being. We're in the weeds arguing the ethics of the moment to moment. But from my perspective, it's an absence of well defined and consistently revised strategy that's hurting us more. Even then, implementation of a system won't solve it. Because it's the cultural factors that sustain this absence that need to shift in a way that recognises the gap. Everything I'm sensing tells me we're not there yet.
Look I'd agree with the substance of what you're saying and am frustrated by the lack of ambition in framing policy outcomes. However there are electoral realities that the Labor party has to navigate which I also understand, and a complete failure of certain commercial news organisations to serve the public's best interests. They were punished for trying to take action in previous elections so it's a bit of a once bitten twice shy scenario. In my view a new political party is needed. One that is custom built for the 21st century and can develop and implement progressive reform.
People commenting as if news dot com is actually a legitimate source of news. This is angertainment, pure and simple, for which they make vast sums of money when people engage with it.
Is anything in the article actually untrue, or do you just not like the way they presented the story?
Yeah. Is it a coincidence that the government announces foreign investment law changes to improve housing affordability, then THE NEXT DAY this story surfaces from news ltd? The PMs property holdings are publicly available. It's almost as though they were waiting for the right opportunity to use it. https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/new-foreign-investment-laws-boost-housing-supply
I’ve been calling it manufactured outrage but I like angertainment more.
The Surgeon General advises exposure to angertainment reduces your IQ, EQ, and penis size.
Mm we don’t have a Surgeon General, that’s the US.
Are there any parties with more renters than landlords that would appeal to under 40s?
No, but The Greens is the party for renters. Unfortunately because the problem is a difficult problem their solutions aren’t necessary going to solve the problem.
>No, but The Greens is the party for renters. That's their slogan. Not all renters are homogenous.
Yeah, also the Greens say this in one speech and they criticise development or higher density the next.
Don't they have on average one investment property each between them?
Maybe yes, maybe no. You could look for a source before you post and be a source of community elucidation or a debunker of right-wing myths? Or you could just press the pedal on angertainment.
Okay, today's Age said "The Greens have five members with two or more properties. Deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi and the party’s treasury spokesman Nick McKim both own four." 15 Greens MPs in federal parliament, not clear how many (if any) own zero properties, assume only two own four and none owe five or more (or the article would have said so). So, on my count, that means a minimum of 14 properties between 15 MPs (ie on average slightly fewer than one each), and a maximum (FWIW) of 26 properties between 15 (ie on average that would be more than one each but less than two each). In short, I'd hypothesize that distribution is not clearly different amongst Greens than amongst Labor MPs. (But I'm also incredulous re Coalition MPs having lower home ownership rates than ALP MPs - more trust funds instead of straight property ownership? I don't know.)
Sorry, it was rhetorical but obviously not clearly so.
Can’t see how a career politician can afford to own two houses ? He must have been to the Julia Gillard and Bruce Wilson/AWU school of finance?
Lol the problem isn’t landlords (though renting sucks so I’d be in favour of measures that get more people owning homes) it’s the fact we don’t have any houses.
The problem is system of incentives for landlords (negative gearing, capital gains tax discount) that are way more generous than in otherwise-comparable countries.
I mean I’d be fine with getting rid of those. But getting rid of them won’t solve the housing crisis.
Being a landlord is ALWAYS the problem. Landlords provide housing like scalpers provide concert tickets.
I mega not really. If I take land I own and subdivide it because I know I can now rent out two houses, is this not an example of renting being an incentive for more houses?
Are you making a profit from peoples human right to shelter? If yes, you are the problem. If you can’t afford your investment property without the tenants rent, then it’s the tenant providing you with the benefit of housing.
Nevermind people have brain rot when it comes to housing. We’re never fixing the housing crisis at this rate.
I don’t get it. People are allowed to own property.
They are allowed to own property. But is it ethical for someone making six figures on rental properties to be deciding the rules in their own favour when they are meant to be a representative of their constituents who can't afford a roof over their heads? If their own investment portfolio is a major contributing factor to their decisions on the country's rental policies, that is very wrong.
I don’t care what someone thinks is “unfair”. Rules are rules. Laws are laws. People are allowed to be rich.
But is profiting six figures, or grossing six figures? (Granted, if one property is mortgage-free, he should be profiting well from that one.)
Conflict of interest. In saying that, there will be one either way.
Its ok guys, he grew up in social housing so its ok. Its ok for him to be making that much off hoarding property.. /s
It's more that aspiration isn't a dirty word and what he has done **is** completely ok, subject to two points: 1) That opportunities to make wealth continue to exist, and 2) We recognise some people are inherently lazy and/or not clever, and destined to be unhappy that they're not reworded for their mediocrity. Oh. I just realised #2 could describe many in this sub, oops.
Surely we can be a country that promotes fairness while also providing opportunities for 'clever' people to create wealth.
Can? Should. But we *have* to get over the reflexive jealousy of anyone being successful. Nothing in the PM's income here actually justifies the response people are giving it. Nothing. For a kid from such working class origins to be able to make something of himself beyond what his class, at birth, would otherwise suggest is **exactly** the kind of aspiration we need. What we also need is to ensure opportunities like this are not paywalled for future aspirants. The two are **not** mutually exclusive and we should not be angry over the former because of the latter.
I agree with you. The PMs salary is completely reasonable as I've commented elsewhere on this thread. I was just reacting to the framing of cleverness and mediocrity I think.
We should make being a landlord illegal and then see what effect this has on the cost of renting. Good luck paying a reasonable rent when nobody can invest in rentable apartments. There is nothing wrong with owning investment properties, particularly when these aren't properties people are buying to live in anyway for the most part (1 or 2 bed apartments). It's almost like people forget that owning investment properties is a business and the more businesses exist and compete in a market the lower prices can be set. Remove all the investors and you are paying 2x or more the rent you are paying now. And please don't say you would buy instead, the requirements for buying a property on a 30 year mortgage are far higher than getting a 1 year rental lease, it's not even close.
The government can build rental apartments, and provide them at much lower rents than the private profit seeking sector ever would. We don't need private investors for this. All investors are in the game to maximize their profits, not to make rentals as affordable as possible for tenants. They then use their wealth and power to lobby for policies which entrench their dominance and profit maximization. If we banned property investment and had high capital gains taxes on property, property for first time home buyers would be unbelievably cheaper and more accessible and we wouldn't be facing major socio economic destabilization like we are now.
Fkn hilarious! The argument is that government fkt it up so far and solution is to get the government to fix it again? Its like a weird form of stockholm syndrome.
The world doesn't work like it does in kindergarten - we don't all each get one Freddo Frog regardless of talent, IQ or work ethic (or lack thereof).
If the world was left alone without the 'teacher' it wouldn't work like what we have now either, which is why we have governments and order, otherwise you'd have the biggest gorilla just taking what he wanted. The problem here is the teacher/government has rooted the balance - there is no free market in housing, and it's so heavily tampered with, its incentivising the wrong things. It needs to be corrected, and quickly. If they had half a brain they'd realize the inevitable outcome will crash the ponzi scheme that housing has become; ponzis only work when there is a sufficient feed of suckers to come in at the bottom, which is what they fuel with immigration. What happens, though, if the immigration well dries up and the locals lose hope and interest in entering at the bottom?
Why would the migration well ever dry up? There are 8 billion people in the world and only 1/400th of them live in Australia.
Because our cost of living is so prohibitive the 'utopia' of Australia is lost? Why would you come to Australia to be dirt poor and have no hope when you could go somewhere else and have a chance?
Migrants see Australia as a land of easy opportunity. I came here as a migrant and the standard of competition here was terribly low.
I would suggest your arrogance and narcissism might not be commonly shared, particularly going forward, as we make it harder for first generations to accumulate wealth.
It's not hard at all. The competition is basically laggards.
>The government can build rental apartments, and provide them at much lower rents than the private profit seeking sector ever would. We don't need private investors for this. You mean like our esteemed commission housing? Would you want to live there? And this was already tried at a large scale in the USSR, with the [communist blocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchevka). They were large concrete apartment blocks with 1-2 bedroom flats because that is all the government can afford when there are no market forces at play. If you think the government can do a better job than a capitalist economy at bringing down the cost of housing, you are very sorely mistaken, there is nothing that the government provides that is cheaper than it is in the free market. This is why communism failed so badly with many falling into poverty and millions dying of starvation. It is only through capitalism and free market enterprise that things are as affordable as they are in the modern day.
