On Friday evening, I gave an interview to Sky News’s Erin Molan (video below) where we discussed among other things the federal budget, as well as the Albanese Government’s record immigration program, which is creating a “housing and inequality disaster” for the nation.
As regular readers will know, Australia’s rental market is in crisis with rental vacancies at an all-time low and capital city rents rising at record double-digit rates.
This extreme growth in rents has primarily been driven by unprecedented net overseas migration, which lifted Australia’s population by a record high 482,000 in the 2022 calendar year:
The Australian Treasury recently revised up its net overseas migration projection to an all-time high 400,000 this financial year and 315,000 for 2023-24.
Both are way above the already extreme 235,000 forecast in September’s Budget and January’s Population Statement.
The Albanese Government has deliberately engineered this increased immigration by:
- Extending the number of hours that students can work and how long they can remain in Australia post-graduation;
- Employing 500 people to clear the contrived ‘one million’ visa backlog as quickly as possible; and
- Lifting the non-humanitarian permanent migrant intake to a record high 195,000 (from 160,000).
This record migration surge is occurring at the same time as housing construction is stunted by widespread building company collapses (e.g. Porter Davis Homes) and rising costs.
The only outcome from the Albanese Government’s mad immigration policy will be a housing and inequality disaster, with rents certain to soar higher and many thousands of Australians certain to be thrown into homelessness.
The Albanese Government’s laughably small 30,000 social homes program over five years also won’t help the nation’s housing situation.
This is because the targeted 6,000 social homes per year will be dwarfed by the expected 400,000 to 500,000 annual growth in Australia’s population.
As Sky News’s host Erin Molan notes during the interview, “it won’t even touch the sides”.
Other issues discussed in the interview include the expected budget surplus and why it won’t last, the Albanese Government’s age-based JobSeeker policy, and the great East Coast energy policy failure.
The full Sky News interview is below:
