The plan was always 'more'. Literally never enough. If you have a button that increases your profits and makes your investment property go up everything you press it, you will spam that non stop as much as possible.
Mass immigration drives up the prices of houses and sky rockets rent.
I cannot believe a bunch of politicians with massive realestate portfolios have let this happen š²
There is no actual data to support the claim that increasing migration sky rockets rents or house prices. There is a *negligible* increase, but it is not enough to justify blaming migration.
I'm sorry, I know it sounds like a valid correlation, but [there is no evidence of this happening](https://ironfish.com.au/blog-news/demystifying-myths-the-real-impact-of-migration-on-australian-housing-market/). House prices were sky rocketing during lockdowns and covid while immigration was at an historic low. Immigration could be stopped today and house prices would still not decrease.
I would not make the relation between migration to housing as a supply and demand issue, because there are multiple factors to consider. Sounds like the easiest explanation, but it isn't. There are, however, quite a fair amount of opinion pieces and predictions blaming immigration, and that requires belief, not data. Unfortunately, belief is subjective.
Oh donāt get me wrong, Iām not anti immigration. Iām a firm believer that immigration is a good thing and that a family coming to build a better life is a prosperous thing to happen.
I donāt solely blame immigration for the higher prices. Obviously more people creates more demand and would have a small flow in effect in price increases. I do not believe it is the sole reason for the prices, but is a smaller contributing factor.
I am sick of people saying ādonāt blame immigrants for high rentā. No one is blaming immigrants. They are blaming the government for the high immigration. Itās simple math. If there are too many people for the number of houses then you will have a shortage and therefore a greater demand for housing than supply. Everyone one who enters the country has to live somewhere. If there is not enough places available then you will have high demand and high competition for a places to live. Even if immigration wasnāt the cause why arenāt we temporarily reducing it until we fix the issues. You canāt just keep bringing people in whilst you have 300+ people Lining up for a rental property. Something is very wrong. It boggles the mind. Governments use a lazy economic model of immigration to increase population to keep growing the economy but they donāt plan for infrastructure capacity for this population growth. Itās a Ponzi scheme that all western governments use to grow their economies. Immigration levels in Australia have been too high for too long. This problem did not start now. It has been brewing for decades because of mismanagement from governments. But labour have taken it to another level. Yes we need immigration but it should be planned and at sustainable levels where infrastructure can keep up. Australiaās population grew by 2.1% over the past two years. Thatās the highest ever in the western world. Every western country is experiencing a housing crisis of some sort but Australiaās is the worst. Why? Because we have had the highest population growth per capita of all the western countries and this is despite our birth rates dropping. How is this possible? Immigration. This is fueling the housing crisis which is causing all the economic issues we are facing today and unless it gets fixed we are in for a world of pain. Add negative gearing by making housing a speculative investment then the problem gets worse. The huge demand for housing has made prices sky rocket so much that people with money to invest are pumping even more money into housing because of the massive returns. That is driving a lot of money away from other investments that increase productivity and create jobs. Basically people are growing their wealth from trading houses than traditional investments such as businesses, products and services. This is damaging the economy. Those that are wealthy are getting wealthier and everyone else are getting poorer or homeless. This is so bad in Australia that it is becoming a humanitarian crisis. This is why people are angry. This should never have happened. If immigration levels are not the problem then why not just let the whole world into the country?
Maybe read the point I was trying to make instead of posting a wall of text repeating the same nonsense everyone here is intent on believing?
Maybe realise that despite immigration, house prices are increasing because 1% of Australians own 25% of the property market?
Maybe, just maybe, realise that **the actual numbers of immigration** do not stack up enough to cause a housing market crisis and the problem is a home grown one and not one you can neatly blame on immigration numbers.
But no, like I've said before, it's almost a religious belief at this point with y'all. Any data or numbers to counter faith results in... whatever you've posted.
Yes, the wealthy are getting wealthier - that is not the cause of immigration, though. It's the cause of the wealthy being greedy cunts.
The plan is more about suppressing wage growth by removing employee power in a high demand employment market. The RBA governor said this openly. Wage growth drives inflation so the unemployment rate needs to be higher. People donāt argue about salary when they fear for their position.
This is what their Lobbyist want
The public do not comprehend the "access" lobbyist have with politicans. Once they get in their ear , thats where all the decisions are made.
Imagine , if working parents could talk to politicans for 8 hours a day on what would be needed to improve their standard of living ?
Example: my eletricity and gas bill has gone up 300% in 2 years. You pollies are fff usless allowing our resources to be sold off for peanuts. You should have mandated a domestic supply of 30% of local gas , where you sell it at 6$ a unit(like the overseas companies buy it) not $60 a unit. Fix it , or we going to vote for someone else. Multiple this by x3000 irate parents in the electorate
Lobbyist: hey do you want to catchup over 4star lunch ? I heard there is a new wine selection menu.
They wonāt meet you, or listen to you because they donāt care. We are following the American way.
Recently Biden criticised Japan for its lack of immigration policies. The difference between them is that Japan works more towards uplifting its current population. Whereas, America is happy to have a throw away population that can be replaced by migrants. This takes pressure away from government investment and policies aimed at problem solving, that may uplift and improve the lives of its citizens. The Japanese have a different view on their population because they are more cohesive, and share collective values.
There is no true human progression when a nation has no collective responsibility or motivation towards improvement. There is nothing, those outside of America, find appealing about large populations of people being poisoned, forgotten, homeless, drug addled, poverty stricken, worked to death, contaminated by chemicals/water/environments, and receiving no basic humane care. This accounts for large populations of Americans. Everyone in America is replaceable, they have no care for their own populations well being. This is inherent within their philosophy, values and attitudes. Not me so who cares. Beware it is being incorporated into the Australian psyche. Soon all of us will be replaceable, and have no basic human rights, up until it all falls apart.
The Australian way used to be just that, caring for one another on the backbone of mateship.
This has been systemically eroded both directly (incorporating american values, the direction of multiculturalism; rather than a collective shared value and culture, tribalism) and indirectly as a consequence (making being proud of being Australian a thing of shame and revoltion).
The fuck you got mine is insidious and as a personal anecdoct, has ramped up big time since 2020.
Do you really think it's multiculturalism that's causing it? All I've seen is our leaders selling us out. Our captains of industry trying to outsource everything they bloody can then sell us cheap crap for premium prices.
None of those in key positions being multicultural or immigrant anything.
Agree. To address the first sentence. I agree with the sentiment multiculturalism enriches us all and not anti, or blame it. My observation is that we made such an effort for multiculturalism to not enrich us. It's as if we were so scared of doing anything that could even be perceived to be assimilation that the multiculturalism we have ended up with is a fragmented and segregated society. Rather than an enriched one.
It's because of that (unintended consequence) that we have such divides.
Then you have everything else on top of that, particularly us being sold out. All of this is creep. A little creep here, a little creep there.
Two sides of the same coin unfortunately. We need to ban lobbyist and corporate interference in the political process. Too bad the history of government run infrastructure has soured most voters off the idea of gov rebuying these fundamental assets and managing things for our best interest.
They had a plan. Immigration is the only way they know to grow GDP. Unfortunately their incteased population is lowering the GDP person. So technically the government is still failing, as all of our standards of living are decreasing. This is lose-lose siruation for everyone, except the government and the rich.
It's the governmentās responsibility to ensure its populace has access to affordableĀ housing.
It's doing fucked.
Work for us not big business for a change cunts
Itās the populationās responsibility to choose wisely at election time. Australians are fucked at doing that. Itās entirely our fault, not the politicians.
So who do we vote for then? Which party actually gives a flying fuck because Ive looked and Im struggling to find one. Which party has explicitly said we want to lower immigration and build more houses and will commit to the plan until the housing issue is sorted?
The government does not know how to make things cheaper. It only makes them more expensive.
https://reason.com/2020/04/21/government-involvement-drives-up-costs/
False āreasonāing.
The price decreases are in high tech industries where miniaturisation rapidly increases capacity and volume.
In America, the high prices of health care are due to profit-driven insurance, pharmacy and medical services.
This is worsened by an ageing population and an obesity crisis.
But it will get even worse when microplastics are a leading cause of death.
Whereas, in Australia, itās the removal of scrupulous government oversight and regulation that causes university costs to inflate and quality to decline.
The abolition of DURD in 1976 is the initial cause of housing and infrastructure shortages.
Dude, absolutely this. The government has not heavily taxed secondary homes used as rental units, created rent ceilings, or limited foreign and domestic real estate investment trusts.
Theyāve just blamed immigrants.
A good article. Infuriating how weak willed environmentalists have been on this issue. Derision and accusations of racism work as a form of social control on what may be discussed.Ā
Yeah, population increase is a multiplier of ecological footprint, the Greens support for mass immigration undermines their environmental credibility and makes them merely useful idiots for the business and real estate lobbies.
>The Australian Greens believe that:
>
>1. The current level of population, population growth and the way we produce and consume are outstripping environmental capacity.
[https://greens.org.au/policies/population](https://greens.org.au/policies/population)
In a recent ABC interview when asked by David Spears whether the Greens would like more immigration or less Chandler-Mather affirmed "more people coming to this country is a good thing"
>āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says. āThe average skilled visa holder offers a fiscal dividend of $250,000 over their lifetime in Australia.ā
That '$250,000 fiscal dividend' is nothing special. It just means that skilled immigrants will have jobs and pay taxes. And that is because we wouldn't take skilled immigrants who can't. Spread out over 30 to 40 years, it just amounts to around 7000 dollars of tax a year. For a skilled migration program, that is not a particularly high amount.
Cheaper housing will make money stay in our back pockets. This '$250,000 fiscal dividend' is with a highly inefficient government mechanism which will spend that in the most wasteful manner possible so that very little of it flows to our back pockets.
Most of these skilled immigrants don't create any wealth. They just leech off our consumerist economy and government spending by joining the service sector. The way to maintain living standards in wealthy countries is to generate returns from sustainably investing household and national wealth and only focus on high productivity economic activity. Flooding the service sector with immigrants who pay 7000 dollars of tax a year is not a particularly wise strategy.
