Meet the Greens senators with investment properties who are demanding a two-year rent freeze

The Greens are doubling down on their demand for a two-year rent freeze and an end to negative gearing tax breaks for landlords even though several senators own multiple investment properties.

The party’s deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi is a particularly savvy investor, owning with her husband Omar an inner-city Sydney terrace now worth an estimated $1.9million, a house near popular Lighthouse Beach in Port Macquarie, on the NSW mid-north coast, and land in Pakistan.

Senator Nick McKim, who is also the party whip, owns three investment properties in his home state of Tasmania.

Several other Greens MPs also own holiday homes and will likely suffer under their policy to tax property owners who leave their houses or units empty during a rental crisis. 

Of the party’s 15 federal members of Parliament, five own second or subsequent homes in their name or with their spouse.

Max Chandler-Mather, the housing and homeless spokesman for the Greens, told ABC Insiders that negative gearing should be scrapped for Australians with multiple investment properties.

‘Only for people with more than one investment property,’ he told host David Speers on Sunday.

Labor lost the 2019 election campaigning to end negative gearing for future purchases of investment properties and dumped that policy, but the Greens haven’t given up.

The Greens in May voted against progressing the federal Labor government’s $10billion plan to build 30,000 new and affordable homes in five years, even though a record 400,000 migrants are due to arrive in Australia in 2022-23.

But on Sunday, Mr Chandler Mather announced the Greens would be open to backing the government’s Housing Australia Future Fund if it imposed a two-year national rent freeze.

The Greens, whose support Labor needs in the Senate to get laws passed, want Canberra to give the states $1billion a year to impose a two-year rent freeze and spend $2.5billion annually on social housing instead of $500million.

‘There are now millions of renters falling into rental stress and that means that a lot of them are one rent increase away from eviction on to the streets,’ Mr Chandler-Mather said.

‘Every person evicted out of a private home is another person who joins the 10-year long wait list for social housing.’ 

A rent freeze means investors making a loss would ultimately claim that against their taxable income under negative gearing rules.

Landlords who sell can claim a 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, which means only half the value increase needs to be added to their taxable income for that year if the rental property was owned for 12 months or more.

‘With negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, they can write rental losses off,’ Mr Chandler-Mather said.

Mr Chandler-Mather argued the low availability of rental stock justified a revival of rent freeze imposed in March 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic.

‘This is a crisis. The housing crisis is a lot worse than it was during the pandemic,’ he said, adding the Greens had done research on rent restrictions in Australia and New Jersey.

Before the post Covid surge in interest rates, several Greens senator increased rents by more than the inflation rate, with the increases occurring less than two years after their property had last been leased.

Senator Faruqi owns with her husband Omar Faruqi, a Beaconsfield terrace in Sydney’s inner south and a house at Port Macquarie on the New South Wales mid-north coast.

She also solely owns a 500 square metre block of land in Lahore, Pakistan. 

Last year, she tweeted the need for a rent freeze.

‘We need a national rent freeze. It’s beyond clear that with more and more people renting long term, people in our community – of all ages, backgrounds, walks of life – desperately need relief from skyrocketing rents and poor tenancy protections,’ she said in October 2022. 

Way back in May 2010, the rent on the three-bedroom Beaconsfield terrace was increased by $50 a week to $450, which was a 12.5 per cent rise from the $400 advertised weekly rent in November 2008.

The rent increased to $725 a week in December 2017. 

However, despite the rise, the tenants must be happy, as they appear to still be in the property.

Max Chandler-Mather, the housing and homeless spokesman for the Greens, declared negative gearing should be scrapped for Australians with multiple investment properties

Mehreen Faruqi and her husband own this home in Beaconsfield, Sydney (pictured) 

Senator Faruqi also owns a four-bedroom house at Port Macquarie, on the NSW mid-north coast, which she rents out

Senator Faruqi and her husband bought the three-bedroom terrace for $193,000 in November, 1996 but the median house price for Beaconsfield is now $1.9million, based on CoreLogic data, being less than 8km from Sydney’s city centre.

They also own a four-bedroom house at Port Macquarie, on the NSW mid-north coast.

This home, a short walk from the Tacking Point Lighthouse and Lighthouse Beach, is rented out. 

The senator, who has been in state and federal politics, had previously lived there with her family, two decades ago, when she worked as an environmental engineer with Port Macquarie Hastings Council, and had bought it with her husband for $250,000 in October 2001.

While Port Macquarie now has a median house price of $862,000, homes with a backyard closer to the beach typically fetch more than $1million. 

Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Greens member for Ryan in Brisbane’s leafy inner-west, has an empty holiday home even though her party wants taxes imposed on unoccupied dwellings (she is pictured on election night in May, 2022 standing in front of Greens candidates Max Chandler-Mather and Stephen Bates, who were also successful on election night)

Ms Watson-Brown has a two-bedroom, beachfront holiday apartment at Hastings Point, south of Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales with her husband Peter Skinner, who like her also practised as an architect

The NSW and Queensland Greens have also called for a tax on empty holiday homes. 

