EXCLUSIVEHow Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi is set make investment property portfolio megabucks - after slamming Australia's housing system for 'screwing over' millions
- Senator Mehreen Faruqi says housing in Australia need reform
- Also owns investment properties and profits from rent and sales
- READ MORE: Greens senator's response to question about Hamas
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi is set to reap an $850,000 windfall from an upcoming property sale from her multimillion-dollar housing portfolio.
The NSW Senator, who with her party is openly critical of government policies supporting 'wealthy property investors', appears to be quite a savvy investor herself.
Property records show that Ms Faruqi, who has blasted the unaffordability of homes in Australia, is selling a property in Port Macquarie, on the NSW north coast, with a price guide of $1,000,000 to $1,100,000.
She and her husband bought the four bedroom home for $250,000 in 2001. It went on the market in May, setting up the opportunity for a sizeable six-figure profit.
Ms Faruqi also makes $750-a-week from a three-bedroom house she rents at Beaconsfield, in Sydney's inner-south. She paid just $193,000 for that property in 1996.
And she owns a 500-metre-squared parcel of land in Lahore, a city in northern Pakistan, plus a four-bedroom residential property in an inner Sydney suburb, where the average property is worth $2.5million. That home was bought for an undisclosed sum in 2007.
Ms Faruqi's property portfolio has come under fire by conservative lobby group Advance Australia, which labelled her 'just another politician, riding on her high horse about the housing affordability crisis while doing nothing about it and banking a fortune'.
Ms Faruqi recently described the housing system in Australia as one that 'sees millions screwed over while banks and property developers make an absolute killing off the misery of others'.
NSW Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi is pictured during Question Time in Parliament House on July 1
Senator Faruqi slammed the Albanese government's solution to the housing crisis last week in an Instagram post (pictured)
She has previously taken aim at government supports for 'wealthy property investors' - in line with the Greens policy to scrap negative gearing and the capital gains tax discounts.
Ms Faruqi did not always plan to sell her Port Macquarie bolthole for a tidy profit. She had originally submitted a development proposal to Port Macquarie Hastings Council in May 2023 to subdivide her investment property in three and build double-storey townhouses on the land.
The ambitious plan involved knocking down 20 trees in prime koala habitat. An ecological report tendered to the council said the plans would 'result in the loss of the majority of vegetation on the site' near Lighthouse Beach.
The senator has previously been critical of past state governments allowing native forests to be logged and koala habitats to be cleared.
She copped backlash over the development proposal and appears to have scrapped the plan altogether a year later, placing the property on the market.
Mehreen Faruqi is selling her Port Macquarie investment property for $1,100,000 (pictured)
She bought the property for $250,000 in 2001 and, if sold at the asking price, she would pocket an extra $850,000
Sandra Bourke, a spokeswoman for conservative lobby group Advance, told Daily Mail Australia: 'I can't remember the last time I heard The Greens talking about the environment. That's because they're just not who they used to be.
'They used to be about protecting forests, now they're about themselves.'
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Faruqi for comment.
According to The Greens website, 'a safe and affordable home is key to living a life with dignity. In a wealthy country like Australia, nobody should be forced to go without one'.
'Yet renters and mortgage holders are suffering. Big banks and wealthy property investors are making billions in profit, while millions of Australians are struggling to keep a roof over their head.'
The Greens' housing affordability proposal would cap rent at 25 per cent of the tenant's income, and end capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing.
The NSW senator came under fire on Sunday following her appearance on the ABC's Insiders, when she refused to say whether she believes Islamic terrorist group Hamas should be dismantled.
Ms Faruqi also owns an investment property in Beaconsfield, in Sydney's inner-west (pictured)
She rents the property for $750-per-week, which is about 40 per cent of the average salary in NSW (property pictured)
She was asked five times whether she believed the extremist group responsible for the deadly October 7 attack on Israeli festivalgoers should be abolished as a condition of Palestinian statehood.
'Hamas has nothing to do with recognising Palestinian statehood,' she told host David Speers.
'Recognising Palestinian statehood is about Palestinians being able to self-determine.'
When questioned further on the issue, the senator said: 'I can't keep repeating it again and again, [Hamas] has nothing to do with Palestinian statehood.'
'Palestinians need to decide where they want to go with their own region, not intervention from western countries.'
Speers noted Hamas was listed in Australia as a terrorist organisation and told the senator: 'Surely you're able to say whether you'd like to see them gone or not?'
She replied: 'It's not up to me to say who should be gone or not.'
Ms Faruqi said she couldn't answer the question because it's based on a 'hypothetical situation' if Palestinians were to be granted statehood.