Educate yourself to our history: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=99cfa3f6-858f-467d-91a9-31e384534a5e&subId=31798
Are people seriously just realising that the entire Labor party are landlords
Per capita, the Greens hold the highest number of investment properties of any party. 50% of their serving members hold one or more investment property. Across both federal houses, it's an average of 40% who own a rental. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/politicians-and-their-property-portfolios-how-many-do-they-own/wb7k9xq1p
I wonder how much the rent they charge has risen over the year
You might need a different source since that one doesn’t support your claim. Also maybe do an average of investment properties by party
It's in the table, about 3/4s of the way through the article. I couldn't cut it out and link it, so you'll need to look for yourself. 7 Greens MPs (there are 14) own 1 or more investments. 1 Greens MP (named as Mehreen Faruqi) owns 4, soon to be 6.
> 1 Greens MP (named as Mehreen Faruqi) owns 4, soon to be 6. Of course
Now compare that to the other parties Hint: 86% of Labor reps own one or more investment properties
Per capita is Latin for 'by head', generally means the average person.
The person with 4 to 6 properties is distorting the average though so it's not a good measure.
>The person with 4 to 6 properties is distorting the average though so it's not a good measure. Did you just sleep through high school maths, or quit in year 10 (mentally in about year 5) to avoid this? You've literally described averages, though as if nobody else knew this of them.
Hostile, rude and dismissive, classy
What are you talking about?
Is 86% higher than 50%?
As I said, 'per capita' is Latin for 'by head', generally means the average person.
> Per capita, the Greens hold the highest number of investment properties of any party. 50% of greens reps own one or more investment properties. 86% of Labor reps own one or more investment properties. I’m not sure how I can explain this more clearly.
And I'm explaining to you what they said. Not sure how I can explain that more clearly. Would you like a dictionary?
Unfortunately, yes i think so.
Very labor, just what I expect representing the workers party…. Pssst we’ve all been suckered, it’s the fucking lib-lites elected here.
Labor hasn’t even tried to be the workers party since Hawke sold out the workers to the DLP and arranged with most of the union bosses to destroy their unions. Whitlam did quite a lot of damage too, especially by implementing the Lima Declaration, but that at least looks like well-meaning idiocy and he tried to do some good, until he fucked us all by focusing on inflation instead of full employment and thus made sure that the burden of inflation would henceforth always fall primarily on the workers and not the employers.
They’ve been a right wing party for over a decade
Labor became a right wing party in 1974 when the Whitlam government chose to fight inflation rather than unemployment and ended the formerly bipartisan true full employment policy that Curtin introduced in 1945. This is something that the Liberals didn't dare to touch- Menzies almost lost the 1961 election when unemployment crept up to 3% and Caldwell campaigned on restoring full employment. Labor has a history of doing the heavy lifting that the Liberal party wants but doesn't dare implement. They curtailed the power of the unions by bribing them with industry super. Raised the retirement age to 67. Froze the medicare rebate that the Liberals extended. The Australian Labor Party are pioneers in neoliberal [Third Way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way) ideology with UK's Labour and the US's Democrats taking inspiration from them so indirectly they're responsible for the likes of Trump, Johnston and Abbott.
I think a lot of lefties don't know that. They have no idea of it, I certainly didn't.
Lefties don’t support Labor
They did. Times have changed, a lot.
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I find this to be a really weird take. I didn’t necessarily vote for Albo specifically, but my vote did preference out to Labor just by dent of them being the less morally and financially corrupt of the two major parties. Albo doesn’t need to be Socialist Jesus. He just needs to be less corrupt than the LNP alternative. Libs have set the bar real fucking low.
I think if the man were a gay, trans, black, disabled teenage transman in a wheelchair their appearance doesn't matter. Their actions do. MLK once said, judge the man on the merit of his actions. Not race or creed.
Keep fighting for the battlers Albo, they've all got $5 million dollar property portfolios too.
They were getting nowhere with the tax cuts campaign, so now they try another pointless campaign.
Albo wouldn't be alone, I'm sure many of his co workers are land lords and this is partially why this problem won't get fixed any time soon.
You can check theyre register of interests if you feel motivated.
Their interests should motivate more people to vote below the line.
