A high-profile Liberal candidate who has described herself as a renter and has voiced opposition to the construction of new apartments in Melbourne, claiming that people want houses instead, has confirmed she owns two apartments in other cities.
Liberal party candidate Amelia Hamer, the grand-niece of former Victorian premier Rupert Hamer, has repeatedly pitched herself as a renter to appeal to frustrated young voters in the seat of Kooyong in Melbourne’s inner east.
But on Monday, the 31-year-old confirmed she owns two properties, an apartment in Canberra and a London flat, following a story in the Nine newspapers.
“While working in London and Canberra, I took out mortgages to buy the apartments that I lived in,” Hamer said in a statement.
“Now that I’m back living in Melbourne, I am renting in Hawthorn.”
In one video on her Instagram, Hamer opposed the state government’s plan to develop “higher-density zones”, which would see apartments being built in her own suburb of Hawthorn.
“What is Labor trying to do at the moment, they’re trying to build more apartments,” she said. “Which makes no sense in the context of the problem that actually exists. People want houses.”
The lead organiser of YIMBY, Jonathan O’Brien, said Boroondara, the local government area that Hawthorn sits in, and the Bayside area of Melbourne, were “unquestionably” the best places to increase density.
“The reason homes are more expensive over there is because they have been made artificially scarce by restrictive planning policies that have systematically locked poorer, younger migrants out of our cities, and it’s the best place to build new homes,” O’Brien said.
He said apartments gave more people housing choice, which was crucial to overcoming the crisis.
“Historically, the policy space that the Liberal party would operate in would be the policy of choice, of liberalism, of freedom to choose a place you want to live,” he said.
“The state government in Victoria is changing the rules to allow more choices. No one’s being forced to live anywhere in particular.
“A greater number of choices just make sense.”
Hamer’s profile on the Liberal party’s website says she wants to “help more locals achieve the dream of home ownership” and will “fight for policies to make home ownership more achievable for young Australians”.
In the lead-up to the poll, Hamer told media outlets she was renting a one-bedroom apartment but did not disclose she was also a landlord.
“I know my rent’s gone up significantly, I’m a renter,” she said on Nine’s Today Show.
Last November she also appeared on the podcast Madame Speaker by Hilma’s Network, where she implied the size of her one-bedroom apartment was stopping her from having children.
“You have all these weird conversations about housing that are going on, things like, ‘Oh, well, we’re all just gonna have to learn to live in apartments’,” she said. “And you go, I don’t want to raise a family in an apartment.
“I did a TikTok the other day … it was five reasons why Australians aren’t having kids. I’m looking around my flat and going, well, I don’t actually know where the kids would go. That corner where the dog bed is?”
The secretary of the Renters and Housing Union, Harry Millward, said Hamer was financially benefiting from being a landlord, while saying she was a renter.
“The people of Kooyong living in housing insecurity deserve affordable, accessible, and appropriate housing, no matter their financial situation.”
Hamer studied at Oxford University before working in banking, venture capital and technology.
Hamer is trying to reclaim Kooyong for the Coalition after the teal independent Monique Ryan unseated the former Liberal deputy leader and treasurer Josh Frydenberg in 2022.
Ryan accused her political rival of misleading the people of Kooyong.
“The issue here isn’t that she owns two properties,” she said in a statement.
“It’s that by painting herself as a millennial renter she misled people by not disclosing she was also a property owner and landlord.”
Hamer was contacted for comment.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
