A politician who complained about having to live in his car since being evicted from a rental property has been revealed to own a four-bedroom home worth $831,000.
Independent Western Australia MP Wilson Tucker said last week that he was forced into homelessness after receiving a no-grounds eviction notice at the end of April.
But Mr Tucker did not mention that he bought a house on an 873-square metre block at Hamersley in Perth‘s north last November, which he rents out for about $700 a week.
‘The reality is, it’s been rented out on a fixed term contract so I can’t move in there,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday.
‘I gave the tenants the option of a 12-month lease, which is exactly what they wanted to have more security.’
WA MP Wilson Tucker (pictured) complained about having to live in his car since being evicted from a rental property – but it has been revealed he owns a four-bedroom home worth $831,000
Speaking last weekend, Mr Tucker said he has looked at a lot of places since he got his eviction notice, but has not been able to find a place to rent.
‘There’s certainly a lot of fear and desperation in the market. There’s literally hundreds of people showing up (to view rentals), competing over a handful of properties … it has been incredibly frustrating.’
When asked on Tuesday about why he didn’t previously mention owning a large house 14km north-west of Perth’s CBD, the MP said ‘it doesn’t change my living situation, which is why I didn’t raise it’.
He said he could not have moved into the house he bought last year because ‘if you were to turf someone out now in the current climate, then they’re probably (going to be) battling for a property, and they’ve got a couple of generations of people in there.
‘So I decided to retain them and, you know, put myself in a little bit of a disadvantage.’
Mr Tucker, who represents the Mining and Pastoral Region electorate in WA’s upper house, said he has decided to live out of of his car ‘up north’ during the weeks that parliament isn’t sitting.
He will stay in hotels when he needs to be in Perth and spend the rest of the time living out of his Prado and in a tent while he goes around his electorate, which is 2,205,281 square kilometres.
‘There’s some days where it makes sense if you’re in a more remote location to pull up a tent,’ he said.
‘If I’m staying in more of a regional town like Kununurra, I’ll probably grab a motel.’
Mr Tucker defended not mentioning that he is a home owner, saying the situation is about the bigger picture of the rental crisis in Western Australia.
‘What I’m trying to do is just use my example to sort highlight the fact that anyone on a decent income can potentially be homeless as a result of the current tight rental market and the weak rental protection laws.
‘I’m not here to play my silver harp or anything at all. There’s certainly people in much worse situations than myself and that’s kind of the message I’ve been trying to get across,’ he said.
As he may not run again in the next WA election, he considered the house as an investment property that he may later move into.
But being a landlord himself has not stopped Mr Tucker from slamming the state government for how it deals with renters.
‘It’s incredibly disappointing that the WA government has sided with the property industry to the detriment of the 700,000 renters,’ he said, calling for it ‘to rethink their position’ on rental protection.
Mr Tucker did not mention that he bought a house on an 873-square metre block at Hamersley (pictured) in Perth’s north last November, and rents it out for about $700 a week
‘The elephant in the room, the low hanging fruit here, is to remove no-grounds evictions and bring WA in line with the rest of the country.’
A state government spokesperson responded saying, ‘with the current challenges facing WA’s rental market, it is not in the community’s interests to make it more complex to own and manage a long-term rental property.
‘Our state needs more investors in the market and uncertainty about their ability to manage their own asset may stand in the way of increasing supply.’
The WA Parliament’s disclosure rules mean that Mr Tucker does not have to declare that he bought the house until July.