Real estate records have uncovered how much property the frontrunners vying to become the next Premier really have.
Unlike federal declarations where a partner or spouse’s interests are filed within the member’s own declaration, Queensland allows for holdings in spouse’s names to be declared separately to members.
A search of real estate titles shows that Queensland LNP leader David Crisafulli would be one of the biggest property investors in the last state parliament if his wife’s properties were included in his real estate count.
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The last Queensland parliamentary declarations showed a third of members (31) declared having two or more properties each in June. Premier and Queensland Labor leader Steven Miles and Mr Crisafulli had tied with the third highest number of personally declared properties at four apiece, but the figure for the state LNP leader would rise to six if spouses’ real estate was added to the tally.
Spousal declarations aren’t accessible for the last parliament, but property records show Mr Crisafulli’s wife has held four properties during the previous term – one of which was a house bought in 2015 at Hope Island for $1.338m, which she sold for $2.35m in April 2021, six months after the last state election.
Mr Crisafulli, who has been the member for Broadwater in the northern Gold Coast since 2017, did not answer questions over the property portfolio, and nor did Mr Miles, the member for Murrumba.
It is believed the Crisafullis currently rent a property in his Broadwater electorate but spend the bulk of their time in Brisbane.
One month after selling her Hope Island home, Mrs Crisafulli bought a two-bedroom apartment in the hub of the Brisbane CBD overlooking Queens’s gardens and the Treasury casino, with views to Southbank. She paid $745,000 in May 2021, and went on to sell it for $855,000 in January last year.
Records show Mrs Crisafulli paid $1.025m for a Bulimba property in August 2023 – a three-bedroom house marketed as a “ripe for renovating Queenslander”, and is also the listed owner of a three-bedroom house in Condon in Townsville bought for $155,000 in 2005.
Mr Crisafulli had declared four properties held via trusts and company structures in the last parliament, with a 25ha sugarcane farm at Lannercost, west of Ingham among his self-managed super fund investments, plus two other properties in the area via his Crisafulli Family Trust, the largest of which is 45ha in Elphinstone Pocket.
He also has a 600sq m property in investor hotspot Townsville, in the suburb of Heatley, according to his last parliamentary member declarations.
Mr Miles’ member declaration had one property in his own name – his four bedroom home in Mango Hill bought for $590,500 in July 2017 and today valued as high as $1.21m – and three jointly owned with his wife Kimberley.
The couple had put a property each, previously held in their own names, into joint ownership in 2008 – a two-bedroom apartment in Yeronga bought for $191,750 and a three-bedroom house in Alderley transferred for $385,000 in December 2008.
They went on to jointly buy a unit in West End for $600,000 in October 2012.
Both Mr Miles and Mr Crisafulli were among over 20 parliamentarians who declared other sources of income involving rent or property investments during the last term in parliament.
Queensland’s legislative assembly has 93 members elected every four years, with the next state election date set for October 26.