Federal Housing Minister Julie Collins continues to lie about the housing crisis and blame the former Coalition government.
According to Collins, Australia “doesn’t have enough homes and hasn’t for a long time”.
“For a long time, we haven’t been building the homes that Australia needs and the former government wasted a decade in office while these problems only got worse”.
Long-time readers will know that I am not a fan of the former Coalition government. But to deflect blame onto the Coalition in this instance is highly disingenuous.
As the next chart shows, the Coalition delivered the strongest dwelling construction in the nation’s history, as illustrated below:
This record dwelling construction saw the shortage of homes diminish over the Coalition’s nine years in office, as shown below, after exploding under the previous Rudd-Gillard Labor government:
Since the Albanese government took the reins, Australia’s housing shortage has again blown out. Why? Because Labor used the 2022 Jobs & Skills Summit as a Trojan Horse to ramp immigration to unprecedented levels via:
- Increasing the permanent migrant intake by 30,000.
- Increasing the humanitarian intake by 7,000.
- Spending $42 million to hire 500 additional staff at the Department of Home Affairs to rubber stamp visas and clear the contrived “one million visa backlog”.
- Increasing the number of hours that international students can work in Australia to 24 hours a week, from 20 hours pre-pandemic.
- Increasing the number of years that international students graduates can work in Australia post-study (revoked this year).
- Increasing permanent visas for low-skilled workers in agriculture and aged care.
- Signing two migration pacts with India to make it easier for Indians to study and work in Australia.
The result was an unprecedented surge in immigration.
Labor’s first federal budget in October 2022 projected 235,000 net overseas migration in FY 2023 and FY 2024:
Source: October 2022 federal budget
Instead, one million net overseas migrants landed in Australia in CY 2022 and CY 2023.
Labor delivered record permanent migration:
Record temporary migration:
And record overall net overseas migration:
As a result, a record gap opened up between population demand and new housing supply:
And this shortage has driven rental inflation through the roof:
Through its mad immigration, the Albanese government has engineered the nation’s housing and inequality disaster.
If Labor actually cared about the nation’s housing shortage, it would run an immigration program that was compatible with the nation’s housing and infrastructure needs.
You know, like the one it promised before the 2022 federal election before it double-crossed the electorate:
The truth is that Australia will never be able to create enough homes if its population continues to increase like a lab experiment due to heavy immigration.
Labor’s excessive immigration has driven Australia’s housing crisis. Julie Collins should stop lying about it.
