Greens’ Max Chandler-Mather reveals why he can’t afford to buy a house – despite earning more than $230,000 a year

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather has been confronted with questions about why he does not own a home despite earning more than $233,660 a year.

The 32-year-old MP for Griffith, in Brisbane’s inner city, was taken to task at the National Press Club on Tuesday over why, despite being in the top three per cent of earners in Australia, he still owns no property At home.

“Out of curiosity, you are a very well paid senator, with a salary of over $220,000, but you are a renter, why haven’t you bought a house?” asked Nick Bonyhady, a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Mr Chandler-Mather, a lifelong renter, revealed how he had given part of his income to charities, and was priced out of a house in his electorate.

“Look, honest answer, small family, we have one income and I give up about $50,000 of my salary to run all the free meal programs for the electorate,” he said.

“With that money we serve approximately 50,000 free meals, including our free weekly breakfast at state schools.

“My view is that when I was elected, I was elected by a lot of low-income people and it wasn’t right for me not to give up a large portion of my salary to low-income people.

“Because we’re giving up that money and living on one income, and in an inner-city electorate with very, very high median house prices, it’s hard to buy a house there.

Greens spokesman Max Chandler-Mather (pictured) was asked why he did not own a home despite being in the top 2.3 percent of income earners in the country.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather is pictured with his partner

“I want to be clear: I’m not the one having a hard time, but I’m answering your question.”

An MP with a base salary of $233,660 is in the top two percent of income earners.

The average house price of $974,025 in Inner Brisbane would require someone to earn $149,850 to qualify for a mortgage with a 20 per cent deposit.

But in his electorate of Griffith, an upscale suburb like Bulimba on the Brisbane River has a highly unaffordable average house price of $2,068,461.

A person would have to earn $318,225 – and be in the top 1 percent of income earners – to even get a mortgage.

However, Mr Chandler-Mather could probably buy a smaller unit within his electorate.

Earlier, Chandler-Mather became emotional as he spoke about the impact of the housing crisis on his generation after being accused of ‘letting young voters down’ by capitulating to Labour.

Mr Chandler-Mather was quizzed by interviewer Sarah Ferguson on Monday night’s episode of ABC’s 7.30 Report about whether the Greens, by agreeing to pass two Labor housing bills, had let down the party’s younger voter base .

Mr Albanese and Labor have accused Mr Chandler-Mather of stoking housing outrage to further his own political ambitions (Photo: Mr Chandler-Mather’s infamous altercation with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year)

“Every day that we don’t solve the housing crisis, I feel like I’ve let them down a little bit,” an emotional Chandler-Mather said.

‘My generation will probably be worse off than our parents for the first time. I feel that acutely.’

Mr Chandler-Mather’s voice wavered as he revealed he had “friends who have been evicted because they can’t pay the rent or because they’ve given up the possibility of ever buying a house.”

‘And it actually hurts me a lot to see that. “I find it very difficult,” he said.

The Greens have postponed the Albanian government’s Help to Buy and Build-to-Rent bills for months and pushed for changes to tax breaks for real estate investors and rent increase caps.

Ultimately, however, they supported the bills even though these demands were not met.