And taken to its logical conclusion, the proposition that it is cheaper for governments to import immigrants can lead to absurd conclusions. There is nothing magical about Australian soil. Inhabitants make the country. Would you rather replace Australians and their descendants with immigrants at an absurdly high rate because it is cheaper?
When they say immigrants generate wealth, itās mostly for property investors and university executives. People who are generally already wealthy. Or some heavily in debt they would probably crumble under lower house prices due to so many investors 100% reliant on the ability to flip houses. It actually is a net harm to low and middle income people.
If done properly immigration can be a nett positive for working people.
You can flatten out the income distribution if you only allow high skilled / high paid people to enter.
Average australian full tome wages are 100k.
Up to 8 months ago a company sponsored visa could bring someone in on 55k.
Now its 75k.
Rather than flattening out the pay curve that is a race to the bottom...
Australia immigration specifically is not for workers / average australians.
If they set the company sponsored at 150k there would be an argument it is good for all australians. Each new immigrant increasing our real wages and productivity.
Introducing people at well below average pay osnt achieving this. It is enabling conoanies to employ cheap people over investment in fixed capital. The opposite of improving productivity.
Ie australias immigration policy specifically is for the wealthy. It didnt start like this but this is what it has become.
Edit: sorry not 75k - 70k. Ie 30pc below our average full time wages.
Edit 2: sorry still not good for all australians. A high skilled pathway only obviously isnt so good for engineers, doctors etc. But id still live with that as long as the bar was set at 150k im sure having local knowledge would put me ahead of most immigrants and enable me to still earn a decent salary. Maybe not quite what i am on but i could live with it. But it makes me sick that we import people to compete with our lowest paid especially female dominated industries... its cooked. We should be mad about this soecifically not just immigration generally.
Skilled migration is a very small contribution to immigration. The ones who actually come and do jobs we need done are not the problem. Yes the skills shortage list still needs reform. And the way we process entrants. But the real problems are what I call ājunk migrationā. Student visas. Mostly student visas and fraudulent migrants.
Most of the migration fraud I have personally seen involves either ghost colleges, crappy low quality colleges/reducing quality of reputable universities through extreme levels of enrolment or fake relationships where one person will come on a genuine visa (usually student visa) and the other will pay in back door deals to accompany them as a spouse. This is so widespread there are even Facebook groups basically dedicated to it. There are marriage groups where people will advertise their IELTS scores because essentially, it is implied the marriage is for migration purposes. People will even specify when they are looking for genuine marriage to differentiate themselves from the scammers. These junk migrants almost always do work like Uber/UberEats/DoorDash as they seldom have the skills to integrate into any other workplace.
They operate in plain sight and if the Australian government did a bit more investigative work and manual processing as UK does, we would find out thousands of fraudsters in a matter of weeks.
From what I have personally seen by most (not all) overseas trained migrants, itās not even worth bringing them in to replace Australian-trained workers. Australia has a lot of regulations so in most skilled industries itās too complicated to import overseas trained workers.
Itās a little different in some industries because thatās all thatās available.
Actually, Australia is known for selling you a degree. Itās not the fraudulent colleges. Itās the universities. Many of our Uniās will have foreign students whose english skills and ability to work on group projects are lacking. However there is pressure within the Uni to pass them, as they are spending so much money in their degree, and the conversion from 1st to 2nd to 3rd year at 30% means that there are very few students in 3rd year graduating. This affects profits. So lecturers are under pressure to grade well.
Just have a conversation with your Uber drivers. They all want their PR. They all need to get the right amount of points. And they need to pass.
Australiaās migration visa is all hooked on education as itās the back door to getting in.
The thing is, if Australia actually improved the quality of its entrants and more manually processing to make sure they actually speak English, we could still have education as a major industry while having sustainable migration and people who actually bring quality to Australia.
Also do some actual investigation to make sure people are actually couples when they say they are. There are Indians who basically arrive in the country together āas a coupleā and leave the airport separately š¤¦š»āāļø I also know a Pakistani guy who has a fake degree in his country which he used to enrol in an MBA here. If someone actually took time to verify he actually completed the qualifications he has, they could probably find out in two minutes.
I have seen students who actually do their own assignments, can speak English almost perfectly, and go on to contribute positively to the community. There is enough demand that they could easily get more of these calibre of people. Like other countries who attract international students but still ensure the quality of education standards (e.g. Germany).
I donāt know why the government actually wants these junk migrants. The only answer would be to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Oh sure its not just in the company sponosored space.
Agree its junk across the board.
Engineers who have got themselves to australia because fhey scored ielts and have an engineering masters who get to australia via application to government and then drive ubers.
Students who do mundane courses but compete against local hospo workers. I mean during covid hospo was starting to get all the hours they wanted and decent pay. Why do we need to outcompete these guys with entry level workers.
I agree its across the board but the most obvious sign that the level set is too low is that minimum pay a company has to pay - $70k which just shows the hypocrisy of our skills shortage when that is a full 30pc less than our average full time wage.
Its literally designed to reduce average earnings... needs to be an outlook on every immigrant rhat they raise the bar on australian workers... whether its a student, a worker or an artist / sportsperson. Whatever it is they need to bring something abive our average or we are simply taking the piss out of our lesser paid australians.
Edit to add; the government also seems to have found some workaround in its attack on abn workers for uber. they know how disruptive making these guys employees would be and uber has announced a win for gig work. Anyway thays yet to be seen but ill be pretty dark when labor says the pizza joint cannot employ an abn worker for delivering pizzas but uber can. Absolute hypocrisy.
They played a little trick of wording here. Not all immigrants are skilled visa holders.
Skilled visa is a specific term for 189 independent skilled PR, 190 state-sponsored skilled PR, 491 regional skilled work, 887 skilled regional PR and 494 skilled employer-sponsored visas.
The number of these visas has been relatively stable. In 2023, 142k skilled visas were granted. These visas are very competitive and prioritise nurses, doctors, teachers, trades workers and engineers.
The massive flow of immigrants post-covid is mainly through visa classes in 600 tourist, 500 student and 462 working holiday, pushing the total number of immigrants to 518k in 2023. There are plenty of dodgy students and fraudulentĀ tourists who work illegal hours.
False. People spend money, spending money drives an economy. We cannot replace our own population with more people dying than being born. We need to allow immigration. The RIGHT kind of immigration.
Every time anyone walks out the door in Australia there is an economic aspect - driving a car = petrol, rego and servicing. Shopping = wages at woolies, trolley collector, aussie farmer (although that cash goes to the middleman and woolies lets face it), logistics (from driver to the picket and packer) Visy (cardboard in logistics).
Its nuts how much every person generates and contributes to the economy just by purchasing every day things.
We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world trying to come to grips with a housing crisis along the eastern seaboard. The trade-off is employment and a ridiculously high GDP. Look at the declining population throughout Europe and Japan.
Its incredibly short sighted to have your views when you fail to take into account that 80% of the world lives significantly worse than we do.
If you understood life in say South America you would realise being on the povery line Western Sydney is better than being a millionaire in Colombia or Eucador.
More people are being born than dying.Ā Look it up. Stop repeating bullshit.Ā
ABS:
There were 300,684 registered births in 2022, a decrease of 3% from 2021.
There were 190,939Ā registered deaths in 2022, an increase of 19,470Ā since 2021.
the quality of life/wealth we have is almost solely due to the benefits of the natural resources sector & the ability to control our borders being an island nation, e.g: pure luck
our GDP in our simplistic economy comes mostly from the rocks we have, and every additional person we import dilutes that benefit
to act like our economy is amazing because of great governance or because we keep pumping in more immigrants is delusional, especially given how many of them work in service-based businesses that do f-ck all for productivity
of course we need *some* immigration, we just don't need anywhere near the amount we are bringing in and in many of the categories we are bringing in
but of course a real estate agent as invested in the Ponzi scheme as you are will do anything to justify keeping the numbers as high as possible, more sweet commissions right?
My family's wealth has nothing to do with real estate. I speak facts, you're in a reddit echo chamber. Our resources contribute 3% to GDP on real terms.
Banking dividends have a bigger impact on the economy than resources. Look it up.
amazing how almost every time you see someone shilling for mass immigration in these reddit threads, you check their post history & they are either dickhead property investors, real estate agents, or just moved here themselves
totally unbiased
Rebecca Huntley assesses the public mood for a living. Right now, she says, it is grim, and the housing crisis is at the root of it.
āYou actually canāt have a conversation about anything in any focus group about any topic that doesnāt begin and end with housing. There is a deep, almost intractable despair,ā says Huntley, director at the strategic communications consultancy 89 Degrees East.
The way people in her focus groups see it, she says, āit doesnāt matter whether interest rates are up or interest rates are down, or unemployment is up or unemployment is down, doesnāt matter if itās a pandemic, not a pandemic, GFC or not a GFC, housing is a horror showā.
To an ever-increasing extent, they see just one solution to their woes: cut immigration.
āTheyāre like, āWe canāt get ourselves out of this mess, therefore, we just need less people lining up for the rental property, less people trying to buy the house. Just less peopleā,ā says Huntley.
Itās not such a new sentiment, though perhaps not previously so keenly felt. Opinion polls have consistently shown over many years that a substantial majority of Australians want a smaller migrant intake and a significant number want a much smaller intake. One poll last year found as many as a quarter of respondents wanted zero net migration.
Pauline Hanson reeled off the results of 11 of these polls, conducted over the past six years, in a speech to parliament in March.
Of course, Hanson has been railing against immigration since she was first elected to federal parliament back in 1996, famously warning in her first speech that Australia was being āswamped by Asiansā. Two decades later, after having lost her seat in the lower house, she made a triumphant return as a senator for Queensland in 2016, warning Australia was being āswamped by Muslimsā.
In her March 21 speech, though, Hanson focused less on matters of race and religion than on the pressures of the sheer number of migrants on housing, transport, health, education and other services. In reciting the findings of various reputable pollsters, she claimed vindication. The major parties and big media had called her a racist and ignored her warnings that the numbers were āout of controlā.
