A first-term Labor MP representing a key western Sydney marginal seat has bought a $12million oceanside mansion named ‘La Palma’ to add to his luxurious property portfolio.
Andrew Charlton, MP for the western Sydney seat of Parramatta, purchased the four-bedroom Palm Beach property which is located some 50km from the seat he represents.
It is Dr Charlton and his barrister wife Phoebe Arcus’ second mansion purchase since he bought the $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, in his new parliamentary seat out west.
The A-list lifetyle of the Oxford University graduate and former United Nations operative 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’.
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)
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 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 willfully 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