Australia’s federal politicians are among the nation’s most aggressive real estate investors, with government and opposition frontbenchers directly owning at least 110 properties in addition to their family homes, according to disclosures in the register of pecuniary interests.
The total number of properties owned by parliamentarians could be much higher, as companies wholly owned by MPs are not required to declare property holdings.
The Australian’s analysis of MPs’ property holdings comes as negative gearing concessions and capital gains discounts move to the centre of political wrangling over the direction of tax reform.
Nearly two million taxpayers have declared an interest in investment property, according to the Australian Taxation Office’s most recent figures, with 1.26 million making use of the negative gearing tax concessions.
Parliamentarians have also bought into the residential property investment boom. Data compiled by Deakin University researchers suggests MPs could own more than 500 properties in total, worth several hundred million dollars. These investments range from holiday apartment rentals to more complex arrangements including trusts, with a mix of investments negatively and positively geared.
Two of the biggest property owners in federal parliament are Nationals MPs David Gillespie and Barry O’Sullivan, who owns 42 properties.
Mr Gillespie has declared an interest in 18 properties, including 15 units in Port Macquarie, in his electorate, although he said just one was negatively geared.
He warned against viewing negative gearing as a “cash cow” to compensate for too much government spending. “It will put rents up, it punishes people who are renting and it punishes mum-and-dad investors who like the concept of investing in bricks and mortar rather than other investment vehicles,” he said.
Most of Mr Gillespie’s investments are in one apartment development in Port Macquarie, where the median rent is $330 a week according to CoreLogic RP Data figures. Another, in Sydney’s eastern suburb of Randwick, was purchased for more than $600,000 in 2001, and was on the rental market for $700 per week in 2012.
Senator O’Sullivan, who owns most of his properties through investment companies, warned that changes to negative gearing would risk putting up rents. However, the Queenslander said none of his properties was negatively geared and he paid company tax of 30c in the dollar on the profits of sales he made as a developer. “The impact on the economy if you didn’t have negative gearing would be enormous,” he said.
“If you didn’t have negative gearing, a lot of investment wouldn’t occur and then you’d end up with a crisis.”
GRAPHIC: Politicians’ properties
Labor parliamentarians appear to have fewer direct investments, although NSW senator Deb O’Neill and frontbenchers Shayne Neumann and Mark Dreyfus disclose numerous directly held residential properties. “I have zero residential properties that are rented out,” Perth Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan said. “I have a house in Albany that I’m restoring; a one-bedroom flat in Canberra to stay in and a house in Perth.”
Negative gearing has become a key election battleground after Labor announced that from July next year it would limit tax concessions on investment properties to new houses and cut capital gains tax discounts from 50 to 25 per cent on investments held for more than 12 months.
Scott Morrison has attacked Labor’s plan, but left the door open for the Coalition to tackle “inadequacies” in negative gearing arrangements.
“For most middle-income people it is the one chance they have got to build some wealth,” the Treasurer told 2GB radio yesterday. “If you are a small business, if you are a policeman or woman, or a nurse or a teacher — this is your opportunity and on the weekend he (Labor Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen) just smashed them.”
Mr Bowen said it was lawyers and surgeons who received the greatest benefit from negative gearing and accused the government of wanting to “protect vested interests”.
Clive Palmer declared residential property in Sofia, Bulgaria — the homeland of his wife, Anna — but has not disclosed how many properties he owns in Australia.
Malcolm Turnbull owns residential property in New York, also disclosing an investment property owned by his wife Lucy in the blue-ribbon Sydney suburb of Paddington, purchased two years ago for $2.8 million. |
|