Down a Rabbit Hole: Politicians, Property and the CGT Register
A post on X got me curious about how many investment properties Australian federal politicians actually declare. I spent a few hours pulling data from the public register. Here's what it shows.
What started this: I came across this post on X, which made me wonder what the actual publicly declared numbers looked like. The parliamentary register is public record — so I went and looked.
With the federal budget on 12 May 2026 and ongoing discussion about changes to the capital gains tax discount, I got curious about how much skin federal parliamentarians have in the game. The Register of Members' and Senators' Interests is a public document — every MP and senator has to declare their real estate holdings, shareholdings, and other financial interests. It's updated throughout the year and available as PDFs on the parliament's website.
Open Politics (openpolitics.au) aggregates this data and makes it searchable, which saved a lot of PDF-wrangling. What follows is a summary of what the current register shows for the 48th Parliament.
Property Holdings — Members of the House
Declared real estate count for members with the largest portfolios. Includes interests held by members, their partners and dependent children as declared.
| Rank | Member | Party | Electorate / Role | RE Declared | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michelle Rowland | ALP | Greenway NSW · Attorney-General | 11 | ↗ |
| 1= | Tony Burke | ALP | Watson NSW · Home Affairs Min | 11 | ↗ |
| 3 | Andrew Charlton | ALP | Parramatta NSW · Cabinet Sec | 10 | ↗ |
| 3= | Colin Boyce | LNP | Flynn QLD | 10 | ↗ |
| 3= | Terry Young | LNP | Longman QLD | 10 | ↗ |
| 6 | Alison Byrnes | ALP | Cunningham NSW | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Andrew Willcox | LNP | Dawson QLD | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Kristy McBain | ALP | Eden-Monaro NSW · Regional Dev Min | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Louise Miller-Frost | ALP | Boothby SA | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Meryl Swanson | ALP | Paterson NSW | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Rick Wilson | Liberal | O'Connor WA | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Rob Mitchell | ALP | McEwen VIC | 8 | ↗ |
| 6= | Sarah Witty | ALP | Flinders VIC | 8 | ↗ |
| 14 | Ben Small | Liberal | Vasse WA | 7 | ↗ |
| 14= | Madeleine King | ALP | Brand WA · Resources Min | 7 | ↗ |
| 14= | Sophie Scamps | Ind | Mackellar NSW | 7 | ↗ |
| 14= | Tanya Plibersek | ALP | Sydney NSW · Social Services Min | 7 | ↗ |
| 18 | Catherine King | ALP | Ballarat VIC · Infrastructure Min | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Elizabeth Watson-Brown | Greens | Ryan QLD | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Garth Hamilton | LNP | Groom QLD | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Ged Kearney | ALP | Cooper VIC · Asst Minister | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Kevin Hogan | Nationals | Page NSW | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Richard Marles | ALP | Corio VIC · Deputy PM | 6 | ↗ |
| 18= | Susan Templeman | ALP | Macquarie NSW | 6 | ↗ |
| 26 | Allegra Spender | Ind | Wentworth NSW | 5 | ↗ |
| 26= | David Littleproud | LNP | Maranoa QLD | 5 | ↗ |
| 28 | Darren Chester | Nationals | Gippsland VIC · Dep. Nats Leader | 4 | ↗ |
| 28= | Scott Buchholz | LNP | Wright QLD | 4 | ↗ |
| 28= | Sussan Ley | Liberal | Farrer NSW | 4 | ↗ |
| 31 | Anthony Albanese | ALP | Grayndler NSW · Prime Minister | 3 | ↗ |
| 31= | Jason Clare | ALP | Blaxland NSW · Education Min | 3 | ↗ |
Property Holdings — Senate
Senators declare only their own interests — partner holdings are not publicly disclosed under Senate rules.
| Senator | Party | State | Role | RE Declared (self only) | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jenny McAllister | ALP | NSW | NDIS Minister | 6 | ↗ |
| Michelle Ananda-Rajah | ALP | VIC | Backbench | 6 | ↗ |
| Penny Wong | ALP | SA | Foreign Affairs Minister | 6 | ↗ |
| Wendy Askew | Liberal | TAS | Backbench | 6 | ↗ |
| Deborah O'Neill | ALP | NSW | Backbench | 5 | ↗ |
| Malarndirri McCarthy | ALP | NT | Indigenous Affairs Minister | 5 | ↗ |
Register Updates During April 2026
The CGT Senate committee report was published on 17 March 2026. Budget night is 12 May 2026. The following members updated their register during April 2026.