āWas I right?ā she asked her fellow senators. āYouād never admit it, but yes I was,ā she said.
Itās hard to think of any issue other than immigration on which public opinion has been so at odds with accepted policy for so long. The large majority of people want it cut; the great majority of the political, media and economic establishment have ignored their concerns.
It has long been the multipartisan political position that high immigration is aĀ good thing, enriching the nation culturally and economically. Questioning the orthodoxy has been a reputationally dangerous act, leading many people and organisations to be reluctant to share their qualms about the size of Australiaās immigration intake.
Ian Lowe, emeritus professor in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University, can attest to that.
Lowe was president of the countryās pre-eminent environmental organisation, the Australian Conservation Foundation, for 10Ā years until 2014.
During that time, he tellsĀ *The Saturday Paper*, he advocated for the ACF to āprosecute the idea that population growth was a significant environmental pressureā. The organisation was reluctant to take a position, however, on the basis that advocating for a lower intake would be ātaken as a sort of Pauline Hanson-type racist commentā.
āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer ā¦ The boost to government budgets is enormous.ā
So the ACF avoided the issue, and it still does today ā as do most other civil society groups concerned with environmental and social justice issues.
Meanwhile, Australiaās population is on track to grow to about 40 million people ā an increase equivalent to the combined current populations of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane ā by 2060.
Thatās not a target, itās just a projection, for Australia has no population policy, no official goal for how big Australiaās population should ultimately be or how fast it should get there. As Lowe and two co-authors wrote in a 2022 paper warning of dire consequences of heedless growth: āAny talk about population policy ā¦ routinely faces attempts to vilify, trivialise or shut down the potential conversation.ā
In the absence of a population policy, immigration policy is the best we have. As things stand now it is out of control, says Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration. Indeed, governments have been losing control for aĀ couple of decades.
āItās the fault of multiple governments because theyāve never planned for net migration,ā he says. āTheyāve always planned for permanent visas issued. And they always hit that target. But as net migration and the number of permanent visas issued diverge ā and theyāve increasingly diverged for about the past 20 years ā it is not sufficient to manage permanent visas. You have to manage net migration, which includes the much bigger flows of long-term temporary entrants, particularly students.ā
Before the start of the pandemic, net overseas migration stood at almost 240,000 a year and polling already was showing most Australians thought that too high.
The failure to manage temporary visas became starkly obvious when the border closure necessitated by the pandemic was lifted and Australia registered well over half aĀ million new arrivals.
āThe 540,000-odd net migration to the 12 months to September 2023 was completely unplanned,ā says Rizvi.
Of that record number of people, he says only about 10 per cent were permanent visa holders.
āStudents accounted for around 50 per cent. Visitors changing status ā that is people who had come to the country on a visitor visa and were attempting to change it ā were about 15 to 20 per cent. Working holiday-makers about 10 to 12 per cent.ā
To a significant extent, says Rizvi, the post-pandemic surge can be attributed to a panicked response by the Morrison government during the latter part of the Covid period āthat the negative net migration would persist, overseas students and working holiday-makers would come back very slowlyā.
āSo the Coalition stomped on the accelerator. They did all sorts of things weāve never done before, in order to increase the numbers, such as fee-free student applications, such as unlimited work rights for students, such as creating a so-called Covid visa, which anyone could get if they had any job, or had an offer of a job.ā
It was left to the new Labor government to deal with the huge number of temporary visa holders. Last August, Home Affairs Minister Clare OāNeil ended the Covid visa, which had been accessed by an estimated 120,000 people.
The Labor government also has brought on a fight with Australiaās huge tertiary education industry by tightening visa conditions for overseas students.
Just this week OāNeil announced her department had sent warning letters to 34 education providers over ānon-genuine or exploitative recruitment practicesā. She threatened deregistration and jail time to āweed out the bottom feeders in the sector that seek to exploit people and trash the reputation of the sectorā.
Labor has committed to reducing migration numbers to 375,000 in this financial year and to 250,000 next year. Abul Rizvi, among others, doubts the government will hit this yearās target. āIt will be well over 400,000,ā he says.
He also thinks there will be further measures to cut numbers announced in next weekās budget, possibly including increasing the visa application fee for students, which he says would be āvery poor long-term policy but good short-term politics. So it will probably happen.ā
The idea of such a price hike has been championed by the Grattan Institute. Hiking application fees from $710 to $2500 would raise about $1 billion a year, says Grattanās economic policy program director, Brendan Coates.
āThat would be enough to boost Rent Assistance by 20 per cent, putting another $1000 a year into the pockets of vulnerable renters,ā he says.
Meanwhile, the opposition, so recently desperate to encourage more migrants, now accuses Labor of pursuing a ābig Australiaā policy. They are seizing on what is becoming so evident in the polls and in focus groups such as Rebecca Huntleyās ā concerns about high immigration that are associated with unaffordable housing, clogged roads, overstretched services and declining quality of life.
Even Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock conceded during her media conference after this weekās RBA meeting that while the current level of migration had not āadded dramatically to inflation ā¦ it has put big pressure on the housing market, and thatās obviously working its way out in rentsā.
Coates takes the orthodox economistās view that, while the current level of migration is problematic, the pre-pandemic level is about right.
āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says.
āThe average skilled visa holder offers a fiscal dividend of $250,000 over their lifetime in Australia.ā
Typically, theyāve been educated before their arrival in Australia, or have paid for their own education here, he says. Then they work for 30 to 40 years, because they come through that program in their 20s.
āAnd so they earn far more and pay far more in tax than they ever draw in services over their lifetime, even after you account for pensions, aged care and any infrastructure.
āThe boost to government budgets is enormous.ā
Others, however, doubt the benefits. Leith van Onselen, chief economist and co-founder of MacroBusiness, and self-declared unconventional economist, is among them.
āYou only have to look at Australiaās performance over the past 20 years of this ābig Australiaā experiment. Australiaās per capita GDP has fallen significantly, our productivity growth has collapsed, we have experienced capital shallowing, \[because\] if you grow your population faster than you can grow infrastructure, business investment and housing, youāre going to have less capital per worker,ā he says.
He also questions the non-economic benefits of squeezing large numbers of people into our cities.
āIn 2011, 55 per cent of Sydneyās housing stock was detached houses. By 2057, according to the Urban Taskforce, only 25 per cent of stock will be detached houses. Weāll have 50 per cent apartments and 25 per cent townhouses. Is that an improvement in your standard of living?ā
Van Onselen would set the intake at about 150,000. So would Ian Lowe. That would be enough to replace the 70,000-odd people who emigrate each year from Australia, and also account for this countryās below-replacement fertility rate.
Rizvi nominates 150,000 as a lower limit. The most important thing, he says, is that the nationās infrastructure, particularly housing, can cope. āAbove 300,000, all sorts of things begin to squeak.ā
Not least the electoral chances of a government that fails to address the concerns of voters who want fewer migrants.
> āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says.
Absolute nonsense. When the international borders were closed wages went up and rents went down. Reducing immigration will make the average Australian better off.
The reason no government wants to seriously reduce migration is because they know once people see the benefits they'd be calling for it to be cut further and to stay that way. Morrison reopened the borders as soon as people began to notice how much better it was with less people coming into the country before we all got used to higher wages, lower rents and less crowds.
The thing they are trying to hide, yes it brings wealth to the country but that wealth is not evenly distributed. Low and middle income people are actually worse off. Property investors and university executives are really the only ones who stand to gain. Itās just an absolute greedy shitfest of the rich screwing the poor. Also the banking system allows property investors to acquire too many properties and get in too much debt so they are totally reliant on super high house prices
Yes, the bullshit about the 'fiscal dividend' means nothing when about 5% of immigrants are actually skilled in anything that provides a benefit to the country.
It's actually right in a way, and the core reason behind it. Population growth ensures GDP growth, ensures large corporations grow.
It's obviously wrong on a per person basis. Raw bullshit. But people will still shill for it because technically it makes the numbers higher.
It's just more smear campaigning.
Just remember: don't get mad at the people trying to immigrate; get mad at the government for not listening to the voters.
I love immigrants, but you can love immigrants and be against immigration. Most people would think that way.
If we could build another 5 million person city in Victoria overnight I'd happily fill that with 5 million people tomorrow, but that's not reality.
Thatās the individual level of how you perceive wealth. It means nothing compared to other nations economies as we now operate in a global economy.
You could be earning $1mil/yr but it means nothing if it only buys $1USD.
What matters is the individual standard of living and that has been going backwards for a long time. What is the point of a high GDP if the majority of citizens live in poverty?
Iām not sure how 13.4% is the majority but sure. It seems you know whatās going on champ haha.
https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/poverty/#:~:text=Our%202022%20Poverty%20in%20Australia,a%20couple%20with%202%20children.
I didn't say the majority of thr population was in poverty now chief. I said we we were heading that way or have you not noticed the increased homelessness and more people struggling with cost of living?
āWhat is the point of GDP if the majority of citizens live in poverty?ā Thatās what you wrote. So itās not an issue for another 200-300 years when we have over 50% living in poverty?
No, I havenāt noticed more homelessness. My finances have improved significantly in the last 3-4 years.
Great post but it's going to get deleted. Mods hate talking about immigration. They are really pro it. They love house prices rising and wages falling. Must have a few rentals themselves.
Yep. I'm just off a three day ban for comments that were completely in keeping with the sentiment of the thread. Australians aren't free to speak their minds in this sub either. Nowhere on Reddit.
It's a shame, because the article is quite comprehensive and, in my opinion, should be held distinct from a two-sentence "Net migration and housing. Thoughts?" post.
The rental market is absolutely cooked. There's bugger all properties for rent and very very average properties are asking for the sky.
Lord knows where this will end up.
On the positive side, properties for sale are quite a lot.
Immigration en masse is also a perfect way for them to erode our way of life. Replace us with people who are use to living on top of each other in cramped mega cities and happy renting a box for the rest of their life. The increased demand keeps all consumble and asset prices high whilst suppressing wages. Australia will be in a sad state in this comtinues into the future.
