In both real estate and politics, timing is everything. For Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he of once-impeccable political judgment, that timing has gone a little awry of late.
Albanese’s decision to buy a $4.3 million clifftop home on the Central Coast amid a housing and cost-of-living crisis left several of his Labor colleagues scratching their heads. It meant the government wasted another week defending the prime minister from the “out of touch” allegations rather than prosecuting its agenda.
Tough market… Anthony Albanese is struggling to sell his Dulwich Hill investment property.
Those allegations had been furnished by news in May that a Sydney man who had lived as a tenant in Albanese’s Dulwich Hill investment property was blindsided after receiving an eviction notice. That too left the prime minister on the defensive, forced to waste time discussing his record as a landlord.
That property was set to go under the hammer with a $1.9 million price guide last month. Not a bad return given Albanese bought it in 2015 for $1.175 million. But the property was abruptly pulled from auction, and the asking price lowered to $1.85 million. Now, the asking price has fallen to $1.75 million, with Albo’s real estate agent Shad Hassen telling us it was the victim of a changing market.
“I think the reason for it is quite simple. There’s been a slight change in the market, and the PM’s property is not immune to that change,” he said, adding that he anticipates the property will be sold soon.
When it is it’ll still leave a tidy profit for the former housing commission boy made good. And the fact that a three-bedroom red brick townhouse in Dulwich Hill is pushing the $2 million mark says it all about the housing challenges the Albanese government faces. You can get a French chateau for less.
Pistols at dawn
On Friday, Australia’s politicians finally had a chance to return fire against the country’s journalists. It didn’t end well for them.
About a dozen MPs had gathered at the Canberra International Clay Target Club for the pollies versus press gallery shoot-out, organised by former Olympic shooter turned Labor’s man mountain member for Hunter Dan Repacholi and Coalition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie.
Co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting, the pair had worked hard to get the tournament together. Attending MPs included Regional Development Minister Kristy McBain, Labor’s Alison Byrnes, and Perin Davey, Colin Boyce and Ian Goodenough from the Coalition.
But the might of that bipartisanship was no match for the journos, not usually the most athletic bunch. In just his second time shooting, Channel Nine cameraman Luke Nicolaou had a blinder, with both sides finishing on equal points. Things then proceeded to a tiebreaker between Repacholi and a ring-in from the National Press Club. The big man was the first to miss, giving the journos bragging rights.
Lovely Rita
“On social media, bad behaviour is good for business.”
Rita Panahi’s controversial Instagram story.Credit: Instagram
So spoke News Corp executive chair Michael Miller at a National Press Club address earlier this year, where he laid into the big tech giants.
But we wonder who exactly the online behaviour of some of News Corp’s highest profile opinionators is good for. Take Rita Panahi, the Herald Sun columnist who also co-hosts the Outsiders show on Sky News for one of the world’s biggest multinational media companies.
Last week, Panahi’s Instagram story featured the Appeal to Heaven Flag, or Pine Tree Flag, an American Revolutionary War symbol popularised by the rioters who tried to storm the United States Capitol in 2021, inspired by the conspiracy theory that the previous year’s presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito caused a bit of a storm when the flag was seen flying at his Virginia beach house earlier this year.
Panahi’s flag went even better, and was captioned with:
“AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN TO SEND THE JOURNOS TO GITMO,” accompanied by the caption “fair”.
So, does Panahi really reckon her hardworking colleagues at the Hun and Sky ought to be shipped off to an offshore military prison synonymous with torture and other nastiness? Perhaps it was an off-colour attempt at trolling.
Either way, neither Herald Sun editor Sam Weir nor Sky News’ representatives responded to our questions. And Rita didn’t take up our offer to clarify things either. No doubt, we’ll get a scolding in her other Sky News after-dark show, Lefties Losing It.
Bush Boutique
In Gina Rinehart’s evolution from Australia’s richest person to art aficionado and wannabe fashion mogul, the billionaire has bought up bushwear brands, including coat maker Driza-Bone and RM Williams’ challenger Rossi Boots, managing to get the likes of Peter Dutton and Barnaby Joyce to play influencer.
Now, the mining magnate’s S Kidman & Co has opened a bricks-and-mortar store in Tamworth, “bringing country style to the heart of fashion”. No, we’ve never heard anybody talk about Tamworth like that either.
Rinehart, who we last encountered at Mar-a-Lago toasting Donald Trump’s election victory and hanging out with Elon Musk, was in town for the ribbon-cutting, along with former Northern Territory chief minister Adam Giles (who is chief executive of her Hancock Agriculture) and Joyce, decked out in his custom Gina-sponsored bush hat.
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