Silly sausage: Anthony Albanese’s relationship with tenant exposed

A woman who attempted to sway voters in the Federal Election by painting Anthony Albanese as a supportive landlord has been unmasked.

A woman who claimed to be “surprised” to discover Anthony Albanese was her landlord and urged people to vote for him is a former political staffer who collaborated with him to create a gourmet sausage.

In a video shared to TikTok, tenant Chrissy Flanagan revealed she was surprised when she signed her lease about two-and-a-half years ago and saw her new home was owned by the Labor leader.

“So, Albo, by total coincidence, is my landlord,” she begins. “I didn’t know that until I went to sign the lease.”

However, before she signed the lease she posted for photographs with him on a sausage collaboration and repeatedly referred to him as “Hot Albo” in online posts.

She first posted selfies with him in 2016.

In one photo on her social media account she brandishes a pink knitted sausage while posing in front of “a shrine” to the Labor leader.

“I have plans for you, #hotalbo. Knitted sausage plans. I’m in at The Sausage Factory all night if you care to collaborate on this living @AlboMP shrine,” she wrote.

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Sausage queen Chrissy Flanagan with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese. Pictures: Kate Christian

Flanagan poses in front of a poster of a young Anthony Albanese. Picture: Twitter

In another post she retweeted the Prime Minister Scott Morrison is described as a “sausage biscuit.” And an “idiot”.

In a May 2019 post when he was running as the next Labor leader, she was photographed next to an image hashtagged #teamAlbo and #hotalbo.

The day before the 2019 election she wrote that Mr Albanese was “a beast.”

“We have our very own #hotalbo @albomp corflute at The Sausage Factory.

“You are more than welcome to come in for selfies with this gorgeous beast tonight and tomorrow, if you can get past an adoring Chrissy.”

The woman said she only found out she had him as her landlord upon signing her lease.

Ms Flanagan owns The Sausage Factory, a brewery and snaggery in Dulwich Hill that has been heavily impacted by the Covid pandemic.

She revealed that because her business was struggling from the first lockdown Mr Albanese reduced her rent by 25 per cent – and has left it at that price ever since.

“At the start of the pandemic, out of recognition that my partner and I are small business people in the hospitality sector, he reduced our rent 25 per cent, which was amazing then,” she says from her account @sausagequeen.

“But what’s more stunning is that even now, two years later, he still hasn’t put it back up.

“And admittedly things still are patchy in the hospitality sector, but I don’t think other people are still getting that sort of support from their landlords.”

Anthony Albanese at Chrissy Flanagan's shop.

The Sausage Factory has an Anthony Albanese election poster in its window.

Ms Flanagan said she wanted to share what type of person Mr Albanese was on a small scale.

“No one knows about this. Of course I felt compelled to tell you about it now. But he never asked me to,” she says in the video.

“I don’t know if he remembers that this house or I exist, he’s got a lot on at the moment.

“How cool is it that someone who is a politician will do whatever they can do on a small scale, the things they want to do on a big scale.”

She finishes her video saying “he’s just a good dude, he’s a really good dude” before telling people to vote for him.

Ms Flanagan has previously worked as a NSW government communications advisor when Labor was in power about a decade ago.

She was also a campaign assistant in the Australian Labor Party’s NSW head office for five months at the end of 2003, according to her LinkedIn.

Ms Flanagan confirmed she already knew Mr Albanese before randomly applying to be a tenant in one of his properties.

“I have a sausage business and Albo has always been very cool to me, from when I started doing breweries several years ago,” she told NCA NewsWire.

“He would pop in and have a sausage.

“Over the years I’ve gotten to know him, and the last election we collaborated on a sausage and launched a democracy sausage.”

She said she wanted to speak out and share what he’d done for her during the pandemic while he was in isolation with Covid.

“I feel bad he’s got Covid, it sucks he’s taken out for a week,” she said.

“It’s so hard to get to know what politicians are actually like, I thought things people are doing behind the scenes is the way you see how they truly are.”

Ms Flanagan said that things continued to be tough in hospitality – for instance half of a 14-person sausage class had to cancel because of catching Covid.