Elizabeth Watson-Brown, the Greens member for Ryan in Brisbane’s leafy inner-west, co-owns a two-bedroom, beachfront holiday apartment at Hastings Point, south of Tweed Heads in northern New South Wales with her husband Peter Skinner, who like her also practised as an architect.

They bought the coastal flat for $618,000 in June, 2009.  It was last advertised for rent in September, 2012 for $290 a week.

The median apartment price in the area is now $800,000 but this includes units that aren’t right on the water.

It’s now listed as a ‘holiday flat’ on Ms Watson-Brown’s register of interests, with the home empty in an area with a still-low two per cent vacancy rate.

The Greens in NSW have been calling for a five per cent tax on homes that have been left empty for six months or more ‘with the funds going towards creating more public, social and affordable homes’.

Senator McKim, who is also the party whip, owns the most investment properties in Australia with a ‘shack’ and an investment property at Nubeena, south-west of Hobart, and another investment home at New Norfolk, north-west of Hobart.

The Tasmanian senator last month tweeted he only rented out one of the properties.

‘There’s been some pretty wild takes on this, so for clarity my partner and I have only one tenanted property,’ he said on May 5.

Tasmanian Greens senator Nick McKim, who is also the party whip, owns the most investment properties in Australia with a ‘shack’ and an investment property at Nubeena, south-west of Hobart, and another investment home at New Norfolk, north-west of Hobart

‘Our tenant is a disabled family member who would otherwise likely be homeless because of the abject failure of the major parties to deal with the rental crisis.

‘We acknowledge the privilege that allows us to do this, and we are comfortable with our decision to provide a secure, affordable home for someone close to us who desperately needed one. And yes, rent is frozen.’ 

He also clarified that the other home list as an ‘investment’ was agricultural land – ‘a paddock which we are rewilding’. 

Senator McKim has previously called for Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe to resign and for the government to reverse his interest rate rises. 

Victorian senator Janet Rice owns a holiday home at Sisters Beach in north-west Tasmania.

Victorian senator Janet Rice owns a holiday home at Sisters Beach in north-west Tasmania

Penny Allman-Payne, a Greens senator for Queensland, rents out a four-bedroom house at Cleveland east of Brisbane, which she bought for $600,000 in 2010 with her husband Darin Payne.

The area now has a median house price of $968,108.

The senator, who is the deputy chair of a parliamentary cost of living committee, in November 2019 raised the weekly asking rent by $29 to $699, as she advertised for a new tenant.

This 4.3 per cent increase, compared with $670 in January 2019 for a renewing tenant, was more than double the 1.8 per cent annual inflation rate for the December quarter of 2019.

A new tenant had signed a 12-month lease in January 2018, at $660 a week, RP Data records show.

The Cleveland home was the senator’s main home from 2010 until December 2017, when she and her husband had initially temporarily transferred to Gladstone in central Queensland to teach at the local high school.

They had tried unsuccessfully to sell the property after deciding to stay in Gladstone permanently and have leased it to a mental health charity since February 2020. 

Greens politicians who own investment properties are demanding a two-year rent freeze even though they have landlords in their party room who imposed big hikes on tenants. Penny Allman-Payne (pictured), a Greens senator for Queensland, rents out a four-bedroom house at Cleveland east of Brisbane

Senator Allman-Payne bought her Cleveland house, which she used to live in, with her husband Darin Payne for $600,000 in early 2010

Daily Mail Australia understands Senator Allman-Payne intends to sell her Cleveland house following the end of a that five-year, fixed lease.

Senator Allman-Payne declined to comment.

‘We won’t be providing any comments on the record,’ her spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.

The Greens have 15 members in federal Parliament, with five of them owning a second, or subsequent home, while 10 of them are owner-occupiers, including the five who also have at least one investment property.

Five of them in the party room don’t own any property even though federal members of Parliament are on a base salary of $217,060.

With Australia’s capital city rental vacancy rate standing at just 1.2 per cent, tenants are facing sharp cost of living increases with SQM Research data showing a 20.7 per cent rent surge in the year to May.

Rent costs are rising, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, following the return of international students with Treasury forecasting a record 400,000 overseas migrants moving to Australia this financial year, followed by another 315,000 in 2023-24.

Landlords with mortgages have copped 11 Reserve Bank interest rate rises during the past year, pushing up monthly repayments by 57 per cent – adding up to more than $15,900 a year for an average $600,000 loan.

So while rent costs are rising beyond the 7 per cent inflation rate, the increases are still well below the surge in variable mortgage repayment cost surges. 

Others unable to cope with the rental income shortfall could be forced to sell. 

Daily Mail Australia contacted every Greens senator or MP with an investment property or holiday home, as declared on their pecuniary interest register.

Labor lacks a majority in the 76-member Senate, which means it needs the votes of the 11 Greens members and independent Jacqui Lambie to get legislation passed into law when the Coalition votes against it.