Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen buys land in Bawley Point

The Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has plans for a holiday home after his recent $295,000 purchase of a block of land at Bawley Point on the NSW south coast.

Bowen bought the 730 sq m building block with wife Rebecca Mifsud, an industrial relations executive at Toll Holdings.

It had been for sale since listed in 2013 at $375,000.

Located on the Bawley headland, the block is only minutes walk from both Bawley and Cormorant beaches.

"The headland area is complimented by luxurious homes in prime positions and vacant building blocks are now almost non existent," selling agent Darryl Leslight at Ray White Surfside Properties said.

Before the luxury set in, Bawley Point made its reputation as popular with the left-thinking Canberra set, highlighted in 1986 when journalists Gregory Hywood and Kate Legge, and Heather Ewart and Barry Cassidy paid $105,000 for their jointly owned coastal retreat, which is about three-and-a-half hours' drive from Sydney and two-and-a-half hours' drive from Canberra.

Only last summer the coastal New South Wales location was the setting of Bill Shorten’s family Christmas holiday - and where he crystallised the steps that almost saw the Opposition Leader take government six months later. It was where he decided he needed to start his days with an early morning run to loose weight.

The Bowen’s live in his McMahon electorate in Smithfield, in Sydney’s west, where they rebuilt after paying $470,000 in 2003.

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.