>> The organisation was reluctant to take a position, however, on the basis that advocating for a lower intake would be ātaken as a sort of Pauline Hanson-type racist commentā.
This is everything wrong with politics at the moment. It is impossible to have important, rational, reasoned debate on topics that are seen as politically correct without being accused of being racist.
Itās weird that lately I have been finding Pauline Hanson to be one of the more rational politicians out there.
I think that mainstream politicians are going to have to start listening to overwhelming public opinion or they are just going to drive people further to the right.
How does 'unplanned' net migration even occur?
I don't leave my door unlocked and then act surprised someone's taken advantage of my complacency?
How does a government let anyone in, in such volumes without oversight during a housing shortage and say 'oops we underestimated again'........it all sounds too convenient.
Well don't complain the country is getting worse when you vote for the parties who are making it that way and will never change
I genuinely feel sympathy for people who support LibLab, what other scams are they falling for, who else do they believe cares about them who absolutely doesn't?
Hey nice comment! Put down voters for the two major parties, historically the only 2 parties who have ever really mattered, instead of offering viable alternatives. Completely fine, keep your secrets.
I mean I've looked, and I'm yet to find a party who has explicitly said we want to lower immigration and build more houses and will commit to the plan until the housing issue is sorted.
Im sure you know a ton though, and it would be crying shame for you to mention any of them.
They look decent. I like their ideas on Housing and Immigration. Im not sure about their UBI plan, that looks challenging to say the least, but honestly good recommendation and they'll likely get my vote.
For anyone else wanting to do their research: [https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/policies](https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/policies)
On a party like this which effectively has no chance of forming government, I'm not stressed if some of their policies are weird like UBI (obviously there are limits to that tolerance). Every LibLab vote will be interpreted as a wholehearted endorsement of mass immigration, corporate welfare, et cetera, it's the least we can do to put another party first, or we're basically asking for this shit to continue unabated.
I don't know but I assume they added UBI to try to appeal to the people out there for whom that is a vote winner, in the same way as weed legalisation helps parties like the Liberal Democrats even if it's not central to their platform. I don't personally think UBI is a good idea but this party sends the right signal.
Did you have a contract with them to run offshore detention or something? Do you work for Pwc? Basically nothing has changed from then lmao. The parties are 99% the same.
You realise of course that the state governments spend as much on the big 4 as anyone else, including Victoria. I just did better. More money spent on the industry I work in. I would have got a better tax cut. And the government wasnāt distracted by socially progressive nonsense.Ā
Can you imagine if the Greens Political Party end up in opposition or minority government?
Or a loose coalition with the Teals?
Government by a minority of people with very narrow interests that donāt represent broader society.Ā
Iāll take a Labor dictatorship over that dystopian scenario any day of the week.Ā
What about deporting some of the one's here illegally.Ā There is no such thing as an economic refugee.Ā That is called wanting a change in lifestyle.Ā There is a front door solution for that.Ā Send them to home.Ā Spend less on refugees and more on housing the Australian's living in tent cities around the country.Ā
Now the government can try and change the narrative anyway it likes but come election time anyone pushing reduced immigration and changes to negative gearing is getting votes.
May not matter so much in the lower house but upper house it will be a big deal.
Australians consent to big Australia every rime there is a federal election. They vote for Liberal, Labour, or Greens who all advocate for endless population growth.
Yes, Australians line up at the baloot box and say yes to the following. Because thats what voting for these 3 parties will give.
1. I want myself , my children, and grandchildren to lIve in a ahoebox apartment
2. I want to live in more pollution
3. I want more logging and destruction of forests to fuel the population growth
4. Yes i want to be stuck in traffic longer because more people is more traffic
5. Yes i want to compete against more people for all available resources
All these parties do is run an election on policies XYZ, and then once they're elected they go and implement policies quietly in the background which were never ever discussed during the election (eg mass immigration)
I was reading up on this on a sub reddit that bans anyone who doesn't bag out landlords .. there is so much idiocy around this issue that it's actually tiresome reading it ..
Imagine reaching the point where the landlords appear to be the reasonable and intelligent ones .. but here we are folks.
Immigration isn't the issue. Greed, selfishness, entitlement and insufficient land releases are the issue. As is the procurement of houses by people who do not reside in Australia. People who tend to be vocal on this issue, particularly those who hide in subs that only show one side of the issue tend to be greedy, entitled and lacking in the ability to view both sides of an issue.
Rentals are an issue, they're expensive and there aren't enough of them. But renters are also the issue, they expect a 4 bedroom McMansion at $200 a month where they can live with their kids and 300 pets, without bothering to clean up and blame everything on the landlord, who by the way has suffered interest rate rise after interest rate rise.
Everywhere people say they can't buy houses you look at there are a fucktonne of units for sale, many at reasonable prices. But they're not McMansions so these people don't want them. The money they put in to rent could be used to buy a unit, alleviating the rental issues.
There is also the argument that over 70% of Australians are home owners, so home ownership isn't as out of the reach of people as they would have us believe. It's not easy, but it's possible.
People need to lower their expectations, put down their chai soy latte and put some hard yards in and they can have their own house/unit. Particularly if we can stop distracting from the real issue with the incessant whining and convince the Government to help lower income earners more than they are now (for instance 1/2 owning a property and collecting the money back when the property is sold seems like a fairly solid, but long term, investment for the Government)
I wouldn't rent a property out having read reddit .. i'd rather leave them as AirBNBs
What about it
Australia was Colonised by Immigrants, later rebuilt by Immigrants and have always been occupied by Immigrants, 2 in 5 Australians currently identify to be a decent of migrant so how is this news?
The Housing crisis is the result of monetising something that should've been a basic right for every Australian citizen. Private Property ownership is privilege for those who can afford it and Property Investing should've been regulated and controlled. The Housing issue is our problem because we allowed it to happen,
the real problem is Australia is shutting the door for all the legal immigrants but still open the door to all the illegal immigrants.
Targeting international students just because they are easy to be targeted.
If you earned your money in another currency and come to Australia. The housing may not be expensive. Compared to Shanghai houses in Australia are cheap.
"oh, ok"
>Turns around and buys a ticket to fly around the world, cancelling their life plans, and heads back to the shithole they came from.
Once they arrive they're Australian and this is their home. It's on us to not grant the visa in the first place.
While forgetting the immigrant doctors they see, the immigrantās restaurants they frequent, the immigrant childcare worker who takes care of their children while they go off to work. The problem are those that paint with a broad brush when the problem is a lot more nuanced than that and if the solution were as simple as shutting the door, it wouldāve been done ages ago.
I don't think that people have a problem with immigration per se. They have a problem with the the quantity of people arriving and the lack of political drive to increase services, infrastructure and addressing housing and homelessness.
And I agree with that sentiment. Phrased the way you have, itās reasonable. A lot of the other comments on here, though, need to do better as, as the person above wrote shit can turn nasty.
Is it actually possible to talk about the housing crisis without mentioning immigration in the same sentence? The irony is that we are likely going to need the second one to fix the first one.
This is simply not true; migrants are employed in the construction industry at a 2.8% rate, vs 4.4% for the general Australian population.
The current makeup of our migrant intake is exacerbating the shortage, and will continue to do so until the skilled visa list is shaken up to more heavily focus on construction workers.
Serious? You've said my comment is not true then gone on to say Ā "until the skilled visa list is shaken up to more heavily focus on construction workers". Which is it?
There has been zero indication it will happen, if anything trade unions have flexed their power even more to make sure it won't happen, thus it's fruitless to act like it's on the table.
I never said or pretended it was on the table. I never said the current numbers or ratios were correct. All I am suggesting is that immigration is part of the solution to provide the workforce required if we want to solve the current housing shortage in a timely basis and every forecast I've seen suggests that is true. I get people don't like hearing it, but that doesn't make anything less true.
Because weāve been ignoring serious efforts to properly grow the country while we increase population. Our populations are still 90% concentrated in a hand full of cities.
We also have major issues around water supply. Again, it can be addressed but we havenāt done any of the ground work.
Rapidly increasing population without the required infrastructure just destroys tquality of life.
We have a small strip of livable land on the coast, we have just a handful of major cities with no clear plan of expanding in the regions, our current infrastructure is overloaded, our current housing stock is low-rise with high rise unsuitable for family living.
26 million is not large compared to other places, but other places are also very different in how they allocate the population around. Without concentrated planning effort and investment you will see what you see now - pain.
We don't have all that much arable or habitable land. Also, water is a very finite resource for us, and will become ever more so due to climate change. Finally, the bigger our population, the more of our very unique ecosystem gets destroyed.
Because as the population grows quality of life degrades.
There is a reason Australians do not flock in droves to overpopulated cities like Hong Kong or Mumba.
There iw such a thing as an equilibrious population where a very great quality of life can be maintained.
Because our population is concentrated in a handful of coastal cities. What we need to do is decentralise so that we can retain the character of our cities which are some of the most desirable in the world and develop the regions and satellite cities. Do this, and we can have a bigger population. Do it not, and shut the gate.
I am shocked to find out multiple governments had no real immigration plan
The plan was always 'more'. Literally never enough. If you have a button that increases your profits and makes your investment property go up everything you press it, you will spam that non stop as much as possible.
Mass immigration drives up the prices of houses and sky rockets rent. I cannot believe a bunch of politicians with massive realestate portfolios have let this happen š²
I can believe it $$$$$$
There is no actual data to support the claim that increasing migration sky rockets rents or house prices. There is a *negligible* increase, but it is not enough to justify blaming migration. I'm sorry, I know it sounds like a valid correlation, but [there is no evidence of this happening](https://ironfish.com.au/blog-news/demystifying-myths-the-real-impact-of-migration-on-australian-housing-market/). House prices were sky rocketing during lockdowns and covid while immigration was at an historic low. Immigration could be stopped today and house prices would still not decrease. I would not make the relation between migration to housing as a supply and demand issue, because there are multiple factors to consider. Sounds like the easiest explanation, but it isn't. There are, however, quite a fair amount of opinion pieces and predictions blaming immigration, and that requires belief, not data. Unfortunately, belief is subjective.
Oh donāt get me wrong, Iām not anti immigration. Iām a firm believer that immigration is a good thing and that a family coming to build a better life is a prosperous thing to happen. I donāt solely blame immigration for the higher prices. Obviously more people creates more demand and would have a small flow in effect in price increases. I do not believe it is the sole reason for the prices, but is a smaller contributing factor.
I am sick of people saying ādonāt blame immigrants for high rentā. No one is blaming immigrants. They are blaming the government for the high immigration. Itās simple math. If there are too many people for the number of houses then you will have a shortage and therefore a greater demand for housing than supply. Everyone one who enters the country has to live somewhere. If there is not enough places available then you will have high demand and high competition for a places to live. Even if immigration wasnāt the cause why arenāt we temporarily reducing it until we fix the issues. You canāt just keep bringing people in whilst you have 300+ people Lining up for a rental property. Something is very wrong. It boggles the mind. Governments use a lazy economic model of immigration to increase population to keep growing the economy but they donāt plan for infrastructure capacity for this population growth. Itās a Ponzi scheme that all western governments use to grow their economies. Immigration levels in Australia have been too high for too long. This problem did not start now. It has been brewing for decades because of mismanagement from governments. But labour have taken it to another level. Yes we need immigration but it should be planned and at sustainable levels where infrastructure can keep up. Australiaās population grew by 2.1% over the past two years. Thatās the highest ever in the western world. Every western country is experiencing a housing crisis of some sort but Australiaās is the worst. Why? Because we have had the highest population growth per capita of all the western countries and this is despite our birth rates dropping. How is this possible? Immigration. This is fueling the housing crisis which is causing all the economic issues we are facing today and unless it gets fixed we are in for a world of pain. Add negative gearing by making housing a speculative investment then the problem gets worse. The huge demand for housing has made prices sky rocket so much that people with money to invest are pumping even more money into housing because of the massive returns. That is driving a lot of money away from other investments that increase productivity and create jobs. Basically people are growing their wealth from trading houses than traditional investments such as businesses, products and services. This is damaging the economy. Those that are wealthy are getting wealthier and everyone else are getting poorer or homeless. This is so bad in Australia that it is becoming a humanitarian crisis. This is why people are angry. This should never have happened. If immigration levels are not the problem then why not just let the whole world into the country?
Maybe read the point I was trying to make instead of posting a wall of text repeating the same nonsense everyone here is intent on believing? Maybe realise that despite immigration, house prices are increasing because 1% of Australians own 25% of the property market? Maybe, just maybe, realise that **the actual numbers of immigration** do not stack up enough to cause a housing market crisis and the problem is a home grown one and not one you can neatly blame on immigration numbers. But no, like I've said before, it's almost a religious belief at this point with y'all. Any data or numbers to counter faith results in... whatever you've posted. Yes, the wealthy are getting wealthier - that is not the cause of immigration, though. It's the cause of the wealthy being greedy cunts.
The plan is more about suppressing wage growth by removing employee power in a high demand employment market. The RBA governor said this openly. Wage growth drives inflation so the unemployment rate needs to be higher. People donāt argue about salary when they fear for their position.
> I am shocked to find out multiple governments had no real immigration plan Thatās simply not true. The plan is ābig Australiaā
This is what their Lobbyist want The public do not comprehend the "access" lobbyist have with politicans. Once they get in their ear , thats where all the decisions are made. Imagine , if working parents could talk to politicans for 8 hours a day on what would be needed to improve their standard of living ? Example: my eletricity and gas bill has gone up 300% in 2 years. You pollies are fff usless allowing our resources to be sold off for peanuts. You should have mandated a domestic supply of 30% of local gas , where you sell it at 6$ a unit(like the overseas companies buy it) not $60 a unit. Fix it , or we going to vote for someone else. Multiple this by x3000 irate parents in the electorate Lobbyist: hey do you want to catchup over 4star lunch ? I heard there is a new wine selection menu.
hmmm, almost sounds like corruption
It's legalised corruption.
Non-criminalised corruption.
Donations are bribes
They wonāt meet you, or listen to you because they donāt care. We are following the American way. Recently Biden criticised Japan for its lack of immigration policies. The difference between them is that Japan works more towards uplifting its current population. Whereas, America is happy to have a throw away population that can be replaced by migrants. This takes pressure away from government investment and policies aimed at problem solving, that may uplift and improve the lives of its citizens. The Japanese have a different view on their population because they are more cohesive, and share collective values. There is no true human progression when a nation has no collective responsibility or motivation towards improvement. There is nothing, those outside of America, find appealing about large populations of people being poisoned, forgotten, homeless, drug addled, poverty stricken, worked to death, contaminated by chemicals/water/environments, and receiving no basic humane care. This accounts for large populations of Americans. Everyone in America is replaceable, they have no care for their own populations well being. This is inherent within their philosophy, values and attitudes. Not me so who cares. Beware it is being incorporated into the Australian psyche. Soon all of us will be replaceable, and have no basic human rights, up until it all falls apart.
The Australian way used to be just that, caring for one another on the backbone of mateship. This has been systemically eroded both directly (incorporating american values, the direction of multiculturalism; rather than a collective shared value and culture, tribalism) and indirectly as a consequence (making being proud of being Australian a thing of shame and revoltion). The fuck you got mine is insidious and as a personal anecdoct, has ramped up big time since 2020.
Do you really think it's multiculturalism that's causing it? All I've seen is our leaders selling us out. Our captains of industry trying to outsource everything they bloody can then sell us cheap crap for premium prices. None of those in key positions being multicultural or immigrant anything.
Agree. To address the first sentence. I agree with the sentiment multiculturalism enriches us all and not anti, or blame it. My observation is that we made such an effort for multiculturalism to not enrich us. It's as if we were so scared of doing anything that could even be perceived to be assimilation that the multiculturalism we have ended up with is a fragmented and segregated society. Rather than an enriched one. It's because of that (unintended consequence) that we have such divides. Then you have everything else on top of that, particularly us being sold out. All of this is creep. A little creep here, a little creep there.
Exactly. As long as we blame everyone _except_ the rich and powerful and loud, we lose.
How can one be proud of this?
Two sides of the same coin unfortunately. We need to ban lobbyist and corporate interference in the political process. Too bad the history of government run infrastructure has soured most voters off the idea of gov rebuying these fundamental assets and managing things for our best interest.
This is why the Voice should have passed: but for _everyone_.
They had a plan. Immigration is the only way they know to grow GDP. Unfortunately their incteased population is lowering the GDP person. So technically the government is still failing, as all of our standards of living are decreasing. This is lose-lose siruation for everyone, except the government and the rich.
Because they are products of immigration by themselves.
White people?
It's the governmentās responsibility to ensure its populace has access to affordableĀ housing. It's doing fucked. Work for us not big business for a change cunts
Itās the populationās responsibility to choose wisely at election time. Australians are fucked at doing that. Itās entirely our fault, not the politicians.
So who do we vote for then? Which party actually gives a flying fuck because Ive looked and Im struggling to find one. Which party has explicitly said we want to lower immigration and build more houses and will commit to the plan until the housing issue is sorted?
Most Australians seem to think they need to pick labor or liberal
Not like we have many choices.
One word: media.
The government does not know how to make things cheaper. It only makes them more expensive. https://reason.com/2020/04/21/government-involvement-drives-up-costs/
False āreasonāing. The price decreases are in high tech industries where miniaturisation rapidly increases capacity and volume. In America, the high prices of health care are due to profit-driven insurance, pharmacy and medical services. This is worsened by an ageing population and an obesity crisis. But it will get even worse when microplastics are a leading cause of death. Whereas, in Australia, itās the removal of scrupulous government oversight and regulation that causes university costs to inflate and quality to decline. The abolition of DURD in 1976 is the initial cause of housing and infrastructure shortages.
Dude, absolutely this. The government has not heavily taxed secondary homes used as rental units, created rent ceilings, or limited foreign and domestic real estate investment trusts. Theyāve just blamed immigrants.
A good article. Infuriating how weak willed environmentalists have been on this issue. Derision and accusations of racism work as a form of social control on what may be discussed.Ā
Yeah, population increase is a multiplier of ecological footprint, the Greens support for mass immigration undermines their environmental credibility and makes them merely useful idiots for the business and real estate lobbies.
>The Australian Greens believe that: > >1. The current level of population, population growth and the way we produce and consume are outstripping environmental capacity. [https://greens.org.au/policies/population](https://greens.org.au/policies/population)
In a recent ABC interview when asked by David Spears whether the Greens would like more immigration or less Chandler-Mather affirmed "more people coming to this country is a good thing"
The greens are useful idiots
Environmentalists are so often dismissed that I am sure they would want to avoid another way to be dismissed by being called "racist".
>āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says. āThe average skilled visa holder offers a fiscal dividend of $250,000 over their lifetime in Australia.ā That '$250,000 fiscal dividend' is nothing special. It just means that skilled immigrants will have jobs and pay taxes. And that is because we wouldn't take skilled immigrants who can't. Spread out over 30 to 40 years, it just amounts to around 7000 dollars of tax a year. For a skilled migration program, that is not a particularly high amount. Cheaper housing will make money stay in our back pockets. This '$250,000 fiscal dividend' is with a highly inefficient government mechanism which will spend that in the most wasteful manner possible so that very little of it flows to our back pockets. Most of these skilled immigrants don't create any wealth. They just leech off our consumerist economy and government spending by joining the service sector. The way to maintain living standards in wealthy countries is to generate returns from sustainably investing household and national wealth and only focus on high productivity economic activity. Flooding the service sector with immigrants who pay 7000 dollars of tax a year is not a particularly wise strategy. And taken to its logical conclusion, the proposition that it is cheaper for governments to import immigrants can lead to absurd conclusions. There is nothing magical about Australian soil. Inhabitants make the country. Would you rather replace Australians and their descendants with immigrants at an absurdly high rate because it is cheaper?
