Migration is not out of control and the figures show it is not to blame for the housing crisis
Migration is not to blame for house prices rising. And neither are Australia’s borders out of control.
Immigration has been an issue at this year’s election. The Coalition is linking it to house prices with opposition leader Mr Dutton saying: “We’re going to cut immigration because Labor’s brought in a million people over two years and that has created the housing crisis”.
Last night in the final leaders’ debate Peter Dutton doubled down saying:
“This government hasn’t had control of our borders. They’ve released people from immigration detention who have gone on to commit very serious crimes against Australians. The whole, every aspect of the migration program has been mismanaged by this Government. And if you bring in a million people over two years, over a five year period, it’ll be about 2 million people, a population bigger than the size of Adelaide.”
However, the Coalition linking immigration to the housing crisis makes little sense. The housing crisis has not just appeared in the last 2 years, it has been getting worse for more than two decades.
But what about the claim that immigration and the population have been rapidly growing? It is certainly true that net migration has been higher in the last few years. But that was after an extraordinary period where the boarders were shut, we saw more people leaving the country and entering it, and the Australian population went down. Even more extraordinary – during that period of border closures, house prices rose 25% in little over a year.
Looking at the quarterly change in population over the last 10 years we can see the huge impact COVID had and the bounce back after the borders had reopened.
But what about the overall impact this has had on Australia’s population? Has the bounce back been bigger than the slump?
No. In fact Australia’s population is still lower that it would have been expected to be had it grown at the same rate as it had been before COVD.
We don’t have a “big Australia” and migrants aren’t taking our homes or our jobs.
The problem of housing affordability is due to a lack of supply from the public sector of low-cost housing and rental properties, mixed with tax breaks for investors that has turned ustralia’s housing market into a speculators paradise.
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