Focus groups in Western Sydney slam PM over house purchase

As the Prime Minister faces backlash over free flight upgrades, voters have delivered their verdict on the previous scandal - when he bought a $4.3 million luxury clifftop house.

Western Sydney voters have dubbed Anthony Albanese a “class traitor” who has forgotten his roots, in damning focus group research following the Prime Minister’s purchase of a $4.3 million beach home.

The damning assessment was delivered before the furore about Mr Albanese’s free Qantas upgrades, which threatens to drag down the PM’s public image even more.

In focus groups conducted by Redbridge last week, multiple voters raised, unprompted, the PM’s multimillion-dollar house purchase.

Redbridge director Kos Samaras said voters were universally aware of Mr Albanese’s “origin story” as someone who grew up in public housing.

“They view him now as someone who has betrayed that past,” Mr Samaras said.

Anthony Albanese and his fiance Jodi Haydon have bought a $4.3m luxury beach home in Copacabana.

The comments came in focus groups conducted across Liverpool, Camden, and Penrith.

“People’s comments raised from ‘class traitor’ to ‘someone who has forgotten where he has come from,’” he said.

The insight reveals that the PM’s multimillion house purchase was quick to lodge in the minds of voters in the two weeks since it was first revealed.

The research in Western Sydney echoes comments made in earlier focus groups in Outer Western Melbourne.

Mr Albanese is facing claims he has forgotten his roots. Picture: NewsWire.

In those focus groups, Mr Samaras said, voters described the Labor Party as being “more aristocratic than aligned with the workers”.

Revelations about Mr Albanese’s $4.3 million house purchase, just months before the election, left Labor MPs dumbfounded.

At the time, state Labor politicians privately lashed the PM for the timing of the purchase.

“It displays his lack of political and social understanding of what people, particularly in Western Sydney, are experiencing,” one state MP said.

The comments come after Mr Albanese purchased a multi-million dollar house. Picture: Realestate.com.au

The MP criticised Mr Albanese for dropping more than $4 million on a retirement home when “people cannot afford to put food on the table.”

Another said the timing of the house purchase was “stupid”.

“It looks like he’s checked out and already thinking about what’s next,” the MP said.

Just a fortnight after copping a polling hit over his house purchase, the Prime Minister has now been left reeling by allegations he solicited free flight upgrades from Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.

Mr Samaras said revelations about free Qantas upgrades will make it even harder for the PM to turn public sentiment around.

“It will be very, very difficult for Albanese to now redefine himself within a matter of months,” Mr Samaras said.