The average politican has 2.4 properties

Housing affordability: Australia's politicians among nation's most aggressive investors - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Seems I am better than average! Admittedly the exact heading is "property owning politician"

Seriously though - this sheds as interesting conflict on politicians when it comes to issues like negative gearing and capital gains tax

 

Hmm it certainly does come across as a conflict... probably not surprising, high incomes and all.

 

Personally I would rather just have 1 property (both worth more than the 2.4 average owned by politicians). My point being look at total value rather than "number of properties".

Further I think the conflict arguement is a little far fetched. Politicians also spend AUD currency. They hold stocks. They have kids going to school. They drive cars. They pay gst. Etc. each of these issues could cause "conflicts" in theory.

 

Well there's the other side which is also a conflict. Those wanting the negative gearing and capital gains changes to help make property more affordable for them. Regardless of crashing the market or not.

 

I note that Malcolm has four properties and Bill has one.

The value of Malcolm's portfolio would be a lot more than four times Bill's one.

There's even a chance that Malcolm's four could be greater in value than Barry O'Sullivan's 33 properties.

I agree. It is a pity they don't list total values .

 

These figures could be taken in various contexts. 2.4 properties could mean that each politician owns their own home, maintains a second residence in Canberra, then just over 1 in 3 have a holiday house or an investment property. By this logic, there wouldn't be much negative gearing going on at all.

Many politicians also own or have owned a business. Quite a few business people own a commercial property.

Then consider that many parliamentary salaries are $200k+. Done right, their out of pocket living expenses could be very low. On that kind of income, an aggressive investor could easily build a portfolio of far more than 2.4 properties. From an investors perspective, these guys are letting a great opportunity go (or perhaps they're simply not investors).

These figures can be spun any way you want. This article is a badly written socialist puff piece.

 

Maybe Bill owns a shopping centre the size of chelmside westfield and Barry has 33 carparks lol

 

If the buy in price was high as they have high incomes, then there would be a decent amount of negative gearing available even if only one property, say 1million investment, compared to an investor that has 3 cheaper properties totalling just over this amount.

 

Don't forget the properties in their spouse's name which they can stay in and claim a living away allowance

 

Well, not surprising really! These people are forced to come to beautiful Canberra for their work for months of the year. You can only have one PPOR at a time, yet these people are legitimately living in two places since their family is almost always not brought to Canberra with them, let alone their personal time in multiple places. I counted 69 out the 250 or so were in ACT (including one odd "Queanbeyan, ACT" ).
They are all well above the median wage as well as parliamentarians.
So all-in-all, not surprising at all.

 

Natasha Griggs the old member for Solomon (Top end) was rumoured to own 14 properties. However I believe they were all purchased in Palmerston and Tennant creek...they all would have dropped in value by 10 - 30 percent depending on when she bought them....

Not exactly an enviable portfolio....

 

the average poltiican tells 2.4 porkies every day....... or hour

 

No. According to the link, Bill owns a PPOR in Moon Knee Ponds.

 

Surprising few have diversified between states.

 

Agree with the fact that it is a potential conflict of interest.

But the whole article is sensationalist garbage

• Less than half of them have any IP at all, yet they say that all but 10 are in "the game" (of investment) because they own a property that they live in.
  
• How are "they" (collectively as a group) "aggressive investors" when less than half of them even have any investment property at all?
  
• 1 single person has 33, 1 other has 18, and 1 has 10. That's a huge conflict of interest when 3 of 226 have over 10 properties. oh no!

Would respect this article's information if they weren't so full of crap sensationalising it and instead just gave the facts, but as it is, not worth wasting time reading it.

 

Perhaps @Simon Hampel needs to hand out business cards or slips of paper with PC address next time parliament meets to help them educate about property investing so they can crack average of 3.

 

Apparently my local member earns over $200k and has 3 properties. Ask yourself, if you earned that kind of money, what kind of portfolio would you have?

 

Another typical hatchet job by ‘their’ ABC. So glad my taxes are being used this way.

Interestingly if you delve into Barry O’Sullivan’s bio it describes how after a decorated career in the Queensland police force he established a development and construction company paying heaps of taxes and employing over 100 people that is today still operated by his son. They have been around a couple of decades and created many hundreds of new blocks and projects in that time. Not surprising then that Barry senior would have kept an interest in some along the way. I would call that smart business. I have never met the man nor any of his family but have purchased some of their product over the years and work is always done to the highest quality.

Is this a conflict ? Well some might see it that way but from my POV I’d rather have successful achievers making decisions about my country’s future than a procession of dills from the other end of the spectrum. In Queensland last year we had a state minister on $320k busted driving an unregistered car and not paying rates for three years (until paid for by the Labor party). Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence about ever paying back state debt approaching $80b!

 

Unfortunately, there are too many dills who are 'inspired' by these sorts of dills!!!