An April update does not indicate a property was sold. Ministers update their registers frequently for gifts, travel, share transactions, and other routine matters. Without reading each PDF and comparing it against the prior declaration, it is not possible to determine what changed.
| Member / Senator | Party | Updated | Known RE Count | APH Declaration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Gorman (Perth WA) | ALP | 24 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Angie Bell (Moncrieff QLD) | LNP | 22 Apr | 1 | PDF ↗ |
| Jodie Belyea (Dunkley VIC) | ALP | 21 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Darren Chester (Gippsland VIC) | Nationals | 20 Apr | 4 | PDF ↗ |
| Helen Haines (Indi VIC) | Ind | 20 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Cassandra Fernando (Holt VIC) | ALP | 20 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Kara Cook (Bonner QLD) | ALP | 20 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Matt Burnell (Spence SA) | ALP | 11 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Anthony Albanese (Grayndler NSW) | ALP | 8 Apr | 3 | PDF ↗ |
| Renee Coffey (Griffith NSW) | ALP | 7 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Matt Keogh (Burt WA) | ALP | 7 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Alex Antic (Senator SA) | Liberal | 2 Apr | TBC | Tabled volumes |
| Jason Clare (Blaxland NSW) | ALP | 2 Apr | 3 | PDF ↗ |
| Trish Cook (Bullwinkel WA) | Liberal | 2 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
| Matt Gregg (Deakin VIC) | Liberal | 2 Apr | TBC | PDF ↗ |
Declared Shareholdings
The register also covers shareholdings. Some members have substantial portfolios across both asset classes.
| Rank | Member / Senator | Party | Role | Shareholdings | RE Declared | Register |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ged Kearney | ALP | Member VIC · Asst Minister | 55 | 6 | ↗ |
| 2 | Warwick Stacey | One Nation | Former Senator NSW | 43 | – | ↗ |
| 3 | Rick Wilson | Liberal | Member WA | 40 | 8 | ↗ |
| 4 | Andrew Willcox | LNP | Member QLD | 37 | 8 | ↗ |
| 5 | Sarah Witty | ALP | Member VIC | 36 | 8 | ↗ |
| 6 | Ali France | ALP | Member QLD (Dickson) | 35 | – | ↗ |
| 7 | Michelle Ananda-Rajah | ALP | Senator VIC | 29 | 6 † | ↗ |
| 8 | Sally Sitou | ALP | Member NSW | 24 | – | ↗ |
| 9 | Barnaby Joyce | One Nation | Member NSW | 22 | – | ↗ |
| 10 | Allegra Spender | Ind | Member NSW (Wentworth) | 18 | 5 | ↗ |
| 11 | Ben Small | Liberal | Member WA | 16 | 7 | ↗ |
| 12 | David Pocock | Ind | Senator ACT | 15 | 3 † | ↗ |
| 12= | Meryl Swanson | ALP | Member NSW | 15 | 8 | ↗ |
| 14 | Tim Wilson | Liberal | Member VIC · Shadow Treasurer | 14 | 4 | ↗ |
| 14= | Helen Haines | Ind | Member VIC (Indi) | 14 | – | ↗ |
| 16 | Angus Taylor | Liberal | Member NSW · Opposition Leader | 8 | – | ↗ |
† Senator figures are self-declared only — partner holdings not publicly disclosable.
Popular Investment Sectors
Based on declared holdings across the register, these sectors appear most frequently:
The 28-Day Disclosure Window
One thing I found interesting is how long it actually takes for a transaction to become publicly visible on the register:
For senators it's 35 days. Parliament was in recess until 11 May 2026 — the day before budget night. Any transaction made in April 2026 could legitimately not appear on the public register until June or July 2026. The April updates visible now likely reflect transactions from February–March. Open Politics has recommended this window be reduced to 7 days.
It's worth revisiting the register in June and July 2026 to see what has changed, particularly for members with the largest declared property portfolios.
What I'd Do Next
The logical follow-up would be to pull the actual PDFs for each member who updated in April 2026 and compare them against their August 2025 initial declarations. The PDFs are scanned images rather than machine-readable text, which makes this tedious but not impossible.
The other useful tool would be an Open Politics subscription — they track change history automatically. For now, the tables above represent the publicly available snapshot as of May 2026. I'll post an update after the budget if anything interesting turns up in the June–July disclosure wave.
All the source PDFs are linked in the tables above if you want to dig into specific declarations yourself.
