Despite historically owning less property than men, women have always exerted a powerful influence in the sector. Like lyre birds, many men use real estate to attract a mate, and a woman can be reasonably confident a man is committed to the relationship if he buys or builds her a house. But if that man happens to be a multi-billionaire, perhaps she shouldn’t be so sure. So far, only three women have outed themselves as recipients-in-residence of Wise-Tech founder Richard White’s loving largesse, but this may just be the tip of the iceberg. If Mr White really does consider the purchase of a multi-million-dollar home in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs or Lower North Shore the natural consummation of a short-term business relationship, who is to say he wouldn’t also purchase, say, a two-bedroom unit in the Inner West for a woman he shared a taxi with?

I have never aspired to create real estate advertising, since the category offers few opportunities for originality or humour. But many years ago, I did agree to write a glossy magazine ad selling apartments in a soon to be completed high-rise overlooking Circular Quay. I was told the ad had to showcase the 28th storey penthouse and the spectacular views it afforded. The client also said he wanted the ad to really stand out from all the others in the magazine. He agreed that the headline I subsequently suggested, ‘On a clear day you can see poor people’, would certainly stand out, but said he needed to run it past his team before giving me the go-ahead. The next day he told me he’d decided against running the ad on the grounds that while it might prove very effective with the target audience it might also cause his wife to file for divorce.

I would hate for my work to cause marital discord, and while, like all copywriters, I have a capacity for exaggeration, I draw the line at telling outright lies. I also hate waste, but if I’d been asked to write an ad for the house which the Prime Minister has just bought, I would not have tried to recycle my rejected Circular Quay headline. The beachside community of Copacabana may be 100 kilometres north of the CBD, but as its name implies, it is conspicuously not a part of what is increasingly referred to as the Centrelink Coast. Even on the clearest day, standing on the sturdy Colorbond roof of their lovely new home, the closest thing to poor people Mr and (as she will be then) Mrs Albanese are likely to see will be gardeners and garbos.

The Prime Minister has more than justified the purchase by revealing that his fiancé is a ‘coastie’ (as opposed to a hostie, like the bride of one of his Labor predecessors), and as such has understandable ties to the area. If Jody Haydon was also of Aboriginal extraction, Mr Albanese, being one of the country’s most ardent Treaty advocates, would doubtless describe her as a proud Darkinjung woman. He would also put the property in her name rather than his, thereby a) restoring at least a few hundred square metres of the ‘hood to its traditional owners, and b) dispensing with the Acknowledgement of Country which they are no doubt planning prior to moving in.

As far as I know his loyal offsider Tanya Plibersek has no Aboriginal ancestry, and is far too honest and sensible to ‘do a Pascoe’ and pretend otherwise. Which makes the efforts she has made to guard sacred sites against the depredations of mining companies all the more commendable.

Some might think it a shame that without documentary evidence of a skerrick of Aboriginal heritage in her family, the traditional owners of the Sydney suburb where she lives cannot confer on Ms Plibersek some kind of honorary tribal status.

But she may reflect on the fact that while her passionate and unquestioning subscription to the blue-banded bee dreaming myth will never make her a proud Gadigal woman, it has already made her look like a pretty Gullibul one.