There are three things you can be certain of in Australia: 1) death; 2) taxes; and 3) The Guardian downplaying any negative impacts arising from excessive levels of immigration into Australia.
Earlier this month, The Guardian wheeled out a bunch of academics who magically believe that ramping net overseas migration (NOM) to record levels has had little impact on the rental market nor prices:
Now The Guardian has jumped on a letter from a social and housing groups that admonishes Australians for daring to link excessive levels of NOM to Australia’s current rental crisis:
“In a letter to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, the groups said: “We write following the rise in disturbing rhetoric linking Australia’s migration levels to the current housing crisis”.
“We are deeply concerned that migrant communities are being scapegoated as the primary reason for this crisis.” The letter did not give examples or criticise any specific politicians”.
“Maiy Azize, a spokesperson for the housing campaign Everybody’s Home who coordinated the letter, said it was “nonsense to blame migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making”.
This is classic straw manning. Nobody is blaming “migrants” for driving the current rental crisis, which implies racism and xenophobia.
We are blaming excessive levels of immigration, which is an unambiguous fact – unless you don’t believe in the laws of supply and demand.
And yes, housing policy has been a failure for decades. But so too has Australia’s mass immigration policy.
Examine the below charts. Australia’s NOM fell at the start of the pandemic before rising to its current record level of 518,000 for 2022-23:
Australia’s rental vacancy rate rose at the beginning of the pandemic when NOM fell before plunging to its current record low as NOM exploded:
Source: CoreLogic
The same goes for Australia’s rental inflation, which initially fell alongside NOM before surging alongside NOM:
Notice too how the explosion in rent inflation in 2008 matched the previous explosion in NOM (the former peak in the first chart). This is not a coincidence.
Australia’s population growth ramped up (via NOM) from 2005 but it took years before dwelling construction rates caught up, which drove rents up initially:
But then rising supply brought rental inflation back down in the years before the pandemic.
Now we have population growth ramping to fresh record highs as housing construction rates are crashing, which is causing rental vacancy rates to collapse and rental inflation to soar.
This is basic common sense and supply-demand economics. So why do The Guardian and these social and housing groups continually argue against it?
Are we really supposed to keep immigration at historically high levels and expect the housing crisis to magically resolve itself?
Why does The Guardian continue to run interference and lie about the negative impacts of high levels of immigration?
The outrage over ‘media bias’ constantly levelled at the Murdoch press should be redirected to The Guardian.
