The Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, was asked in parliament on 24 June whether she'd sold a negatively geared investment property in 2023, before her own government moved to wind back the tax break. She refused to answer the question.
It matters because O'Neil is the minister selling Labor's plan to restrict negative gearing and trim the capital gains tax discount. The reporting put to her in parliament says she used both breaks on an investment property of her own, banked the gain, and is now the one winding them back so nobody else can use them.
Zoe McKenzie asked about a $1.375 million sale. Clare O'Neil called the question "beneath her"
The exchange is on the record in Hansard. The Liberal member for Flinders, Zoe McKenzie, put it to O'Neil directly during Question Time.
"According to media reports, the Minister for Housing negatively geared an investment property, which was sold in 2023 for $1.375 million," McKenzie said. She asked O'Neil to "explain why it's fair and financially sensible for her to have benefited from access to negative gearing but then pull up this ladder of opportunity from millions of aspirational Australians."
O'Neil didn't answer it. She went after the question instead. "I thank the member for Flinders for her question, but I will say I respect her, and this is beneath her. It is truly beneath her," she said.
The Speaker told the House he was uncomfortable with the question, then cleared O'Neil to answer "forcefully"
When the Manager of Opposition Business, Dan Tehan, raised a point of order, the Speaker sided with the minister. He said he'd already told the House he wasn't "particularly comfortable" with a question "involving a minister's own arrangements," and that it "opens up this can of worms."
"If you're going to ask that question, the minister is quite rightly going to respond in a fairly forceful way. She is entitled to do so," the Speaker said, and gave her the call.
Asked about her own property, Clare O'Neil answered about "the 28 million outside this chamber"
O'Neil used the call to talk about the reforms, not the sale.
"The reforms that are before the parliament with regard to housing are not about the 150 people who sit in this chamber. They are about the 28 million outside of this chamber," she said.
The question had been about her own property. The answer was about everyone else.
As she spoke, the Speaker ejected the Nationals MP Pat Conaghan, the member for Cowper, under standing order 94(a), and rounded on an unnamed member who called out "well done" as Conaghan left. "It's not a badge of honour to be disrespectful," the Speaker said.
Clare O'Neil accused the Coalition of hypocrisy, then cast herself as a humble homeowner
O'Neil turned the charge back on the other side.
"What is truly hypocritical here is the group of people who sit opposite me, the vast majority of whom own their own home, many of whom own investment properties," she said.
She described herself only as a homeowner, "a person like me, who is lucky enough to live in the home that I own." She didn't confirm the sale, didn't deny it, and didn't address the timing. The register shows the same group she called hypocrites is matched on her own side. Almost half the parliament holds investment property.
What the AFR reported: a $1.375 million sale in 2023 after years of negative gearing
The reporting O'Neil wouldn't engage with ran in the Australian Financial Review's Rear Window column on 4 June, under the headline "Clare O'Neil and the $375,000 capital gain." According to that reporting, O'Neil bought an East Melbourne apartment for about $1 million in 2014, held it as a negatively geared investment, and sold it in 2023 for $1.375 million. That's a gross gain of about $375,000.
None of it is unlawful. Negative gearing lets an investor deduct rental losses against their wage income, and the capital gains tax discount halves the tax owed on the profit when the property sells. Both were available to O'Neil, as they are to any investor.
Clare O'Neil is now the minister winding back the breaks she used
O'Neil became Minister for Housing on 29 July 2024. In the 2026 budget, the government moved to restrict negative gearing and trim the capital gains tax discount. The Coalition says that breaks an election promise, and in parliament put it that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, had said "50 times" there'd be no changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. Existing investors are grandfathered, so the change doesn't touch gains already banked, including O'Neil's.
Video: SBS. Anthony Albanese saying 385 times he will not govern in coalition with anyone or negotiate with any party including the greens. Then he negotiated with the Greens to past the controversial tax reform.
Almost half the parliament holds investment property, and Albanese sold one too
O'Neil's far from the only one. SBS analysis of the register, accurate to 30 April 2025, found about 48% of federal politicians hold at least one investment property, against roughly 15% of Australians. Albanese sold a Dulwich Hill investment for $1.75 million in late 2024. The register counts a member's own holdings, not a spouse's or a trust's, so the declared numbers sit at the floor of what these households actually own.
O'Neil had the floor, and the Speaker's express clearance to answer however she liked. She used it to attack the question. She still hasn't said, on the record, whether she sold her own investment property before she helped change the rules for everyone else.