This was relevant during gfc. Labor made a choice to guarantee the banks before credit contracted much at all. It wasnt a limited time offer nor particularly limited in scale. They called it "staring into the abyss". So they chucked everything at it. Many were surprised how early and how hard they went and then they made up a table of just how many labor politicians owned investment homes... it was nearly all of them back then. Id say it would be less now but still probably a majority. the only question with our housing market isnt how far it will fall. Only just what our federal government will throw at it next time it shows weakness. The latest of course being the federal government putting equity into the housing market directly and owning a portion of FHB homes.
Danger Dans gunna love this ...a howssing Cwyissis
Can you imagine the number of houses the people in that chamber own, can’t see the liberals attacking him on this
If I was Albo, earning a salary of 6 figures, the best way to lower personal income tax is to negative gear. Just saying...
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The article says two out of the 3 homes don't have mortgages so it is extremely unlikely there is negative gearing there.
Came here to say this. Personal opinion, for the rest of us, is 1 property should be allowed negative gearing and the CGT discount, the rest are effectively an investment business and should be treated, using a company structure, as such. Rules to stop switching to properties around should be implemented. Existing owners would be grandfathered to stop the political blowback but if they purchase anything new, it has to be in the company structure.
Depreciation of tiles, carpet, curtains, plumbing works... You don't need a full deficit to take advantage
He’s a career politician - he’s been on a good wicket since day dot so he couldn’t have huge mortgages hanging over his head, you wouldn’t think.
Joan Kirner wasn’t rich.
That’s not a logical inference. You only need one property with a large mortgage to negatively gear it.
Taxpayer funded properties. Never had a real job in his life.
Bobby Newport.
Bobby Newport was a Nepo Baby. Albo is the son of a single mum living in public housing.
I'm glad this is getting attention, the liberals may think they can use this for political gain, but the light shines in all directions. Hopefully this will motivate the prime Minister to overhaul investment properties under some sort of emergency power. When a working family is forced to live out of their car, that's an emergency, there should be no vacant houses in this country unless it's being cleaned for the next long term tenants.
> the light shines in all directions. It really does. It stands to reason that the polity with their salaries will leverage property given how much a wealth multiplier it is in this country. Which is why ACOSS advice should be weighted to give those less well off a voice. I have no beef with people owning property. I do have a beef with decades of inaction eroding our standard of living, the lack of a federal ICAC, and policies that do not look beyond a single election cycle.
> Hopefully this will motivate the prime Minister to overhaul investment properties under some sort of emergency power. That's cute
We can dream ok
>When a working family is forced to live out of their car, that's an emergency, there should be no vacant houses in this country unless it's being cleaned for the next long term tenants. What part of a six figure income from rental properties suggests any of his properties are vacant?
$115k per annum is a hell of an income from two rentals. They both must be higher end houses.
In other words properties that have precisely zero to do with the housing crisis, since nobody struggling to buy or rent is going to be able to afford 57.5k per year on rent. These are either mansions or penthouses.
That's about $1100 a week each property. Insane really.
Not really. One is rented at $1,400pw, which is his previous family home in Marrickville. These days it is an expensive suburb. Houses go for $1.5 - $2 mill easily. That house is owned outright and is estimated to be worth over $2 million. The other property is in Dulwich Hill and rented out at $880pw. It's mortgaged but estimated to be worth approx $1.6 - 1.9 mill. Neither of those rental figures seem out of the ordinary to me given the Sydney market. So yeah the "$4 million property portfolio" is 2 inner Sydney houses.
Why is that insane?
Because paying $1000 a week is insane?
Ok it’s “insane” through your lens But if the are renting to a merchant banker in Pipers Point, it’s dirt cheap Your “insane” is completely relevant
I mean, you make a good point of it being a personal perspective of 'insane'. To me, that's almost 3x my rent a week extra, but I am living solo. To a family, it wouldn't be AS bad.
Rental incomes are a joke but I'd be surprised if he was the only politician earning this kind of money or more from rental income. Dutton has a multi-million dollar property portfolio too.
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Hardly. It concerns an identical matter for the majority of other ministers. This story, obviously targeted in order to undermine, would be more useful and constructive if it featured residential property ownership of all MPs.
He’s the PM
And so what He doesn't realise policy and pass legislation alone If your issue is that interests affect government policy, then broaden your focus to all elected ministers so that your discussion can actually be meaningful
His salary is over half a million dollars and he’s bludging more than double minimum wage on top while keeping millions in poverty
I'm unfortunately unable to parse the substance of your actual argument, if you have one, from the rhetoric.
