Census 2021: Homes away from home suit Albanese’s ministers

There’s no housing affordability crisis in the Albanese government. The average minister owns two or three homes and pockets $5500 more each week than the average Australian.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has an interest in five properties. Picture: Jane Dempster

There’s no housing affordability crisis in the Albanese government. The average minister owns two or three homes and pockets $5500 more each week than the average Australian.

The 42 members of the ministry have around $90m tied up in the property market, a conservative estimate based on the assumption that each of their 100-odd pieces of real estate is worth less than the median capital city house price of $937k.

Every one of Anthony Albanese’s ministers owns at least one home, with a majority opting for a house in their electorate and another apartment in Canberra.

Thirty per cent of the ministry have declared one property, 33 per cent have two properties and 26 per cent have three properties, according to analysis by The Australian. This includes residential homes, second homes, holiday homes, investments, farms, land and commercial buildings, but does not include any owned by partners or other family members.

That figure shows the gulf between the government’s key decision-makers and the people they represent. Across the nation, census 2021 found 66 per cent of the population either own their homes outright or are paying them off, while one-third rent.

There is not a single renter sitting in the cabinet room where housing policies – often focused on getting into the property market over easing rent price pressure – are pitched, scrutinised and signed off by ministers.

Rising interest rates and rents played a significant role in the Morrison government’s defeat in May. The Liberals lost Reid, Bennelong and Chisholm, the three highest-ranked seats for mortgage stress (households that pay more than 30 per cent of their income on loan repayments).

Labor won eight of the nation’s top 10 seats for percentage of homes owned with a mortgage – Pearce, WA; Holt, Victoria; Hasluck, WA; McEwen, Victoria; Calwell, Victoria; Brand, WA; Burt, WA, and; Hawke, Victoria.

Among the Albanese ministry, there are around 75 mortgage policies. With salaries starting from $271k for assistant ministers, to $341k for cabinet members, the Prime Minister taking home $564k, they can all afford it.

Repayments are helped along by the generous taxpayer-funded travel allowance of $291 to $481 ministers can claim, which jumps to $583 for the Prime Minister.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney tops the government list, with an interest in five properties. (A drop in the ownership ocean compared to the seven properties, including dairy farms, WA Liberal Nola Marino has an interest in. Queensland Liberal Karen Andrews, the shadow minister for home affairs, also owns seven.)

 

Ms Burney resides in Marrickville, a stone’s throw from the PM’s family home, in her south Sydney seat of Barton. As a cabinet minister, she pockets around $7200 a week. She has investment properties in Marrickville, Cooks Hill, Canberra and the small town of Whitton.

Ms Burney, 65, is $5000 a week better off than most of her neighbours in Marrickville. The median age is 37, weekly household income is $2170, monthly mortgage payments are $2600 and renters make up nearly half the suburb. Nearly 15 per cent are in mortgage stress and 30 per cent in rental stress. That is on par with the rest of the country, with 14.5 per cent of Aussies suffering from mortgage stress and 32.2 from rental stress.

Mr Albanese owns two houses in Marrickville, within his Sydney inner-west seat of Grayndler, and a unit in Canberra. Until last year, he held four properties. He doubled his money when he sold another Marrickville home, owned with ex-wife Carmel Tebbutt, for $2.35m. The former couple purchased it for $1.115m 10 years ago and offloaded it for $250,000 above the price guide.

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten has just one family home. He sold in Moonee Ponds in late 2019 and bought a new home in Travancore for $3m.

Tony Burke, Tanya Plibersek and Madeleine King own four homes each. Deputy PM Richard Marles, Penny Wong, Amanda Rishworth, Brendan O’Connor, Michelle Rowland, Anne Aly, Kristy McBain, Justine Elliot, Jenny McAllister, Carol Brown and Ged Kearney have investments in three.

Ms Plibersek and her husband, top NSW public servant Michael Coutts-Trotter, own an investment in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Assistant minister Jenny McAllister and Labor backbencher Susan Templeman teamed up last year to purchase 16ha of “paradise” in the Blue Mountains National Park for $771k.

Seven ministers do not reside in the electorate they represent – Mark Dreyfus, Jason Clare, Andrew Giles, Andrew Leigh, Ms Kearney, Tim Watts and Dr Aly.