There have been countless news stories and opinion pieces since Tuesday when it emerged that Anthony Albanese and his partner had purchased a four-bedroom, three-bathroom, cliff-top pad on the NSW Central Coast. But should anyone care if the prime minister buys a $4.3 million house?
In today’s Friday Fight columnist Rachel Withers argues in the affirmative and Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane makes the negative case.
Exactly what the problem is with the prime minister buying a Central Coast home for a reported $4.3 million with his fiancée (a detail that strangely didn’t make it into some articles) isn’t clear.
In all the words wasted by journalists on the subject, no-one will go any further than declare that it “made the prime minister’s professional life — and those of his colleagues — much, much harder” (Annabel Crabb at the ABC), or was “politically tone-deaf” (Sarah Martin at the woker-than-thou Guardian Australia). The press gallery’s reigning monarch of shit takes, David Crowe, went hundreds of words without specifying any issue at all — only that it was a “big risk”. Perhaps he meant the building inspection report?
Anonymous Labor critics did claim it was an act of “self-sabotage“, which chimes with progressives on social media who insist the purchase is a political disaster and looks terrible (presumably the same progressives who decry surface-level political analysis from the media). Again, it’s not quite clear what criteria Albanese has failed to measure up to. Like many invocations of “the pub test” — usually by people who spend very little time in pubs — there’s either a reluctance or inability to articulate the values assumed in such a test.
Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather used the purchase to complain about property investors — though curiously omitting anything about colleagues Mehreen Faruqi or Nick McKim, who own not one, two or three, but four properties each, or David Shoebridge, who owns three. Coalition village idiot Jane Hume opined that it was “tone deaf during a housing crisis” i.e. because some people can’t afford a house, the prime minister shouldn’t be seen to buy one. That’s also perhaps an argument she might have run by Peter Dutton, who in the past has had an extensive property portfolio, not to mention frontbench colleagues Bridget McKenzie (four properties) and Michaelia Cash, Perin Davey, Sarah Henderson, Paul Fletcher, Sussan Ley, David Littleproud and Michael Sukkar (all three).
Let’s stick with Hume’s logic: Albanese shouldn’t do something that some voters can’t do due to government policy (bearing in mind the “housing crisis” is one all sides of politics at all levels of government created, along with the electorate itself, over decades). Some people can’t afford a holiday. Should political leaders not ever take holidays? Some people can’t have, or can’t afford to have, kids. Ditto prime ministers? Many people can’t afford many things — does being a politician require that you take a vow of poverty while in public life? Judging by the property portfolios of several Greens senators, not even the hard left believes that.
And the suggestion that Albanese is out of touch for buying a house is strange given there is nothing more quintessentially Australian than getting into property and trying to work your way up. Albanese leads a party that is often accused by conservatives and the business lobby of being anti-aspirational, of not getting aspiration. The prime minister’s purchase looks like a move driven by aspiration — as well as being close to his putative in-laws (that’s where the real risk lies, PM).
True, this is partly Labor’s fault. When Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister, Labor screamed about his wealth, which Turnbull effortlessly defused by saying that yes, he was wealthy, that he’d been very fortunate, and if Labor wanted to keep going on about it, then good luck. The campaign against “Mr Harbourside Mansion” was later taken up by Turnbull’s internal enemies, but Labor’s stance was ironic given Bob Hawke’s extensive and very dodgy financial links with prominent business figures like Peter Abeles were a matter of public record.
But gee wouldn’t it be great if journalists turned their forensic gaze from what Albanese and Haydon are doing with their money onto what Albanese is doing with the public’s? Where are the columns on the government’s ongoing financial support for companies directly involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the murder of an Australian aid worker — or Albanese’s evasions and deceptions over the issue? (well, in Crowe’s case, he’s too busy castigating critics of Israel). Where’s the critique of the “optics” of fossil fuel companies being subsidised by taxpayers, and WA Inc 2.0 controlling federal Labor? Or the discussion of Albanese’s “papers please” internet age verification plan?
This is merely another example of how piss-weak political journalists are at covering policy substance compared to their enthusiasm for analysis of “the optics” and race calling. I guarantee that for every column from some media veteran lamenting that politicians these days just don’t have the policy chops of their forebears blah blah Hawke Keating blah blah, there’ll be dozens of bullshit pieces like those vomited forth about Albanese’s house. In Australian journalism, policy will always be a distant second to puddle-deep commentary about how everything “looks”. Put your house on it.
Read the opposing argument by Rachel Withers.
