The biggest beneficiaries of the 20-year boom in Australian property values are clearly Australia’s federal MPs, with new analysis from News Corp showing that the share of federal MPs with three or more properties has soared by more than half since 2001:
This has come as property ownership among the general population has fallen 5.7% over the same period.
The biggest increase in MPs owning three or properties has come from the Labor Party, which overtook the Coalition for the first time after the 2019 election when 37.6% of Labor MPs owned at least three properties compared to 36.3% of Coalition members:
Eighteen Labor MPs in the current parliament own four or more properties, compared to just four MPs in 2001.
Australian federal MPs (including their spouses) own 526 properties, or 2.32 per person, compared to 426 in 2001 (1.88 per person):
Commenting on the result, Australian National University political scientist Patrick Leslie noted the shift represents Labor’s abandonment of its working class roots and its embrace of neoliberalism:
“Labor used to be a social democratic movement long ago and it’s shifted,” Dr Leslie said. “They’re more neoliberal than they are social democratic.”
Dr Leslie also noted that the explosion in MP property portfolios is a troubling development:
“It’s certainly the case that as MPs become wealthier than the typical Australian, they might not have the same level of a sense of shared stakes with the people they’re representing when it comes to things like housing reform.”
If you have ever wondered why Australia’s politicians never implement genuine policies to improve housing affordability, you only need to follow the money.
Genuinely improving housing affordability means dwelling prices must fall. But with the majority of Australian households being homeowners, any decline in home values also means a reduction in value of their biggest source of wealth.
Our politicians’ high degree of property ownership acts as a second strong disincentive to implementing fundamental reforms to fix Australia’s housing affordability issues.
Having so much ‘skin in the game’ obviously makes enacting genuine housing reforms unlikely.
