A Run of Bad Luck

How can anyone begrudge the bloke raised in social housing the purchase of a multi-million dollar trophy home on the NSW coast?

It's a great Australian success story that would bring a tear to a glass eye.

A hard-left socialist, with an Italian father he didn't know, manages to tap into a deep vein of taxpayers wealth that ends with him being Prime Minister and a generous lifetime pension that will eventually flow on to his younger partner.

It's a Cinderella story except there isn't a happy ending for taxpayers.

In fact, there's no joy in this except for the property investor Prime Minister.

Thank fully, he's still got his feet on the ground, even if his brain seems buried somewhere else.

“But I also know what it’s like to struggle. My mum lived in the public housing that she was born in for all of her 65 years. And I know what it’s like, which is why I want to help all Australians into a home, whether it be public homes, or private rentals, or home ownership.”

How does importing a million people from the third world help Australia's housing crisis?

And what about the figures that suggest Australia has around 12% of global foreign students attending our second rate universities? How do their accommodation demands impact our rental availabilty and affordability crisis?

The ABC chart above shows in places like Adelaide and Burwood, nearly a quarter of renters are actually international students.

Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge anyone success but it seems so out of touch for a Prime Minister to buy a multi-million dollar home, that he won't use, while he's sending the rest of Australia backwards.

It's also a purchase with no real financial risk for the PM.

You have to understand that Prime Ministers, and politicians who entered parliament before 2004 are on the old super system.

That means they don't have money problems like you or I might.

Their super entitlement remains the same no matter what happens to investment markets. When they die, most of those benefits flow on to their spouses until they pass.

In some cases, every Month there's tens of thousands of dollars credited to their bank account courtesy of taxpayers.

That funds a heck of a lot of mortgage before you even go to work.

Again, that was the system and it was abandoned because it was overly generous - except it still applies to Prime Ministers, whether they serve one day or 13 years in that office.

I think thats absurd too, especially when there's a trend for them to receive other roles on corporate boards or Ambassadorial roles.

Gone are the days when it demeaned the dignity of office for a PM to do paid work post their political career.

All the demeaning is in the political process today and, unless you like to rewrite history, I can't think of a recent Prime Minister (since Howard) who left office with more respect than when they went in.

Please note the importance of the rewriting history bit because there are plenty of revisionists who choose to ignore the hopelessness of our recent leaders.

Of the previous six, Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison, - only Morrison did a full term.

Can anyone say the nation is in a better position since that lot held the reigns?

Add Albo, and it means we've had seven straight duds in office.

How is it that the lucky country can have such a run of bad luck?

“Example is leadership."
Albert Schweitzer