Buyer's remorse
Anthony Albanese's $4.3 million property purchase has derailed the government's messaging and raised questions about what prime ministers should do with their assets.
Anthony Albanese’s purchase of a $4.3 million clifftop property on the NSW Central Coast derailed this week for the government. It overshadowed the announcement of two cost-of-living policies: banning all debit card surcharges and tackling the misuse of "dynamic pricing"
Reactions to the property purchase have ranged from the Prime Minister being out of touch to Australians suffering from a bad case of tall poppy syndrome.
From a political perspective, it doesn’t matter what various commentators think about Albanese’s joint property purchase with his fiancée Jodie Haydon. The only thing that matters for Albanese is the view of swinging voters in Labor-held marginal seats that the Coalition is targeting in the upcoming election — now just months away.
And without so much as a single poll on the issue, it remains to be seen whether this will be a fleeting distraction or something more damaging, akin to Scott Morrison’s ill-timed family holiday to Hawaii while bushfires were engulfing the country, or Tony Abbott’s controversial knighting of Prince Philip.