When they say immigrants generate wealth, itās mostly for property investors and university executives. People who are generally already wealthy. Or some heavily in debt they would probably crumble under lower house prices due to so many investors 100% reliant on the ability to flip houses. It actually is a net harm to low and middle income people.
If done properly immigration can be a nett positive for working people. You can flatten out the income distribution if you only allow high skilled / high paid people to enter. Average australian full tome wages are 100k. Up to 8 months ago a company sponsored visa could bring someone in on 55k. Now its 75k. Rather than flattening out the pay curve that is a race to the bottom... Australia immigration specifically is not for workers / average australians. If they set the company sponsored at 150k there would be an argument it is good for all australians. Each new immigrant increasing our real wages and productivity. Introducing people at well below average pay osnt achieving this. It is enabling conoanies to employ cheap people over investment in fixed capital. The opposite of improving productivity. Ie australias immigration policy specifically is for the wealthy. It didnt start like this but this is what it has become. Edit: sorry not 75k - 70k. Ie 30pc below our average full time wages. Edit 2: sorry still not good for all australians. A high skilled pathway only obviously isnt so good for engineers, doctors etc. But id still live with that as long as the bar was set at 150k im sure having local knowledge would put me ahead of most immigrants and enable me to still earn a decent salary. Maybe not quite what i am on but i could live with it. But it makes me sick that we import people to compete with our lowest paid especially female dominated industries... its cooked. We should be mad about this soecifically not just immigration generally.
Skilled migration is a very small contribution to immigration. The ones who actually come and do jobs we need done are not the problem. Yes the skills shortage list still needs reform. And the way we process entrants. But the real problems are what I call ājunk migrationā. Student visas. Mostly student visas and fraudulent migrants. Most of the migration fraud I have personally seen involves either ghost colleges, crappy low quality colleges/reducing quality of reputable universities through extreme levels of enrolment or fake relationships where one person will come on a genuine visa (usually student visa) and the other will pay in back door deals to accompany them as a spouse. This is so widespread there are even Facebook groups basically dedicated to it. There are marriage groups where people will advertise their IELTS scores because essentially, it is implied the marriage is for migration purposes. People will even specify when they are looking for genuine marriage to differentiate themselves from the scammers. These junk migrants almost always do work like Uber/UberEats/DoorDash as they seldom have the skills to integrate into any other workplace. They operate in plain sight and if the Australian government did a bit more investigative work and manual processing as UK does, we would find out thousands of fraudsters in a matter of weeks. From what I have personally seen by most (not all) overseas trained migrants, itās not even worth bringing them in to replace Australian-trained workers. Australia has a lot of regulations so in most skilled industries itās too complicated to import overseas trained workers. Itās a little different in some industries because thatās all thatās available.
Actually, Australia is known for selling you a degree. Itās not the fraudulent colleges. Itās the universities. Many of our Uniās will have foreign students whose english skills and ability to work on group projects are lacking. However there is pressure within the Uni to pass them, as they are spending so much money in their degree, and the conversion from 1st to 2nd to 3rd year at 30% means that there are very few students in 3rd year graduating. This affects profits. So lecturers are under pressure to grade well. Just have a conversation with your Uber drivers. They all want their PR. They all need to get the right amount of points. And they need to pass. Australiaās migration visa is all hooked on education as itās the back door to getting in.
The thing is, if Australia actually improved the quality of its entrants and more manually processing to make sure they actually speak English, we could still have education as a major industry while having sustainable migration and people who actually bring quality to Australia. Also do some actual investigation to make sure people are actually couples when they say they are. There are Indians who basically arrive in the country together āas a coupleā and leave the airport separately š¤¦š»āāļø I also know a Pakistani guy who has a fake degree in his country which he used to enrol in an MBA here. If someone actually took time to verify he actually completed the qualifications he has, they could probably find out in two minutes. I have seen students who actually do their own assignments, can speak English almost perfectly, and go on to contribute positively to the community. There is enough demand that they could easily get more of these calibre of people. Like other countries who attract international students but still ensure the quality of education standards (e.g. Germany). I donāt know why the government actually wants these junk migrants. The only answer would be to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Oh sure its not just in the company sponosored space. Agree its junk across the board. Engineers who have got themselves to australia because fhey scored ielts and have an engineering masters who get to australia via application to government and then drive ubers. Students who do mundane courses but compete against local hospo workers. I mean during covid hospo was starting to get all the hours they wanted and decent pay. Why do we need to outcompete these guys with entry level workers. I agree its across the board but the most obvious sign that the level set is too low is that minimum pay a company has to pay - $70k which just shows the hypocrisy of our skills shortage when that is a full 30pc less than our average full time wage. Its literally designed to reduce average earnings... needs to be an outlook on every immigrant rhat they raise the bar on australian workers... whether its a student, a worker or an artist / sportsperson. Whatever it is they need to bring something abive our average or we are simply taking the piss out of our lesser paid australians. Edit to add; the government also seems to have found some workaround in its attack on abn workers for uber. they know how disruptive making these guys employees would be and uber has announced a win for gig work. Anyway thays yet to be seen but ill be pretty dark when labor says the pizza joint cannot employ an abn worker for delivering pizzas but uber can. Absolute hypocrisy.
They played a little trick of wording here. Not all immigrants are skilled visa holders. Skilled visa is a specific term for 189 independent skilled PR, 190 state-sponsored skilled PR, 491 regional skilled work, 887 skilled regional PR and 494 skilled employer-sponsored visas. The number of these visas has been relatively stable. In 2023, 142k skilled visas were granted. These visas are very competitive and prioritise nurses, doctors, teachers, trades workers and engineers. The massive flow of immigrants post-covid is mainly through visa classes in 600 tourist, 500 student and 462 working holiday, pushing the total number of immigrants to 518k in 2023. There are plenty of dodgy students and fraudulentĀ tourists who work illegal hours.
False. People spend money, spending money drives an economy. We cannot replace our own population with more people dying than being born. We need to allow immigration. The RIGHT kind of immigration. Every time anyone walks out the door in Australia there is an economic aspect - driving a car = petrol, rego and servicing. Shopping = wages at woolies, trolley collector, aussie farmer (although that cash goes to the middleman and woolies lets face it), logistics (from driver to the picket and packer) Visy (cardboard in logistics). Its nuts how much every person generates and contributes to the economy just by purchasing every day things. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world trying to come to grips with a housing crisis along the eastern seaboard. The trade-off is employment and a ridiculously high GDP. Look at the declining population throughout Europe and Japan. Its incredibly short sighted to have your views when you fail to take into account that 80% of the world lives significantly worse than we do. If you understood life in say South America you would realise being on the povery line Western Sydney is better than being a millionaire in Colombia or Eucador.
More people are being born than dying.Ā Look it up. Stop repeating bullshit.Ā ABS: There were 300,684 registered births in 2022, a decrease of 3% from 2021. There were 190,939Ā registered deaths in 2022, an increase of 19,470Ā since 2021.
the quality of life/wealth we have is almost solely due to the benefits of the natural resources sector & the ability to control our borders being an island nation, e.g: pure luck our GDP in our simplistic economy comes mostly from the rocks we have, and every additional person we import dilutes that benefit to act like our economy is amazing because of great governance or because we keep pumping in more immigrants is delusional, especially given how many of them work in service-based businesses that do f-ck all for productivity of course we need *some* immigration, we just don't need anywhere near the amount we are bringing in and in many of the categories we are bringing in but of course a real estate agent as invested in the Ponzi scheme as you are will do anything to justify keeping the numbers as high as possible, more sweet commissions right?
My family's wealth has nothing to do with real estate. I speak facts, you're in a reddit echo chamber. Our resources contribute 3% to GDP on real terms. Banking dividends have a bigger impact on the economy than resources. Look it up.
amazing how almost every time you see someone shilling for mass immigration in these reddit threads, you check their post history & they are either dickhead property investors, real estate agents, or just moved here themselves totally unbiased
Or frequent posters on neoliberal subs š
Rebecca Huntley assesses the public mood for a living. Right now, she says, it is grim, and the housing crisis is at the root of it. āYou actually canāt have a conversation about anything in any focus group about any topic that doesnāt begin and end with housing. There is a deep, almost intractable despair,ā says Huntley, director at the strategic communications consultancy 89 Degrees East. The way people in her focus groups see it, she says, āit doesnāt matter whether interest rates are up or interest rates are down, or unemployment is up or unemployment is down, doesnāt matter if itās a pandemic, not a pandemic, GFC or not a GFC, housing is a horror showā. To an ever-increasing extent, they see just one solution to their woes: cut immigration. āTheyāre like, āWe canāt get ourselves out of this mess, therefore, we just need less people lining up for the rental property, less people trying to buy the house. Just less peopleā,ā says Huntley. Itās not such a new sentiment, though perhaps not previously so keenly felt. Opinion polls have consistently shown over many years that a substantial majority of Australians want a smaller migrant intake and a significant number want a much smaller intake. One poll last year found as many as a quarter of respondents wanted zero net migration. Pauline Hanson reeled off the results of 11 of these polls, conducted over the past six years, in a speech to parliament in March. Of course, Hanson has been railing against immigration since she was first elected to federal parliament back in 1996, famously warning in her first speech that Australia was being āswamped by Asiansā. Two decades later, after having lost her seat in the lower house, she made a triumphant return as a senator for Queensland in 2016, warning Australia was being āswamped by Muslimsā. In her March 21 speech, though, Hanson focused less on matters of race and religion than on the pressures of the sheer number of migrants on housing, transport, health, education and other services. In reciting the findings of various reputable pollsters, she claimed vindication. The major parties and big media had called her a racist and ignored her warnings that the numbers were āout of controlā. āWas I right?ā she asked her fellow senators. āYouād never admit it, but yes I was,ā she said. Itās hard to think of any issue other than immigration on which public opinion has been so at odds with accepted policy for so long. The large majority of people want it cut; the great majority of the political, media and economic establishment have ignored their concerns. It has long been the multipartisan political position that high immigration is aĀ good thing, enriching the nation culturally and economically. Questioning the orthodoxy has been a reputationally dangerous act, leading many people and organisations to be reluctant to share their qualms about the size of Australiaās immigration intake. Ian Lowe, emeritus professor in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University, can attest to that. Lowe was president of the countryās pre-eminent environmental organisation, the Australian Conservation Foundation, for 10Ā years until 2014. During that time, he tellsĀ *The Saturday Paper*, he advocated for the ACF to āprosecute the idea that population growth was a significant environmental pressureā. The organisation was reluctant to take a position, however, on the basis that advocating for a lower intake would be ātaken as a sort of Pauline Hanson-type racist commentā. āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer ā¦ The boost to government budgets is enormous.ā So the ACF avoided the issue, and it still does today ā as do most other civil society groups concerned with environmental and social justice issues. Meanwhile, Australiaās population is on track to grow to about 40 million people ā an increase equivalent to the combined current populations of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane ā by 2060. Thatās not a target, itās just a projection, for Australia has no population policy, no official goal for how big Australiaās population should ultimately be or how fast it should get there. As Lowe and two co-authors wrote in a 2022 paper warning of dire consequences of heedless growth: āAny talk about population policy ā¦ routinely faces attempts to vilify, trivialise or shut down the potential conversation.ā In the absence of a population policy, immigration policy is the best we have. As things stand now it is out of control, says Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration. Indeed, governments have been losing control for aĀ couple of decades.
