TRANSCRIPT
You may have been hearing lately from politicians and sections of the media that the reason for the current housing crisis in Australia is a record level of overseas migration.
But a number of housing services and migrant welfare groups are arguing that this rhetoric is misleading and using migrants as a scapegoat for policy failures that have spanned several governments.
Maiy Azize is the spokeswoman for the Everybody's Home campaign which represents housing, homelessness and welfare organisations, with a goal to fixing the housing crisis.
She's helped coordinate an open letter, signed by 40 organisations, that have called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to steer clear of anti-immigrant sentiments and focus on the root causes.
“It's really important that we get the causes of the housing crisis right. Because when we scapegoat the wrong problems, or we scapegoat the wrong people, we end up with the wrong solutions. That's why we really wanted to come together around this open letter, because it's government policy that created the housing crisis, and only government policy can fix it.”
Recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed a record 518,000 people were added to Australia's population in the 2022 to 2023 financial year due to overseas migration.
This is more than double the pre-pandemic net migration numbers from the 2018 to 2019 financial year which stood at 239,600, and is believed to be largely due to a backlog of people who were unable to enter during 2020 and 2021 due to border restrictions.
The federal government has announced a new migration strategy last week which aims to return migration back to pre-pandemic numbers by the next financial year with measures such as tougher rules for temporary visa holders.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan told Sky News on Sunday that he blames migration for the pressures in the housing market.
“We had to open our borders, we didn't have to open the floodgates though and take in a number of people more than the city of Canberra in a year. And that has led to a significant amount of inflation and pain for a lot of Australians who can't find housing.”
Emma Greenhalgh is the CEO of National Shelter, an NGO aiming to improve housing access and affordability.
She believes migration is a factor when considering strain on the housing market but believes politicians have grossly exaggerated its impact.
“We do think that it's been overstated. I think, particularly when, you know, there were housing issues that occurred when the borders were closed during COVID. Though the main issue that we have, is the fact that there is not enough housing, and that was occurring during COVID. So, I think what we're seeing is, yes, there is an increase in migration, but our housing problems are not caused by migration. They might be adding an element of complexity to it, but they are not the cause of it.”
Last month, her organisation released their ninth annual National Shelter-S-G-S Economics and Planning Rental Affordability Index.
The index found rental affordability had worsened across the country in all capital cities aside from Canberra and Hobart over the past 12 months.
New South Wales, Victoria and Perth saw affordability ratings drop dramatically with Sydney slipping by 13 per cent, and Melbourne and Perth both falling 10 per cent.
Ms Greenhalj says it's a complex picture but she largely blames the crisis on decades of poor housing policy that has promoted housing as an investment to be collected by the wealthy rather than an essential necessity for all people.
“It's the less attractive proposition that this is a decline that's been decades in the making. It doesn't sound particularly attractive, politically, to be saying that it's a failure of successive governments to invest in social and affordable housing to keep up with the demand. It's the policy positions of negative gearing and capital gains tax that makes it much more attractive to view have housing as an investment and a commodity than as a home.”
Social housing wait lists continue to soar across the country due to cost of living conditions and a lack of social housing construction with the latest data showing New South Wales and Victoria are sitting at 57,204 and 65,195 applicants respectively.
Chairperson of the Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia (FECCA), Carlo Carli, whose organisation signed the open letter to the major political parties, says the political will to address the issue has stalled.
“We want the housing crisis to be tackled, we want a recognition that for 20 years, there has not been enough social housing built, we want to recognition that there has not been enough housing units, the amount that particularly the pressures on our regions and on our capital cities has been so great, and that we have not had enough building to meet that demand. We want that to be recognised and to be dealt with.”
Australia's migrant communities are also fearful of being subject to fearmongering rhetoric and hateful language.
Mr Carli, says migrants are often targeted by politicians as an easy scapegoat to blame during difficult economic periods.
“The populist anti-migrant language starts out as an anti-refugee language, it starts out in the fringes of the political system on the far right. And it sort of works its way into the the narrative of political parties. And we are following a pattern that has been tried and tested in the United States and in Canada, and also in Europe. And what we're seeing is an easy scapegoat. Times are tough and it's easy to look at migrants and say, well, there's your problems.”
He says framing migration as something that is harmful to the Australian economy completely ignores reality.
The Business Council of Australia said in August that, for every 1,000 overseas migrants Australia receives, there is a $124 million economic dividend each year to Australia.
Maiy Azize from the Everybody's Home campaign says not only are many industries dependent on Australia's migrant population, but they are a key facet of the country's efforts to address the housing crisis
“The rhetoric is harmful to migrants. And it's especially damaging because we know that migrants are a big part of why we're able to build homes in Australia. We've actually built a million homes in Australia as the last 10 years that outstrips population growth, and it outstrips migration, and many of the people who've been building those homes are actually people from overseas. It masks the role that governments have played in creating this crisis. That's why it really suits them to go out and scapegoat migrants this way.”
