Treasury locks in Big Australia and endless housing shortages

Following the release of the official Q2 2025 population statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), IFM Investors’ chief economist, Alex Joiner, published the following chart on Twitter (X) illustrating the extremeness of Australia’s recent population growth.

Joiner noted that “in Q4 2000, it took 12 years of net migration to that point to add 1,000,000 people to the population”. However, as of Q2 2025, it took 2.5 years to add one million people to Australia’s population.

“This has both fueled economic growth but also put pressure on the provision of housing, infrastructure and services”, Joiner stated on Twitter (X).

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

Share

About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.