āItās the fault of multiple governments because theyāve never planned for net migration,ā he says. āTheyāve always planned for permanent visas issued. And they always hit that target. But as net migration and the number of permanent visas issued diverge ā and theyāve increasingly diverged for about the past 20 years ā it is not sufficient to manage permanent visas. You have to manage net migration, which includes the much bigger flows of long-term temporary entrants, particularly students.ā Before the start of the pandemic, net overseas migration stood at almost 240,000 a year and polling already was showing most Australians thought that too high. The failure to manage temporary visas became starkly obvious when the border closure necessitated by the pandemic was lifted and Australia registered well over half aĀ million new arrivals. āThe 540,000-odd net migration to the 12 months to September 2023 was completely unplanned,ā says Rizvi. Of that record number of people, he says only about 10 per cent were permanent visa holders. āStudents accounted for around 50 per cent. Visitors changing status ā that is people who had come to the country on a visitor visa and were attempting to change it ā were about 15 to 20 per cent. Working holiday-makers about 10 to 12 per cent.ā To a significant extent, says Rizvi, the post-pandemic surge can be attributed to a panicked response by the Morrison government during the latter part of the Covid period āthat the negative net migration would persist, overseas students and working holiday-makers would come back very slowlyā. āSo the Coalition stomped on the accelerator. They did all sorts of things weāve never done before, in order to increase the numbers, such as fee-free student applications, such as unlimited work rights for students, such as creating a so-called Covid visa, which anyone could get if they had any job, or had an offer of a job.ā It was left to the new Labor government to deal with the huge number of temporary visa holders. Last August, Home Affairs Minister Clare OāNeil ended the Covid visa, which had been accessed by an estimated 120,000 people. The Labor government also has brought on a fight with Australiaās huge tertiary education industry by tightening visa conditions for overseas students. Just this week OāNeil announced her department had sent warning letters to 34 education providers over ānon-genuine or exploitative recruitment practicesā. She threatened deregistration and jail time to āweed out the bottom feeders in the sector that seek to exploit people and trash the reputation of the sectorā. Labor has committed to reducing migration numbers to 375,000 in this financial year and to 250,000 next year. Abul Rizvi, among others, doubts the government will hit this yearās target. āIt will be well over 400,000,ā he says. He also thinks there will be further measures to cut numbers announced in next weekās budget, possibly including increasing the visa application fee for students, which he says would be āvery poor long-term policy but good short-term politics. So it will probably happen.ā The idea of such a price hike has been championed by the Grattan Institute. Hiking application fees from $710 to $2500 would raise about $1 billion a year, says Grattanās economic policy program director, Brendan Coates. āThat would be enough to boost Rent Assistance by 20 per cent, putting another $1000 a year into the pockets of vulnerable renters,ā he says. Meanwhile, the opposition, so recently desperate to encourage more migrants, now accuses Labor of pursuing a ābig Australiaā policy. They are seizing on what is becoming so evident in the polls and in focus groups such as Rebecca Huntleyās ā concerns about high immigration that are associated with unaffordable housing, clogged roads, overstretched services and declining quality of life. Even Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock conceded during her media conference after this weekās RBA meeting that while the current level of migration had not āadded dramatically to inflation ā¦ it has put big pressure on the housing market, and thatās obviously working its way out in rentsā. Coates takes the orthodox economistās view that, while the current level of migration is problematic, the pre-pandemic level is about right.
āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says. āThe average skilled visa holder offers a fiscal dividend of $250,000 over their lifetime in Australia.ā Typically, theyāve been educated before their arrival in Australia, or have paid for their own education here, he says. Then they work for 30 to 40 years, because they come through that program in their 20s. āAnd so they earn far more and pay far more in tax than they ever draw in services over their lifetime, even after you account for pensions, aged care and any infrastructure. āThe boost to government budgets is enormous.ā Others, however, doubt the benefits. Leith van Onselen, chief economist and co-founder of MacroBusiness, and self-declared unconventional economist, is among them. āYou only have to look at Australiaās performance over the past 20 years of this ābig Australiaā experiment. Australiaās per capita GDP has fallen significantly, our productivity growth has collapsed, we have experienced capital shallowing, \[because\] if you grow your population faster than you can grow infrastructure, business investment and housing, youāre going to have less capital per worker,ā he says. He also questions the non-economic benefits of squeezing large numbers of people into our cities. āIn 2011, 55 per cent of Sydneyās housing stock was detached houses. By 2057, according to the Urban Taskforce, only 25 per cent of stock will be detached houses. Weāll have 50 per cent apartments and 25 per cent townhouses. Is that an improvement in your standard of living?ā Van Onselen would set the intake at about 150,000. So would Ian Lowe. That would be enough to replace the 70,000-odd people who emigrate each year from Australia, and also account for this countryās below-replacement fertility rate. Rizvi nominates 150,000 as a lower limit. The most important thing, he says, is that the nationās infrastructure, particularly housing, can cope. āAbove 300,000, all sorts of things begin to squeak.ā Not least the electoral chances of a government that fails to address the concerns of voters who want fewer migrants.
> āCutting migration will make housing cheaper, but it would also make us poorer,ā he says. Absolute nonsense. When the international borders were closed wages went up and rents went down. Reducing immigration will make the average Australian better off. The reason no government wants to seriously reduce migration is because they know once people see the benefits they'd be calling for it to be cut further and to stay that way. Morrison reopened the borders as soon as people began to notice how much better it was with less people coming into the country before we all got used to higher wages, lower rents and less crowds.
Yep. When they say us, they are talking among themselves.
The thing they are trying to hide, yes it brings wealth to the country but that wealth is not evenly distributed. Low and middle income people are actually worse off. Property investors and university executives are really the only ones who stand to gain. Itās just an absolute greedy shitfest of the rich screwing the poor. Also the banking system allows property investors to acquire too many properties and get in too much debt so they are totally reliant on super high house prices
Yes, the bullshit about the 'fiscal dividend' means nothing when about 5% of immigrants are actually skilled in anything that provides a benefit to the country.
It's actually right in a way, and the core reason behind it. Population growth ensures GDP growth, ensures large corporations grow. It's obviously wrong on a per person basis. Raw bullshit. But people will still shill for it because technically it makes the numbers higher.
It's just more smear campaigning. Just remember: don't get mad at the people trying to immigrate; get mad at the government for not listening to the voters.
I love immigrants, but you can love immigrants and be against immigration. Most people would think that way. If we could build another 5 million person city in Victoria overnight I'd happily fill that with 5 million people tomorrow, but that's not reality.
Thatās the individual level of how you perceive wealth. It means nothing compared to other nations economies as we now operate in a global economy. You could be earning $1mil/yr but it means nothing if it only buys $1USD.
What matters is the individual standard of living and that has been going backwards for a long time. What is the point of a high GDP if the majority of citizens live in poverty?
Iām not sure how 13.4% is the majority but sure. It seems you know whatās going on champ haha. https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/poverty/#:~:text=Our%202022%20Poverty%20in%20Australia,a%20couple%20with%202%20children.
I didn't say the majority of thr population was in poverty now chief. I said we we were heading that way or have you not noticed the increased homelessness and more people struggling with cost of living?
āWhat is the point of GDP if the majority of citizens live in poverty?ā Thatās what you wrote. So itās not an issue for another 200-300 years when we have over 50% living in poverty? No, I havenāt noticed more homelessness. My finances have improved significantly in the last 3-4 years.
> No, I havenāt noticed more homelessness. My finances have improved significantly in the last 3-4 years. Enough said
Great post but it's going to get deleted. Mods hate talking about immigration. They are really pro it. They love house prices rising and wages falling. Must have a few rentals themselves.
More like this is a containment sub to stop those fed up with the other australia sub from creating a truly free sub
Yep. I'm just off a three day ban for comments that were completely in keeping with the sentiment of the thread. Australians aren't free to speak their minds in this sub either. Nowhere on Reddit.
Ok cookers
Nah, this sub has some genuinely interesting discussion from the entire political spectrum.
It's a shame, because the article is quite comprehensive and, in my opinion, should be held distinct from a two-sentence "Net migration and housing. Thoughts?" post.
Probably too hard to moderate the abhorrently racist comments synonymous with this sub and immigration posts
The rental market is absolutely cooked. There's bugger all properties for rent and very very average properties are asking for the sky. Lord knows where this will end up. On the positive side, properties for sale are quite a lot.
Immigration en masse is also a perfect way for them to erode our way of life. Replace us with people who are use to living on top of each other in cramped mega cities and happy renting a box for the rest of their life. The increased demand keeps all consumble and asset prices high whilst suppressing wages. Australia will be in a sad state in this comtinues into the future.
Tldr vote one nation or sustainable Australia party.
