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Australian PM buys £2.2m beach villa ‘in middle of housing crisis’

Critics accuse centre-Left Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese of ‘diabolical optics’

Australia’s prime minister has been accused of “diabolical optics” for buying a £2.2 million cliff-top villa while the country is in the grip of a housing crisis.
Anthony Albanese’s purchase of the beach house in the town of Copacabana on the coast of New South Wales could hurt his chances in the forthcoming general election, according to his party’s own MPs.
The purchase of the property was revealed on Tuesday, just as the leader of the centre-Left Labor Party was announcing measures, including building more homes, to deal with the housing crisis.
Millions of Australians have been struggling to afford to rent or buy property.
Mr Albanese, 61, was criticised by political opponents and mocked by media commentators for the timing of the purchase.
His decision to buy a property “with ocean views so expansive that they would challenge the visual field of an owl, right in the middle of a national housing crisis, right before an election campaign” was a “baffling strategic initiative,” commentator Annabel Crabb wrote for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
An estate agent listing says the A$4.3 million four-bedroom, three-bathroom house occupies “a premier location to enjoy sun, whale watching or spectacular sunsets year-round”.
It has “uninterrupted ocean views from all levels” and boasts “timber-lined cathedral ceilings” and “mesmerising ocean views”.
There is no suggestion that the prime minister has done anything wrong in buying the property.
But the purchase is not a good look at a time when so many Australians are struggling to pay their mortgages or to get onto the property ladder in the first place, critics said.
The next federal election, due to be held by May, will be fought in part on the issue of housing affordability.
Several MPs from Mr Albanese’s party said the timing of the purchase was disastrous from a political point of view.
“I can’t think of a greater act of self-sabotage in my life. I am gobsmacked,” one unnamed MP told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“Some people [within Labor] were aware and tried to stop it. My instinct is this is f—— terrible.”
The prime minister said he decided to buy a property on the Central Coast of NSW because that is where his fiancée, Jodie Haydon, is from.
He said she was a “proud coastie” or coastal dweller and that three generations of her family had lived in the region.
But at least two Labor MPs said he should have delayed the purchase until after the election. “It’s not a good look,” said one.’
“The optics are diabolical,” said Tony Barry, a political strategist. “One of the golden rules of leadership is that you just can’t do all the things you’d like to do. Like overseas holidays, like selling investment properties, like buying spectacular waterfront real estate.”
When quizzed about the property acquisition at a press conference in Queensland, Mr Albanese insisted he knew what it was like to struggle financially.
“My mum lived in the one public housing [home] that she was born in for all of her 65 years. I know what it is like, which is why I want to help all Australians into a home.”
“Of course, I am much better off as prime minister, I earn a good income, I understand that.”
Critics said it could turn out to be his “Hawaii moment” – a reference to the decision taken by the former prime minister, Scott Morrison, to take a family holiday in Hawaii in December 2019 during the Black Summer bushfires that engulfed large parts of the country.
The decision caused outrage, with many Australians accusing him of abandoning the country at a time of national emergency.
Mr Morrison, known by the nickname “ScoMo”, was forced to cut short his holiday and apologise for the “great anxiety” it had caused.

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