On the market

Less than 24 hours after Labor unceremoniously dumped its plans to reform negative gearing, Anthony Albanese offloaded a $2.35m investment property

Anthony Albanese and his former wife, Carmel Tebbutt, more than doubled their money on the Marrickville three-bed, two-bathroom, one-storey house, which they bought for $1.115m nine years ago

Less than 24 hours after Labor unceremoniously dumped its plans to reform negative gearing, Anthony Albanese offloaded a $2.35m investment property – a move that has raised more than a few eyebrows among his frontbench, who have copped criticism over the policy barnacle removal and whether Labor was still committed to cracking the housing affordability crisis. Albanese and his former wife Carmel Tebbutt more than doubled their money on the Marrickville three-bed, two-bathroom, one-storey house, which they bought for $1.115m nine years ago. The renovated 1920s corner block is located in his inner-west Sydney electorate of Grayndler, with views across the Marrickville Golf Club to the Cooks River. Coincidentally, it’s only a few doors down from another house Albanese owned from 1995 to 2009. The investment was scheduled to go to auction on Saturday but exchanged early through The Agency on Tuesday to an unnamed party (who was no doubt swayed by the stunning stand-alone bathtub). The sale is made even more impressive when you consider that the Opposition Leader hasn’t been home in more than six weeks as part of his lockdown avoidance tour. It marks the severing of property ties between the pair, 26 years after their first joint venture into the Sydney housing market. Albo announced the separation in January 2019, and a year later confirmed he was dating 42-year-old Jodie Haydon. As Strewth has previously reported, the 58-year-old’s new squeeze sent tongues wagging at the wedding of South Australia’s leading lefty Mark Butler when she said they met on dating app Tinder and not at a Melbourne conference, as he’d previously claimed. We’re still waiting on the screenshots. The Albo-Tebbutt former family home, also in Marrickville, which was purchased for $997,500 in 2006, was transferred into Albanese’s sole ownership in November 2019. He also owns a unit in Canberra and an investment home in Dulwich Hill.

BYO bath bomb.

Not so fake news

Here’s a reminder of Albanese’s response, after this paper first revealed on May 27 Labor would support the stage-three tax cuts.

Q: “Labor’s moving closer, I was reading, to supporting Scott Morrison’s $17bn a year stage-three tax cuts. And you’re not going to seek to permanently entrench the low and middle income tax offset if you win the next election?”

Albo: “If you actually read that article, it’s complete fiction. There’s no sources and there’s no anything. There’s been no shadow cabinet decisions. It is just people musing. Musing away. Filling up space in the newspaper. That’s all that is.”

15 seconds of fame

All news is good news, if you believe Andrew Barr’s TikTok motto. The ACT Chief Minister has quietly made a move on to the teen viral video-sharing app, under an account called “Good News Canberra”, designed to promote all of the great things going on in the Berra (which, readers should remember, is different to the Bubble). Barr’s office told Strewth they were aware of the data harvesting concerns around the People’s Republic of TikTok. “Should a directive be issued from a federal national security agency regarding the use of the platform, then we would reconsider the use of this account,” a spokeswoman said. Barr’s top-performing TikTok, with 170k views, is a time-lapse of Canberra’s Covid hospital being built in 34 days. (Ironically, the video is set to a song by Sydneysider The Kid Latori). Another featuring CCTV footage of a proposal on Canberra’s Light Rail has also proved popular among feel-good fans. We’re still waiting for a tiny Barr on display at Cockington Green. Does the 48-year-old plan to challenge 76-year-old Bob Katter for the title of Strewth’s Best New Influencer Talent? The Chief operates his own social media but Team Barr assured us: “While content involving the Chief Minister is likely, it is probably not going to involve him dancing.” So there is some good news after all!

Light rail lover Andrew Barr.

Many happy returns

It’s tax time for all and sundry, including politicians and staff. So we’re sorry (not sorry) to report that there appears to be a flaw in the government’s new $56.7m parliamentary expenses management system (PEMS). Used to make claims against MPs office budgets, the online portal also manages time off. When it went live this month, staff were surprised to find their leave entitlements were no longer recorded on their pay slips. According to Fair Work, it’s considered “best practice to show an employee’s leave balances on their pay slip” but Simon Birmingham’s department made out like it was all part of their $56.7m plan when we inquired why the new system didn’t meet the gold standard. A boffin from Finance said staff had the capability to view leave balances at any time, on any device … in another place on PEMS: “This is an accurate method that is more timely than a view updated once per fortnight.”

Simon Birmingham at sunrise.

All in this together

Here’s a novel idea from Craig Kelly. The colourful crossbencher is calling for all politicians and senior public servants to slash their weekly salary to $750 while their state or territory is in locky d. Backbenchers pocket a minimum of $4000 a week. It was a tough call for Kelly, as hydroxychloroquine isn’t cheap.

Mightnight train

Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor accidentally tagged Gladys Knight instead of Gladys Berejiklian in a tweet attacking the NSW Premier. We’d love to know what the 77-year-old US soul singer makes of Sydney’s community transmission figures but, tragically, O’Connor quickly deleted his efforts. What caused him to err so? He must have been confused after seeing the winner of Strewth’s 2020 Gladys Knight Award – the secret ex-boyfriend Daryl Maguire – back in the news. Is that a fresh ICAC investigation we can smell?

Lord of the Rings

“Ronald Reagan had a great saying … you get a lot more done if you don’t care who takes the credit. So whoever wants to take the credit for this payment, knock yourself out,” Scott Morrison said, on the increased Covid disaster payment. We haven’t seen the PM fake this much enthusiasm since Barnaby Joyce was sworn in … or his Brisbane 2032 Skype celebration. On the race to bare arms, ScoMo went for gold. “In the same way our Olympians have been pushing through and achieving such amazing and courageous results, I know every Australian has that Olympian spirit in them, and I have great confidence that is why we will beat this.”

All together, all in, all forward to #Brisbane2032 🇦🇺 How good!

Posted by Scott Morrison (ScoMo) on Wednesday, July 21, 2021

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