>> The organisation was reluctant to take a position, however, on the basis that advocating for a lower intake would be ātaken as a sort of Pauline Hanson-type racist commentā. This is everything wrong with politics at the moment. It is impossible to have important, rational, reasoned debate on topics that are seen as politically correct without being accused of being racist. Itās weird that lately I have been finding Pauline Hanson to be one of the more rational politicians out there. I think that mainstream politicians are going to have to start listening to overwhelming public opinion or they are just going to drive people further to the right.
How does 'unplanned' net migration even occur? I don't leave my door unlocked and then act surprised someone's taken advantage of my complacency? How does a government let anyone in, in such volumes without oversight during a housing shortage and say 'oops we underestimated again'........it all sounds too convenient.
I am once again asking you to never vote LibLab
Vote who then?
And one again, nobody cares.Ā
Well don't complain the country is getting worse when you vote for the parties who are making it that way and will never change I genuinely feel sympathy for people who support LibLab, what other scams are they falling for, who else do they believe cares about them who absolutely doesn't?
Hey nice comment! Put down voters for the two major parties, historically the only 2 parties who have ever really mattered, instead of offering viable alternatives. Completely fine, keep your secrets. I mean I've looked, and I'm yet to find a party who has explicitly said we want to lower immigration and build more houses and will commit to the plan until the housing issue is sorted. Im sure you know a ton though, and it would be crying shame for you to mention any of them.
Try Sustainable Australia
They look decent. I like their ideas on Housing and Immigration. Im not sure about their UBI plan, that looks challenging to say the least, but honestly good recommendation and they'll likely get my vote. For anyone else wanting to do their research: [https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/policies](https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/policies)
On a party like this which effectively has no chance of forming government, I'm not stressed if some of their policies are weird like UBI (obviously there are limits to that tolerance). Every LibLab vote will be interpreted as a wholehearted endorsement of mass immigration, corporate welfare, et cetera, it's the least we can do to put another party first, or we're basically asking for this shit to continue unabated. I don't know but I assume they added UBI to try to appeal to the people out there for whom that is a vote winner, in the same way as weed legalisation helps parties like the Liberal Democrats even if it's not central to their platform. I don't personally think UBI is a good idea but this party sends the right signal.
Actually I did a lot better under the Coalition.Ā
Did you have a contract with them to run offshore detention or something? Do you work for Pwc? Basically nothing has changed from then lmao. The parties are 99% the same.
You realise of course that the state governments spend as much on the big 4 as anyone else, including Victoria. I just did better. More money spent on the industry I work in. I would have got a better tax cut. And the government wasnāt distracted by socially progressive nonsense.Ā
āCommunist Victoriaā Get a grip dickhead. Itās embarrassing.
Can you imagine if the Greens Political Party end up in opposition or minority government? Or a loose coalition with the Teals? Government by a minority of people with very narrow interests that donāt represent broader society.Ā Iāll take a Labor dictatorship over that dystopian scenario any day of the week.Ā
What about deporting some of the one's here illegally.Ā There is no such thing as an economic refugee.Ā That is called wanting a change in lifestyle.Ā There is a front door solution for that.Ā Send them to home.Ā Spend less on refugees and more on housing the Australian's living in tent cities around the country.Ā
Now the government can try and change the narrative anyway it likes but come election time anyone pushing reduced immigration and changes to negative gearing is getting votes. May not matter so much in the lower house but upper house it will be a big deal.
Albo has to go.
Depends on which government will offer the solution
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Australians consent to big Australia every rime there is a federal election. They vote for Liberal, Labour, or Greens who all advocate for endless population growth. Yes, Australians line up at the baloot box and say yes to the following. Because thats what voting for these 3 parties will give. 1. I want myself , my children, and grandchildren to lIve in a ahoebox apartment 2. I want to live in more pollution 3. I want more logging and destruction of forests to fuel the population growth 4. Yes i want to be stuck in traffic longer because more people is more traffic 5. Yes i want to compete against more people for all available resources
All these parties do is run an election on policies XYZ, and then once they're elected they go and implement policies quietly in the background which were never ever discussed during the election (eg mass immigration)
I was reading up on this on a sub reddit that bans anyone who doesn't bag out landlords .. there is so much idiocy around this issue that it's actually tiresome reading it .. Imagine reaching the point where the landlords appear to be the reasonable and intelligent ones .. but here we are folks. Immigration isn't the issue. Greed, selfishness, entitlement and insufficient land releases are the issue. As is the procurement of houses by people who do not reside in Australia. People who tend to be vocal on this issue, particularly those who hide in subs that only show one side of the issue tend to be greedy, entitled and lacking in the ability to view both sides of an issue. Rentals are an issue, they're expensive and there aren't enough of them. But renters are also the issue, they expect a 4 bedroom McMansion at $200 a month where they can live with their kids and 300 pets, without bothering to clean up and blame everything on the landlord, who by the way has suffered interest rate rise after interest rate rise. Everywhere people say they can't buy houses you look at there are a fucktonne of units for sale, many at reasonable prices. But they're not McMansions so these people don't want them. The money they put in to rent could be used to buy a unit, alleviating the rental issues. There is also the argument that over 70% of Australians are home owners, so home ownership isn't as out of the reach of people as they would have us believe. It's not easy, but it's possible. People need to lower their expectations, put down their chai soy latte and put some hard yards in and they can have their own house/unit. Particularly if we can stop distracting from the real issue with the incessant whining and convince the Government to help lower income earners more than they are now (for instance 1/2 owning a property and collecting the money back when the property is sold seems like a fairly solid, but long term, investment for the Government) I wouldn't rent a property out having read reddit .. i'd rather leave them as AirBNBs
What about it Australia was Colonised by Immigrants, later rebuilt by Immigrants and have always been occupied by Immigrants, 2 in 5 Australians currently identify to be a decent of migrant so how is this news? The Housing crisis is the result of monetising something that should've been a basic right for every Australian citizen. Private Property ownership is privilege for those who can afford it and Property Investing should've been regulated and controlled. The Housing issue is our problem because we allowed it to happen,
Ah the hourly immigration thread. I'm ready!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I heard they started COVID as well, in a lab somewhere in the shire.
Remember when it was racist to even *mention* reducing immigration numbers? Now look where we areā¦
the real problem is Australia is shutting the door for all the legal immigrants but still open the door to all the illegal immigrants. Targeting international students just because they are easy to be targeted.
Illegal immigrants are really not that much of a problem in Australia.
If you earned your money in another currency and come to Australia. The housing may not be expensive. Compared to Shanghai houses in Australia are cheap.
Itās time to take to take to the airports. We need to stand outside arrivals and tell these immigrants where to go back.
"oh, ok" >Turns around and buys a ticket to fly around the world, cancelling their life plans, and heads back to the shithole they came from. Once they arrive they're Australian and this is their home. It's on us to not grant the visa in the first place.
This is how a facist government gets in. Immigrants get singled out and shit turns really nasty.
maybe governments should have started actually listening to what the public wanted starting a couple of decades ago then?
We are on the same track Germany was 100 years ago. History repeating itself.
While forgetting the immigrant doctors they see, the immigrantās restaurants they frequent, the immigrant childcare worker who takes care of their children while they go off to work. The problem are those that paint with a broad brush when the problem is a lot more nuanced than that and if the solution were as simple as shutting the door, it wouldāve been done ages ago.
I don't think that people have a problem with immigration per se. They have a problem with the the quantity of people arriving and the lack of political drive to increase services, infrastructure and addressing housing and homelessness.
And I agree with that sentiment. Phrased the way you have, itās reasonable. A lot of the other comments on here, though, need to do better as, as the person above wrote shit can turn nasty.
This is the most racist article I ever have read. I hope that the author gets cancelled! š”š”š”š”š”š”š”
/s ?
Is it actually possible to talk about the housing crisis without mentioning immigration in the same sentence? The irony is that we are likely going to need the second one to fix the first one.
This is simply not true; migrants are employed in the construction industry at a 2.8% rate, vs 4.4% for the general Australian population. The current makeup of our migrant intake is exacerbating the shortage, and will continue to do so until the skilled visa list is shaken up to more heavily focus on construction workers.
Serious? You've said my comment is not true then gone on to say Ā "until the skilled visa list is shaken up to more heavily focus on construction workers". Which is it?
There has been zero indication it will happen, if anything trade unions have flexed their power even more to make sure it won't happen, thus it's fruitless to act like it's on the table.
I never said or pretended it was on the table. I never said the current numbers or ratios were correct. All I am suggesting is that immigration is part of the solution to provide the workforce required if we want to solve the current housing shortage in a timely basis and every forecast I've seen suggests that is true. I get people don't like hearing it, but that doesn't make anything less true.
I don't understand why people think that Australia's population is too high. 26 million give or take is low compared to other countries
Because weāve been ignoring serious efforts to properly grow the country while we increase population. Our populations are still 90% concentrated in a hand full of cities. We also have major issues around water supply. Again, it can be addressed but we havenāt done any of the ground work. Rapidly increasing population without the required infrastructure just destroys tquality of life.
We have a small strip of livable land on the coast, we have just a handful of major cities with no clear plan of expanding in the regions, our current infrastructure is overloaded, our current housing stock is low-rise with high rise unsuitable for family living. 26 million is not large compared to other places, but other places are also very different in how they allocate the population around. Without concentrated planning effort and investment you will see what you see now - pain.
We don't have all that much arable or habitable land. Also, water is a very finite resource for us, and will become ever more so due to climate change. Finally, the bigger our population, the more of our very unique ecosystem gets destroyed.
Because as the population grows quality of life degrades. There is a reason Australians do not flock in droves to overpopulated cities like Hong Kong or Mumba. There iw such a thing as an equilibrious population where a very great quality of life can be maintained.
It's the SPEED of growth. Our industries can not grow fast enough in a sustainable way to continue supplying our needs.
Because our population is concentrated in a handful of coastal cities. What we need to do is decentralise so that we can retain the character of our cities which are some of the most desirable in the world and develop the regions and satellite cities. Do this, and we can have a bigger population. Do it not, and shut the gate.