Nobody should begrudge a high achiever who has worked his way up from humble beginnings to his ocean view. But when that person leads a government battling to persuade voters that it is focused on their cost-of-living concerns, he makes himself and his new $4.3 million home an ill-timed distraction.

It is, of course, possible to mount a perfectly acceptable argument that prime ministers should be allowed to aspire to nice things like everyone else. Particularly if they have worked long and hard to achieve financial success. The Australian Financial Review’s economics editor John Kehoe articulates this point of view in his column that warns tall poppy syndrome “fuels a culture of dragging down successful people”.