Australia’s housing minister has been savaged on social media for celebrating the engagement of US pop star Taylor Swift while Aussies struggle to afford homes due to rampant mass immigration.
Labor MP Clare O’Neil shared a photo of Taylor Swift and her new fiancé Travis Kelce on X on Wednesday morning with the caption “The perfect love story. #taylorswift #traviskelce #engaged”.
In a second post on Facebook she wrote: “New Taylor Swift music, 5% deposits for all first home buyers and the greatest band of all time (in my opinion) getting back on the road, October is shaping up to be a huge month.”
The perfect love story #taylorswift #traviskelce #engaged pic.twitter.com/Dx6rgEbQKb
— Clare O’Neil MP (@ClareONeilMP) August 26, 2025
But the posts infuriated Australians and attracted hundreds of critical comments telling Ms O’Neil to focus on solving the housing crisis instead of talking about American celebrities.
“Australian Labor party are not a serious political party,” said former Liberal Party candidate Katherine Deves.
“How is this going to help the hundreds of thousands of homeless Australians Clare O’Neil? What about the 3 million+ facing homelessness? Why are 10,000 Australians being made homeless every month Clare?” asked housing affordability campaigner Morgan Cox.
“Do you care about us at all? Are you coming to the rally on the 31st Clare?”
Others responded by saying “women in parliament was a bad idea”, “women should not be in politics”, “we really are governed by teenage girls and mentally teenage girls”, and accused Ms O’Neil of living in a bubble.
“Not sure a Housing Minister needs to be posting this,” said one popular quote post, while another shared a graph showing that home ownership rates for over-65s are projected to fall to 19% by 2056.
Ms O’Neil’s posts came a day after a scathing report from the Insurance Council of Australia found that her new first homebuyer scheme that will allow purchases with 5% deposits will cause housing prices to increase and make it harder for low income earners to buy.
And two days before that she was forced to defend her 1.2 million housing target, with some forecasts now predicting it will be 250,000 homes short by 2029.
“We are working towards making the target. This is a really ambitious goal for the country,” she told Sky News on Sunday.
“I hope people see and applaud that ambition because this is exactly what is needed… We need energy and drive, which is going to make us change the way housing works.”
Header image: Left, Ms O’Neil talking about Taylor Swift’s new album. Right, taking a selfie in front of a new apartment development (Melbourne).
