Welcome to Albo’s Retreat, your $4.3 million coastal hideaway where you can leave all your troubles behind. If only.
Poor Albo (as we have come to know him here at The Politics) can’t do a thing right. There was his foot-in-mouth moment last week when he blurted out that Angus Taylor must have Tourettes syndrome (imagine coming off second best to Taylor in a parliamentary standards contest). This week began with the first anniversary of the failed Voice referendum in which he had invested so much of himself, and on the same day his government fell behind the Coalition for the first time in Newspoll. And now the house.
Set on a clifftop, Albo’s Retreat is the ultimate in relaxed chic, blessed with soaring views and soaring cathedral ceilings. And a mere 90 minutes’ drive from Sydney on the sun-drenched NSW Central Coast playground of Copacabana, it’s a place to die for. And he yet might.
The PM has drawn fire over securing his spot in paradise, but partner Jodie Haydon’s family lives nearby and she is understood to be joint owner.
Fair suck of the source bottle
Poor Albo is alleged to have committed several sins. Splashing out on a multimillion-dollar property during a cost-of-living and housing affordability crisis is for some a bad look. “Oh my god! Read the roooom,” scolded one critic. Is he out of touch? Why didn’t he wait until after the election? Does he want to lose the election? Does he actually not give a damn about you, me and the millions of battlers out there who can’t afford even a dogbox?
To cap it all, the dreaded anonymous sources have emerged from the ranks of his own party. The Nine papers quoted no fewer than four ALP sources who “asked not to be named so they could speak freely”. Yay. Go for it. Open slather, bravehearts. One said (so we are told): “I can’t think of a greater act of self-sabotage in my life. I am gobsmacked. If you’re a Labor MP up against a Green at the next election, good luck. Some people [within Labor] were aware and tried to stop it. My instinct is this is fucking terrible.”
(Just by the by, you might notice the inclusion of the word “fucking”, a little Canberra journo device which is your guarantee that this anonymous source MUST be a Labor operative because that’s how they speak off the record, mate.)
If I was Poor Albo my mind would be whirring about what it means when the anonymous ALP “mates” emerge. Are they the same “mates” who told me the critics could go and get rooted? The hall of mirrors begins.
No retreat, baby, no surrender
In truth, Albanese’s luxury getaway is in the price range these days of a mildly successful tradie with a bunch of investment properties. Haydon has a successful career in finance and as a women’s advocate. And if I had been raised in public housing in inner Sydney, I’d be pretty pleased to be able to enjoy the ocean air as some sort of payoff after decades of doing factional deals in Chinese restaurants. But that’s just me.
If it’s about Labor hypocrisy, surely the idea that you had to stay working-class-poor died off decades ago, around the same time Bob Hawke hitched a ride in Gold Coast developer Eddie Kornhauser’s open-top sports car, or got pally with the billionaire class, including Kerry Packer — dining at the top table while vowing that no child would live in poverty. Or maybe Paul Keating and his collection of fine French clocks and Elizabeth Bay property portfolio? Or Graham Richardson’s life of luxury on the Murdoch dime? Or Bill Shorten’s closeness to the uber wealthy Pratt family (both the late Richard Pratt and his son Anthony)? Or Shorten’s old union brother-in-arms Paul Howse, who jumped early on to the KPMG consulting gravy train? Or Deputy PM Richard Marles, a member of the exclusive Royal Melbourne Golf Club? Or how about the former ALP stalwart David Feeney who forgot to declare a $2.3 million negatively geared investment property in his parliamentary interests and who now sits on the board of global munitions company NIOA?
Then we can move on to Peter Dutton and his multimillion-dollar property empire. Or maybe the great former Gold Coast MP Stuart Robert, who eventually dealt with the Parliament’s register of interests by placing all his wealth into a blind trust and therefore behind a wall of total, complete, 100% secrecy — a black box as dark as outer space and never to be looked into by prying journalists.
Albanese comes from a long line of Labor identities who have battled their way out of working-class roots to greater or lesser degrees of wealth, with politics as a ladder. Former NSW premier and ALP hero Neville Wran said it best when asked about his rise from a poor home: ”That’s what being in the working class is all about — how to get out of it.”
Ah, timing. Poor Albo. It’s all in the timing. Or we could say: calm the farm guys. It’s not a big deal.
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