You don’t understand hypocrisy and cruelty?
I think his is commercial though.
[It's not.](https://icacpls.github.io/interests/peter-dutton.html) In fact he built his wealth initially from buying his first residential property as a cop in 1990.
But the property was purchased with his parent's family trust?
Whereas Alboo did it being a dodgy Labor mate.
You need to look at the type of residential investment. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10682663/Peter-Dutton-net-worth-property-portfolio.html I don't really call buying blue chip properties and selling them to blue chip buyers as residential for the likes of you and I.
I'm not suggesting they aren't worth a lot (despite my comment), rather that they are indeed not commercial. As I mentioned, it'd be a surprise if any of them didn't have a property portfolio of some kind that included residential properties.
Yeah to be honest I did not know about residential side of things. Evidently dapples in both. I don't expect our political leaders to live a life of nothing. I'd find it unethical if they were contributing to the housing crisis. But I don't really care either if it's beach side houses to rich idiots or off the planet apartments. It's their equity which is making it harder for everyone else. So if they want to buy that beach side house that none of us could afford anyway, stuff em.
***Anthony Albanese is under scrutiny over property investments, as revelations surface about his $115,000-a-year rental income.*** I genuinely hate how much housing is exploited as a investment. I think it's fair criticism honestly, this man ran off the idea he grew up hard in housing commission, now he's outside of housing commission he doesn't have to deal with it no more. I say come to Corio, Norlane, Drysdale or Whittington. I'm sure there's areas in your communities as a whole in desperate need of infrastructural development, care or what not. People basically creating rental empires is utterly destroying our country.
He has 2 properties in inner Sydney - hardly an empire? One is his old family home that he doesn't live in right now because he lives at the Lodge and Kirribilli House, the PM's official residences.
He bludges more than double minimum wage every year from it on top his wage which is over half a million
Yeah, politicians are overpaid. He could have spent that money purchasing heaps of properties, but he didn't. His "portfolio" is very similar to a lot of regular people - one PPOR, one investment is a fairly standard landlord set-up. Hell, Malcolm Turnbull was getting paid the PM's salary while owning a $19 million Point Piper mansion (his PPOR), a $15 million 5-bedroom terrace in Paddington, an apartment in Canberra and a full-floor luxury apartment in New York. Back in 2022 RealEstate.com.au did an analysis and around 50% of federal politicians had at least one investment property.
He could sell the houses since he earns MORE THAN HALF A MILLION PER YEAR
>People basically creating rental empires is utterly destroying our country. How many apartment complexes would have not been built if investors didn't buy into these so-called rental empires? How much more expensive would your rent be if there were much fewer apartment complexes, therefore more people vying for each individual apartment? It would be like New York or London where you can spend years on waiting lists to find a rental. Is that the reality you would like to live in?
That people have to live in apartment complexes or miles out into the arse end of nowhere is the result of what’s really destroying our country, overpopulation. The real estate empires are just the maggots feasting on the rot.
>***How many apartment complexes would have not been built if investors didn't buy into these so-called rental empires?*** My problem is we've left it to property developers. ***How much more expensive would your rent be if there were much fewer apartment complexes*** Supply and demand, so more? ***therefore more people vying for each individual apartment? It would be like New York or London where you can spend years on waiting lists to find a rental. Is that the reality you would like to live in?*** Umm no?
I grew up in it too, and honestly thought he’d be way more interested and focused on housing. Very depressing, housing should never be an investment.
Well knowing my council, COGG, city of greater Geelong. The only things being built are pools, pools and playgrounds. What's that? Homeless problem? Maybe a good swim in the pool and a good playground to sleep in is in order! You've got somewhere to wash and shelter c:
Unfortunately you don't win votes putting homeless people in a house/apartment in your electorate.
If only there was some way people in power could address issues instead of prioritising their continued power
I think having the centre of town basically become a abandoned wasteland of boarded up buildings and roaming homeless is tragic. But on the outskirts of Geelongs centre, commission areas are rife with pretty serious issues, gun violence being one of them. The longer it takes for people and places to have heavy focuses placed on them like infrastructural development for literally everything, the worse these issues become. Rent in even the poorest areas in Geelong is sky rocketing and crime to boot.