Federal politicians are supposed to be transparent about their interests to avoid conflicts and perceived conflicts of interests in the eyes of the public. That’s why both houses of Parliament require members to publicly list their shareholdings, directorships, properties and other assets.
Yesterday, Crikey updated its Landlord List with the full disclosures from each of the 227 members of Parliament to show just how much property they own. By our count, there are 510 properties mentioned on the Registers of Interest — a cool two and a quarter pieces of real estate owned on average by each MP.
The response we received was a combination of outrage and a grim acceptance of how our representatives live very different lives than the people they represent.
There were also a number of readers who got in touch to tip us off about undisclosed properties linked to MPs. Are they breaking the rules, emails asked, by not putting these properties on the register?
From what we saw, these MPs had listed their interests as per the rules; it’s just that these rules are inconsistent when it comes to disclosure.
In the House of Representatives, MPs are supposed to declare the interests of their partners and children. There’s no such requirement for the Senate. This means that senators’ spouses may own properties that would have to be declared if they were in the lower house.
An example of this is Greens Senator David Shoebridge: in 2018, the then state MP’s partner reportedly owned multiple investment properties. On his first statement of registered interests since being elected to the Senate, he reported “nil” real estate — even while later on declaring that he has three mortgages on investment properties owned by his spouse.
Shoebridge has seemingly followed the rules and there’s nothing to suggest that his partner’s properties have influenced his decisions. But it’s a quirk of the rules that this interest is not worth disclosing because of the house of Parliament he was elected to.
There’s also the matter of trusts. A number of politicians have declared trusts — some even explicitly disclose the purpose of the trust as for handling real estate — that don’t need to disclose any properties in the trust.
The purpose of disclosing these interests is to help contextualise the decisions our representatives make. For individuals, it ensures MPs are held to account. For the Parliament as a whole, it helps us understand what kinds of people are in positions of power.
The Landlord List shows that most of our representatives have a vested interest in the housing market. Due to the limitations of the register, the list underestimates just how much skin they have in the game.
