Earlier this week, housing minister Clare O’Neil lied on Twitter (X) claiming that “for the first time in a decade, new homes are being built faster”, that “the only way to make homes more affordable is to build more of them”, and “we’re doing exactly that”:
O’Neil’s lies followed the release of the Australian Bureau of Statistic’s (ABS) dwelling completions data for the June quarter of 2025, which showed that only 40,524 homes completed construction in the quarter, which was the weakest quarter of dwelling completions for 11 years (i.e., since the March quarter of 2014).
In the 2024-25 financial year, total dwelling completions fell by 2% to 174,030, from 177,600 the previous financial year.
As a result, over the first year of the National Housing Accord, which commenced on 1 July 2024, 65,970 (27%) fewer homes were completed than the government’s 240,000 annual target.
On Wednesday night, O’Neil continued her gaslighting tactics by accusing wealthy inner and middle Melbourne suburbs of segregation and NIMBYism for not contributing fairly to the growth of the housing supply:
“When councils around Melbourne knock back townhouse or apartment developments near train stations, another Victorian family can’t afford to live close to their jobs,” O’Neil said.
“When one council says ‘not in my backyard’, another council must step up.”
O’Neil contrasted the rapid release of land and construction approvals in growth corridors such as Wyndham, Melton and Brimbank – which she said had done the “heavy lifting” – adding it was now time for the whole city to tackle Victoria’s housing challenge…
“Those living on the fringe face higher transport costs and lower job access, while those closer in benefit from proximity, convenience and services that have had decades to get delivery right,” she said.
“That’s why increasing density in our middle-ring suburbs isn’t just a question of planning or aesthetics – it’s a question of fairness”…
Clare O’Neil conveniently failed to mention that the only reason why Melbourne needs to supply so many homes so quickly is because the federal government continues to flood the city with migrants.
Melbourne’s population has swelled by around 2 million so far this century, and the state government forecasts that Melbourne’s population will balloon to nine million by 2056.
If these projections come to fruition, Melbourne’s population will rise from 3.5 million at the turn of the century to 9 million by 2056, an extraordinary 5.5 million (172%) increase in only 56 years.
Which Melburnian honestly believes that such explosive population growth is sensible, sustainable, and will improve housing affordability and livability?
The reality is that Australians have long opposed the federal government’s mass immigration policy because of its deleterious crush-loading impacts on our cities.
Just last week, two opinion polls were released showing, once again, that Australians do not support Labor’s excessive immigration.
Resolve Political Monitor’s polling of 1,800 Aussies from across the political spectrum on October 7 and 12 showed that 58% supported a “significant reduction” in migration levels, outnumbering those opposing immigration cuts 4-to-1:
The Institute of Public Affairs’s (IPA) survey of 1,007 people between September 13-14, conducted by Dynata, likewise showed that 60% of Australians believed that migration levels are too high, while only 7% thought they were too low.
Source: Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
An extraordinary 71% of respondents also believed that Australia should temporarily pause its intake of new immigrants until more economic and social infrastructure, such as schools, roads, hospitals, and houses, are built:
Source: Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
Two-thirds also believed that mass immigration is making Australia more divided:
Source: Institute of Public Affairs (IPA)
These results echoed a broad spectrum of polling conducted over the past decade—both pre- and post-pandemic—showing that Australians do not support high levels of immigration (see here).
Therefore, instead of chastising so-called wealthy inner and middle Melbourne households for pushing back against the transformation of their suburbs into high density, why won’t the Albanese government instead acknowledge the wishes of Australians and dramatically lower the migrant intake?
The fact of the matter is that with Australia’s fertility rate below replacement, 100% of Australia’s housing pressures come from population growth via net overseas migration.
Excessive immigration, therefore, is the fundamental driver of the nation’s housing shortage and rental crisis.
The “fair” thing to do is to stop importing hundreds of thousands of people into Australia’s cities every single year, rather than forcing Melbourne’s suburbs to be bulldozed into high density to accommodate nine million people that nobody asked for.
Voters categorically do not want a Big Australia and megacities of high-rise slums. It is time that cronies like Clare O’Neil listened.
