Albanese’s clumsy politics with ocean views

The old saying is that investing in real estate means your fortune is as safe as houses – but that will not help Anthony Albanese ride out the political brawl over his new dream home.

There is nothing safe about buying a $4.3 million house on a cliff above the ocean in the middle of a housing crisis and six months out from a federal election.

In fact, the property deal is a big risk when Labor is neck-and-neck with the Coalition in the opinion polls and there is a very real chance of a hung parliament that forces Albanese to claw his way back from the brink.

The clifftop house Albanese bought for $4.3 million.

That’s the cliff the prime minister needs to be thinking about – the political one.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been making a meal of the government by branding Albanese as out of touch. The accusation took hold during the Voice debate last year and Albanese has lost traction in the community ever since.

The polls show it. His colleagues know it. Labor loyalists were worried about this before the property news. Now they fear the prime minister has proven he is tone-deaf.

Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon announce their Valentine’s Day engagement in February.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Albanese has good reason for finding an escape near a good beach. He and his partner, Jodie Haydon, are planning to wed. They are entitled to a private life away from the constant attention that comes with high office. Their new home in Copacabana, on the NSW Central Coast, looks ideal.

Political life is frantic and thankless, so Albanese can hardly be blamed for wanting a good home. He is paying for it with his own money, earned from years of work in parliament. He has no share portfolio or trust fund. His relationship with Haydon is clearly a big driver in the decision: it makes sense for them to set up a place of their own in an area that is close to her family. It is a personal decision, so there is an unfairness in making it the subject of public debate.

The choice, however, fuels talk about the prime minister’s future. Copacabana is where some Sydney people go to retire. Albanese is showing no signs of retiring but sends a message that he is thinking about his personal future, not his day job.

And the image of the clifftop home is all wrong: the ocean view will stretch out before him, while the troubles of everyday Australians lie behind him.

Nobody needed to write a memo about the political danger with buying property. John Howard knew to play it safe by taking his family holidays at a motel on the NSW coast rather than buying anywhere fancy. A more recent prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, paid a political price for owning a harbourside mansion – and that was not a decision he made in office.

Julia Gillard bought a beachside home in Adelaide, but she only did this after she left the prime minister’s suite. Kevin Rudd and his wife, Therese, had various properties and bought a holiday home near Noosa – again, after he left office.

Albanese is not alone in buying and selling property. Peter Dutton built up a healthy portfolio over more than two decades in parliament to the point where the Australian Financial Review estimated his holdings were worth millions.

One example: Dutton and his wife, Kirilly, bought a Gold Coast property for $2.3 million in 2014 and sold it for $6 million in 2021, when they bought an apartment in Brisbane for $2.7 million.

These days, however, Dutton has simplified his assets. He deleted the Brisbane investment property from his register of interests in December 2022. He is not crying poor: he has an investment company, a holding company and a family trust, with no obligation under the rules to disclose how much they are worth. But he now avoids conspicuous property.

Dutton is being cautious while Albanese is being careless. The personal factors here, in setting up home with Haydon, seemed to outweigh the political risks. Even so, the prime minister did not make the calculation in the heat of the moment. It was months in the planning, with time to think about the political downside and whether to delay the move until after the election.

So this dream home can easily turn into a political nightmare.

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