Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
More than one in three Australian lower house MPs own investment properties, sharing a lucrative portfolio of 90 homes and apartments between them.
The latest batch of financial interest declarations was released on Wednesday, showing a significant holding of investment properties among Coalition MPs, many of whom strongly opposed attempts to overhaul negative gearing.
A Guardian analysis also shows about 15% of the 151 lower house MPs have financial interests in the mining, energy and resources sector.
Twenty-four MPs declared interests involving resources companies, either via shareholdings, gifts or spousal interests.
About 16 MPs – 12 Liberal and four Labor – held direct shareholdings in resources or energy companies, including BHP, Whitehaven Coal, Woodside Petroleum, and Fortescue Metals.
At least two Labor MPs declared gifts from mining corporations, including Joel Fitzgibbon, a vocal supporter of coal, who accepted two tickets and hospitality to an NRL game from “NSW Mining” in April.
The Labor MP Matt Keogh accepted box tickets to a State of Origin game from Mineral Resources in June, and air and land transport to the sod turning of Fortescue Metals Group’s Eliwana mine in July.
The Coalition used the last election to voice its strong opposition to the crackdown on negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, and the attack on Labor’s “housing tax” formed a central part of its election platform.
The registers show 56 MPs owned 90 investment properties between them, not counting properties declared as residential homes or commercial businesses.
Twenty-nine lower house Coalition MPs have declared interests in a total of 49 investment properties, compared with 26 Labor MPs, who declared 40 properties.
Karen Andrews, a Queensland LNP politician, declared five investment properties, the most of any lower house MP. Her investment properties stretched from Mudgeeraba, Palm Beach and Ayr in Queensland, to Deniliquin in NSW and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, declared investment properties on Moreton Island, in Palm Beach and at Spring Hill in Queensland.
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, declared two investment properties in Marrickville and Dulwich Hill in Sydney.
Labor MPs Justine Elliott and Linda Burney declared interests in three investment properties each.
Many more MPs hold financial interests in property via trusts or investment vehicles, which are less transparent.
Senators’ financial interests have not yet been disclosed.
