Anthony Albanese solving the housing crisis one property at a time

Anthony Albanese has shelled out $4.3m for a Central Coast house.

At any given time there is a veritable cricket team of spin doctors buzzing around Anthony Albanese. In the last day or so, these media wizards have had to face a delivery on a good line and length, hitting the top of off. How to spin the PM’s latest purchase of a $4.3m summer palace. Or is that winter?

If I could be so impertinent as to suggest to this crowd of comms experts they might run the line that the PM is solving the housing crisis one house at a time, starting with his own.

The immediate response from Albanese’s political opponents came in the form of back-handed congratulations offering felicitations in one breath and in the next, wishing the PM well in what they hoped would be his retirement home after an enforced departure some time next year.

Entering the parliament is a gateway to property investment. Of the 226 elected representatives in the 47th parliament, two-thirds have at least one investment property and most have more than one. The early clubhouse leaders are Labor’s member for Higgins, ­Michelle Ananda-Rajah, who holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery as well as a Ph.D. She owns seven properties, as does the former minister for home affairs (or one of them) in the Morrison government, Karen Andrews.

The house is on a clifftop. Picture: Supplied

Famously, the former Labor member for Batman (now Cooper), David Feeney, forgot how many homes he owned and was forced to do some mathematical revision during the 2016 election campaign. It turned out it was three, with only two disclosed on his register of members’ interests. Ask Australians how many homes they own and the answer will come back, quick and unequivocal, but many of our parliamentarians have to stop and do some mental arithmetic.

In recent times, we’ve had to endure prime ministers pushing their own log cabin mythology. We know that Albanese grew up in public housing and now he owns a tidy little weekender in Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast. But the PM’s clambering up the socio-economic ladder will never reach the heights of Malcolm Turnbull’s come-from-nuffink legend when he claimed he had gone from rags to riches without changing postcodes.

Is this Albanese’s Hawaiian moment as has been suggested elsewhere? I don’t use a trowel, mate?

Outwardly, the caucus is all smiles and contemplating house-warming gifts to curry favour. Something for the man cave, perhaps? But behind closed doors there will be serious misgivings about the PM’s judgment.

The PM is getting married but not, he assures us, until after the next election. So, why take the punt on a seachange now? There is probably no good time for a PM to announce the purchase of a multimillion-dollar weekender, but this instance is especially grievous.

We know from reported complaints from the tenant in Albanese’s investment property in Sydney’s inner-west suburb of Dulwich Hill when given his marching orders that the PM was preparing the property for sale. The auction scheduled for last Saturday has been postponed, possibly indicating a buyer is on the hook with some haggling over price under way.

Clearly, the Prime Minister and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, have planned the move for some time. It’s obvious, too, these plans were absent of political considerations. Opposition frontbenchers – most of whom would have to take their shoes and socks off to provide a rough estimate of the number of investment properties they own – can’t believe their luck.

The Greens Housing spokesman, Max Chandler-Mather, intoned gravely on X: “Labor & the Liberals have created a housing system where a property investor can buy a $4.3m beachfront home, while millions can’t even find an affordable rental, let alone buy a house of their own.

“Yet Labor still want (sic) to give property investors $176bn in tax handouts.”

Chandler-Mather’s own register of interests shows he is, if not politically homeless, then on the brink of it. He has no assets on his register, besides a savings account. He owns precisely nothing.

If the 32-year-old can’t rope his position and taxpayer salary into a chunk of change in the real estate market, one has to wonder if he knows anything about making money. In any event, performative poverty is what made the man the nuisance he is today.

Housing or the lack of it is the biggest single issue confronting Australians at the moment. There are no easy policy responses. Prices have skyrocketed in all our major cities with rents following in lock step due to a shortage of supply. Yet, it is not simply a matter of dealing with the supply side. Building more homes merely stretches urban sprawl, straining services to breaking point.

Similarly, the provision of rent-controlled or affordable housing necessarily affects first-home buyers with mortgage stress who may see the value of their homes ­decline. Add to that, a fit of nimbyism in our inner cities among property owners, recalcitrant local councils, negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts for investment properties owned for more than a year, and what we have is a genuine conundrum that can’t be fixed without disadvantaging one large group of people or another.

It is obvious to any political observer that housing will remain a powerful voting determinant. It is too late now for this reactive government, but what was needed was a national housing summit, involving all stakeholders – the three tiers of government, builders, brokers, bankers, tenants, investors and homeowners with mortgages.

Put them all in one room and tell them to sort the mess out. It might sound like political theatre – and to a large extent it would be – but with a little luck consensus might emerge and a national strategy with it.

Hey, they could even do it at Albo’s new pad by the seaside. Bring a plate.