The new federal cabinet is full of landlords. When will renters be represented? 

Anthony Albanese’s cabinet has been called the most diverse cabinet ever with a record number of women, Linda Burney as the first Indigneous woman to sit in cabinet, and Anne Aly and Ed Husic the first two Muslim ministers. 

These appointments are welcome — we want Australia’s leaders to reflect their constituents. Diversity leads to better outcomes because a broader range of experiences helps make good policy.

So why is it that when it comes to one of the most important political issues of our time — housing — the cabinet looks nothing like modern Australia? 

Researcher David Kelly crunched the numbers and found that members of the new cabinet declared owning an average of 2.9 properties — 61 properties spread across 23 MPs. 

This isn’t unique to Albanese’s team. In fact, his hand is forced by the make-up of Parliament. All but seven MPs in the last Parliament — 96.6% of them — own a home, according to realestate.com.au analysis. 

Twelve owned five or more properties. Leaders of both major parties, Albanese and Peter Dutton, are landlords. One of Albanese’s tenants and a former Labor staffer made a TikTok video during the campaign about why people should vote for him.

(These numbers probably underestimate how many houses are owned by the MPs’ families as they don’t include property owned entirely by spouses, for example.)

This doesn’t look like the rest of Australia. Just two-thirds of Australian households own their own home, according to the most recent figures released by the ABS. Coincidentally, that’s almost exactly the same as the number of people in Parliament who own two or more houses. 

Let’s look at what it’s like to be in the other third of Australians not represented in Parliament.

Renters are paying huge amounts in what’s being called a “landlord’s market”. The housing insecurity commonly faced by renters damages their mental health. Tenants face arduous vetting and discrimination while trying to find a place. Challenges like mould outbreaks and cold weather leave tenants begging for landlords to take action. Tenants’ rights are a state issue but many factors affecting housing affordability — and therefore whether someone is a tenant or not — are federal decisions.  

Let’s face it: this is a broader problem of our political and economic system. Becoming a politician is a first-class, one-way ticket to the elite. Even if the major parties selected renters and we elected them, they’d end up in Parliament on their big salaries. Then what better place to park that extra cash than in an investment class that’s protected with generous tax concessions like negative gearing and capital gains tax? 

For now, we must accept we are unlikely to see representation on one of the most important issues of our time. But since renters won’t have a place in our cabinet, ministry and Parliament, our MPs must prove they are seeking out this voice when considering how to make Australia a fairer place.