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Why gearing gets a hearing from Peter Dutton
The Australian 12:00am December 2, 2016
Will Glasgow, Christine Lacy
The burden of handling one of federal politics’ most controversial portfolios isn’t holding back Immigration Minister Peter Dutton from building his substantial personal wealth.
The Member for Dixon is one of parliament’s less publicised multi-millionaires, having accumulated assets worth at least $10 million — perhaps as much as $20m — mainly through investment in residential real estate.
While protesters this week were hijacking the parliament over the Turnbull government’s refugee policies, Dutton was disclosing that he had been on a real estate spending spree since May.
He’s snapped up two new properties for his portfolio in his beloved Queensland — one in inner city Brisbane’s Spring Hill and another in far north Queensland’s Townsville.
No wonder Dutton was one of the most strident critics of Labor shadow treasurer Chris Bowen’s proposal to end negative gearing on property.
“Labor’s essentially said they want to lower house prices and they want to increase rents and I think that would be a disaster,” Dutton said of the proposal back in March.
Going by these latest acquisitions, those fears have passed.
With his Perth-born wife Kirilly, Dutton, 46, also has investment properties in Canberra’s Kingston, one on Moreton Island and a $2.4m beachfront pile he bought last year in Palm Beach. That home sits on “Millionaire’s Row” alongside one owned by surfing legend Kelly Slater, the former boyfriend of Baywatch’s Pamela Anderson.
The Duttons live in an expansive 20,000sq m spread at Camp Mountain — which is just over a 30-minute drive northwest of Brisbane’s CBD.
All up, that makes six residential properties in the Dutton portfolio.
And the family also control childcare operations in Queensland.
The former Queensland cop got the property bug early — buying his first property when he was 19, funded by a paper run as a teenager, work after school in a butcher and a strict avoidance of smashed avocado. On the side from his policing, he worked in the building business, Dutton Holdings, he founded with his father.
The pair developed childcare businesses, which they eventually sold to ABC Learning’s Eddie Groves, who back in 2004 was a donor to Dutton’s election campaign.
The now failed businessman gave Dutton $15,000 in two tranches in 2004. Considering their subsequent trajectories, Groves now might need that money back.
