Senior Labor minister Clare O’Neil once proclaimed that “truckloads” of immigration is the solution to many of Australia’s challenges:
“Immigration has been the special sauce in our national history”.
“We have never, in post-colonial Australia, met any national challenge or done anything economically viable without truckloads of it”.
O’Neil delivered on this belief as Home Affairs Minister, delivering the largest immigration surge in Australia’s history, with nearly one million net migrants arriving in Australia in only two years:
The flow of migrants into Australia more than doubled the projections of the Albanese government’s first federal budget in October 2022, which projected that Australia’s net overseas migration would be 470,000 over 2022-23 and 2023-24:
Source: October 2022 federal budget
This unprecedented importation of new renters into Australia sent vacancy rates to historical lows and rental inflation through the roof, driving Australia’s current rental crisis:
After failing on immigration and engineering the rental crisis, Clare O’Neil was moved to Housing Minister last month because she excels at political spin:
She [O’Neil] remains in cabinet and has now moved to minister for housing and homelessness — a portfolio that needed a stronger communicator at a time when anger about housing is at record highs.
The government believes the housing portfolio needs its strongest, sharpest public performer since the housing debate has been largely lost by Labor so far.
Right on cue, O’Neil has taken spin to another level:
“Everyone recognises that we’ve got to do more, and we’ve got to do more, more quickly”, O’Neil said about housing supply.
She said Australia was experiencing three intertwining crises: “One in housing supply, as in our country does not have enough homes; the second is in housing affordability – the homes that we have aren’t affordable; and the third is in housing construction.”
Governments at all levels needed to step up to address the problem, she said.
“I absolutely worry about my kids and the experience they will have as young people in this market trying to get housing – and if we don’t do something serious about this now, the problem will inexorably get worse,” she said.
Clare O’Neil is about to find out that opening the immigration floodgates is a lot easier than coaxing the private sector into building a volume of homes that has never been achieved before:
The reality is that macroeconomic conditions are unconducive to homebuilding:
- The official cash rate of 4.35% is the highest since 2011, pressuring new home buyers and builders.
- Construction costs have increased by more than 40% since the start of the pandemic.
- The residential building industry is competing for scarce labour and materials with government ‘big build’ infrastructure projects.
- Nearly 3000 construction firms collapsed in 2023-24, reducing capacity across the homebuilding industry.
But don’t worry, Albo from Marketing has put his best spin doctor on the job, rather than slashing demand by lowering net overseas migration to sensible and sustainable levels.
If spin could solve Australia’s housing crisis, then we would be in safe hands with Clare O’Neil:
