Anthony Albanese’s promise to halve immigration seems superficial given the continuing influx of migrants from abroad.
In the year to July, 432,150 net migrants moved to Australia.
This was despite the May Budget forecasting a fall in net overseas migration to 260,000 by the end of this financial year, 2024-25, compared with 528,000 in 2022-23.
Institute of Public Affairs deputy chief executive Daniel Wild said the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics highlighted how immigration continued to grow at unsustainably high levels.
“The federal government has repeatedly promised to reduce migration levels, but month after month, the records for migrant arrivals continue to be broken,” he said.
“It is clear that the Prime Minister has no intention of stopping the unsustainable flow of migrants.”
The large influx of international students has caused a rental crisis in capital cities, where tenants are forced to wait in long queues and suffer from housing stress.
International students make up a large portion of Australia’s long-term and permanent enrolment. Education Minister Jason Clare last month announced a cap of 270,000 foreigners coming to study here by 2025.
Anthony Albanese’s pledge to halve immigration looks shallow in the face of continued influx of foreign migrants
He argued that this would help Australia reduce immigration, as promised in the Budget.
“What it does, in the first instance, is help us meet that net figure of migration abroad,” he said on Wednesday.
‘Our universities do not manage Australia’s immigration system, a government should do that.
“This will help us achieve that.”
Australia’s permanent intake, which includes skilled migrants, will be capped at 185,000 in 2024-25, meaning the government will only meet its target of reducing overall immigration levels if there is a large outflow of international students once they graduate.
Record levels of immigration have failed to halt Australia’s declining productivity levels.
Australia has also been in a per capita recession since the March quarter of 2023, where the economic output of each Australian has remained stagnant or declined.
Massive population growth has failed to significantly boost economic activity in the face of 13 interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank in 2022 and 2023.
Australia’s economy is expected to grow just 1 per cent in 2023-24, marking the slowest annual growth since 1991 outside a pandemic, as demographic pressures added to the cost of living shock.
“The uncontrolled flow of migrants to Australia is unsustainable and is impoverishing Australians,” Wild said.
Rapid population growth has also been linked to a rental crisis in capital cities, which have an ultra-low vacancy rate of 1.3 percent.
“Australians are fed up with being treated like fools by the federal government when it comes to its unending, unplanned mass migration program,” Wild said.
‘This political failure is causing immense economic and social pressure amid a housing and cost of living crisis.’
The huge influx of international students has sparked a rental crisis in capital cities, with tenants facing long queues and housing cost stress (pictured, an open housing inspection in Bondi)
In the year to July, 165,443 new homes were approved.
That is well below Labour’s annual target of 240,000, part of its plan to build 1.2 million homes in the five years to June 2029.
With an average of 2.5 people per household, the latest tally of building approvals means Australia would still have a shortfall of 18,542 homes to cater for new migrants, once those homes and units are built.
The ABS will not have updated data on housing construction activity for the June quarter until 9 October.
But in the year to March, 171,667 homes were completed.
Building approvals figures are much lower than in 2022, and rising construction costs have seen construction companies account for a quarter of insolvencies during a population surge.
Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock also ruled out any rate cuts in 2024, with the headline inflation rate at 3.8 percent, well above the RBA’s 2 to 3 percent target.
Institute of Public Affairs deputy chief executive Daniel Wild said high immigration was impoverishing Australia
“Uncontrolled immigration is one of the biggest social and economic failures in Australia’s history,” Wild said.
“This is completely unforeseen and has fueled a perfect storm of high inflation, declining household incomes and record-high and rising housing and rent prices.”
The evidence linking high immigration to the housing market is mixed.
Simon Pressley, managing director of buyer agency group Propertyology, said local economic performance was a more important driver of house prices than overseas migration.
“Most overseas migrants don’t buy property within the first seven years of moving here – they rent,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘So when someone rents that doesn’t affect the value of the asset, it affects the price they’re paying for the rental.
‘The existing resident population: is the one that has the greatest influence on housing demand because people do not stay in the same place all the time.’
Sydney’s median house price rose 5.7 per cent in the year to August to $1.471 billion, CoreLogic data showed.
But Melbourne, another city with a high influx of foreign migrants, saw its median house price fall 1.1 per cent to $929,715 after the Victorian Labor government introduced a flat annual levy on investors of $975.
Cities with the biggest house price increases are seeing a greater flow of interstate migration: Brisbane’s median house price rose 14.1 per cent over the year to $966,382, while Perth values rose 24.3 per cent to $818,839.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Albanese’s office for comment.
