A coalition of housing, homelessness, and social services organisations have called on politicians and the public not to scapegoat immigrants for the housing crisis sweeping across Australia.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, over 40 advocacy groups expressed concerns that migrant communities were unfairly blamed for skyrocketing rental prices and housing shortages.
The letter stated that there was an increase in “disturbing rhetoric” linking Australia’s migration levels to the current housing crisis.
It then explained that the housing crisis was not recent but the result of poor policy choices by previous governments over the past decades.
“Overwhelming evidence tells us the chronic undersupply of social housing and inflationary impacts of investor tax incentives are fuelling the current crisis,” the letter read.
Advocacy groups supported their argument with data from investment research firm SQM, showing that the rise in national rents during the closure of Australia’s borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic was around $15 (US$10) per week higher than the national average growth of the period from March 2010 to March 2020.
“It is nonsense to blame overseas migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making,” said Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize, who coordinated the letter.
“That rhetoric excuses failed government policies and detracts from the solutions that will fix this national emergency.”
To make housing affordable, advocacy groups said that the government needed to resolve the major drivers of the current housing crisis, including building more social homes and ending what they called “unfair tax policies.”
According to real estate data firm PropTrack, the rental vacancy rate hit a new record low of 1.02 percent in October, down from 1.10 percent in September and well below a healthy vacancy rate of 3 percent.
The national median rental prices also jumped to $550 (US$360) a week in the September quarter, up 14.6 percent compared to a year ago.
Economists Concerned About Unsustainable Levels of Immigration
While many advocacy groups believe immigrants are not the primary cause of the housing crisis, some economists have questioned the sustainability of current immigration levels in Australia.
AMP deputy chief economist Diana Mousina pointed out that the housing sector could not build enough homes to keep up with population growth.
“The high pace of immigration is not compatible with the level of housing supply that we have in this country,” she said, as reported by ABC News.
“If we had enough housing supply and infrastructure that went along with very high levels of immigration, then it could become sustainable.
“But what we’re seeing is that there’s too much pressure on the rental market, and that’s adding to inflation.”
According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over half a million (518,100) migrants came to Australia in the year to June 2023, up more than 150 percent compared to the previous year.
A mascot welcomes passengers upon arrival at the Sydney International Airport in Sydney, Australia, on Feb. 21, 2022. (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)
Amid the surge in migration, the federal Labor government has introduced a reform to reduce migration to near pre-pandemic levels.
The latest Treasury forecast predicted that net overseas migration would drop to 375,000 people in the 2023-2024 financial year and 250,000 in 2024-2025.
The federal government said without the reform, migration levels would stay at 440,000 in 2023-2024 and 305,000 in 2024-2025 instead of the above figures.
However, Mr. Dutton said the government’s forecast, projecting a total migrant count of 1.63 million people between 2022 and 2027, was still higher than the 1.5 million forecasted in the May budget.
“The pressure that they (migrants) are putting on housing is going to make it less affordable for families to get a home,” he said.
“It’s going to make it less affordable for somebody to rent a property.”
Alfred Bui is an Australian reporter based in Melbourne and focuses on local and business news. He is a former small business owner and has two master’s degrees in business and business law. Contact him at [email protected].
