Greens firebrand MP Max Chandler-Mather has called out wealthy Labor MP Andrew Charlton over his burgeoning $42million property portfolio.
As aspirational voters are increasingly priced out of the housing market, the vocal Greens housing spokesman said ‘people have a right to be angry’ at the Parramatta MP’s latest $12million purchase.
Dr Charlton and his barrister wife Phoebe Arcus recently added the luxury four-bedroom Palm Beach mansion, named ‘La Palma’, to their staggering array of homes.
It comes just three years after he bought a $16.1million mansion Fintry at Bellevue Hill in Sydney’s east, in November 2020. Dr Charlton also owns a terrace in plush Woollahra, also in the city’s east.
He lives in a $2million penthouse apartment in Parramatta, where he represents struggling battlers in a key western Sydney marginal seat which Labor will be desperate to retain at the next election.
Mr Chandler-Mather said on Wednesday: ‘A single Labor MP has a property portfolio worth $42 million – joining 75 per cent of Labor MPs who own investment properties.
‘People have a right to be angry that Labor refuse to scrap the tax handouts for property investors that are denying millions of renters the chance to buy a home.’
Andrew Charlton, one of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor MPs – who represents a battler suburb – has purchased a $12million holiday home (he is pictured with his barrister wife Phoebe Arcus)
Insiders say Anthony Albanese and Max Chandler-Mather are more similar than they’d like to admit, and that Mr Chandler-Mather reminds people of Mr Albanese himself as a young up-and-comer
He later told Daily Mail ‘renters are starting to notice that the Labor Party, who are refusing to scrap the big tax handouts for property investors… or cap rent increases, also happens to be made up almost entirely of property investors.
‘A Labor MP with a $42 million property portfolio represents an electorate where 51 per cent of residents rent, yet Labor opposes any form of cap on rent increases or any changes to tax handouts for property investors.’
Mr Chandler-Mather has been advocating rent freezes and cutting tax rebates for property investors – much to the ire of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Insiders say the two are far more similar than they’d like to admit, and that Mr Chandler-Mather reminds people of Mr Albanese himself as a young up-and-comer.
Mr Chandler-Mather is a renter himself, and despite his passionate advocacy for the cause, a handful of his colleagues in the Greens also have significant property portfolios.
Speaking on that matter, Mr Chandler-Mather said the difference is that ‘every single Greens MP would vote today to phase out the tax handouts for property investors to give first home buyers a chance, freeze and cap rent increases, and invest billions of dollars in building good quality public homes’.
Greens party whip Senator Nick McKim owns three properties in his home state of Tasmania.
It’s understood one is little more than a ‘shack’, along with a property at Nubeena, south-west of Hobart, and another home at New Norfolk, north-west of Hobart.
The Tasmanian senator clarified in May 2023 he only rented out one of the properties.
A handful of Max Chandler-Mather’s colleagues in the Greens party also have significant property portfolios
Mr Chandler-Mather is one of the few politicians who can get under Anthony Albanese’s skin
And Senator Mehreen Faruqi owns, with her husband Omar Faruqi, a Beaconsfield terrace in Sydney’s inner south, a residential home in the same area, and a house at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast.
She also solely owns a 500 sqm block of land in Lahore, Pakistan.
Penny Allman-Payne, a Greens senator for Queensland, rents out a four-bedroom house at Cleveland, east of Brisbane, and has another property, her main residence, in Gladstone.
The A-list lifestyle of Oxford University graduate and former United Nations operative Dr Charlton is in contrast to almost all his Parramatta constituents.
He acknowledges their struggles in his Labor Party profile page, lamenting that ‘it’s getting harder for people to get ahead no matter how hard they work’.
The purchase price of $12million in Palm Beach is 14.5 times ‘s median house price of $825,923 and is 8.6 times Sydney’s already very dear mid-point house price of $1.396million
The four-bedroom house is more than 50km outside his electorate of Parramatta in Sydney’s west
New property purchases are meant to be declared on Parliament’s pecuniary interest register but Daily Mail understands Dr Charlton has not yet listed the Palm Beach property as it awaits settlement.
Settlements in New South Wales occur six weeks after contracts have been exchanged.
‘Dr Charlton has and will continue to fully comply with parliamentary disclosure requirements,’ a spokesman for the MP said.
Dr Charlton was a former economic adviser to former PM Kevin Rudd from 2008 to 2010 during the Global Financial Crisis.
His new home was previously owned by the late publican John Toohey and his wife Anne.
The $12million he paid was below the initial asking price of $15million, with the Sydney Morning Herald’s prestige property reporter Lucy Macken first revealing Dr Charlton as the new owner.
The Pacific Place house, initially listed in September 2023, has a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean and Barrenjoey Lighthouse from the southern side of Palm Beach.
It also has an infinity pool and five bathrooms.
It is Dr Andrew Charlton’s second mansion purchase since he bought a $16.1million home at Bellevue Hill in November 2020
The La Palma house at Palm Beach (pictured) will be rented out as Dr Charlton and his family continue to live in a $2million Parramatta penthouse apartment – the only real estate purchase now listed on his register
The house is listed for short-stay rent at $2,300, provided guests stay a minimum of two nights.
Dr Charlton, a 45-year-old economist, made his fortune establishing the AlphaBeta economic consulting and data analytics company in 2015.
He sold it to American professional services group Accenture for an undisclosed sum in 2020.
In March 2022, a Labor preselection rival for Parramatta Abha Devasia suggested Dr Charlton’s wealth and background made him unsuitable candidate in an electorate with a higher proportion of migrants.
‘I desperately want Labor to win but selecting a white, millionaire man from the eastern suburbs to run for Parramatta would be a tone-deaf choice and wilfully disrespectful to our community,’ she told the ABC.
Like former prime ministers Bob Hawke, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, Dr Charlton studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
He is on the House of Representatives Economics Committee, charged with grilling Reserve Bank officials on interest rate rises as ns battle a cost of living crisis.
The former corporate executive was also educated at Knox Grammar on Sydney’s upper north shore, where he was school captain in 1996.
The former economic adviser to former PM Kevin Rudd during the Global Financial Crisis (pictured in April 2010) bought the Palm Beach home in recent weeks