Anthony Albanese claims immigration is not the real cause of Australia’s housing crisis – and reveals his theory
Anthony Albanese has denied record-high immigration levels are causing Australia’s housing shortage and consequent affordability issues.
The Prime Minister told Q+A host Patricia Karvelas high immigration on Labor’s watch was inevitable after Australia’s border reopened from the Covid closure.
‘When the borders were lifted, there was always going to be a spike,’ he told the ABC on Monday night.
‘Australians coming home, visitors coming here for the first time, students.’
But he blamed housing prices on lack of supply, not soaring demand from migrants.
‘We want them to be more affordable. The key there of course, as well, is supply,’ he said.
Mr Albanese blamed the Coalition for blocking Labor’s plan to cap annual international student numbers at 270,000 – even though imported skilled workers and not students were pushing up demand to buy property.
‘On immigration, particularly when it comes to housing, the biggest thing that you could do, area where you could reduce the amount is in students because some of that frankly was being abused,’ the Prime Minister said.
Anthony Albanese has admitted soaring house prices are good for people like him who ‘own homes’
Immigration levels surged to record levels above 500,000, on a net basis, in late 2023, almost two years after Australia’s borders reopened.
The 444,480 intake for 2024 was still more than double the 194,400 pre-Covid level in the year to June 2020, covering the early part of the pandemic with arrivals and departures factored in.
As a home owner himself, Mr Albanese admitted that rising house prices benefitted homeowners but made it harder for aspiring buyers.
‘For the good of people who own homes, it’s good but for people who are trying to get into home ownership, it makes it more difficult,’ he said.
‘That’s just the truth of the matter.’
An Australian earning an average, full-time salary of $102,742 is effectively locked out of buying a house in a capital city market, with $1million now the typical asking price.
This is especially hurting the young saving up for a mortgage deposit, with house prices still soaring by double-digit annual figures in western Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Mr Albanese in October bought a $4.3million clifftop house at Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast, north of Sydney, and now gets $122,200 a year from rental income.
The Prime Minister, a savvy property investor, made the admission to the ABC’s Q+A host Patricia Karvelas (pictured) on Monday night
A month later, he sold a Dulwich Hill townhouse in Sydney’s inner west for $1.75million, albeit at a $150,000 discount.
The Prime Minister still owns a Marrickville house in his Grayndler electorate, with this gentrified suburb having a middle-market house price of more than $2million, following a subdued increase of 3.1 per cent during the past year.
The Albanese Government and state premiers have vowed to build 1.2million ‘well located’ homes over the five years to 2029.
But in the year to September, just 177,702 new residential dwelling were completed, a level well below the 240,000 annual figure needed for Labor’s targets.
Construction companies are also more likely to be insolvent because of high building material costs, creating problems during a housing shortage crisis.
Mr Albanese’s Housing Minister Clare O’Neil last year outraged Triple J’s youth audience when she suggested the government did not want to bring down house prices.
‘We want to bring house price growth into something sustainable – so we’re not trying to bring down house prices,’ Ms O’Neil told the Hack program.
‘But we don’t want to see some of the growth that we’ve seen in some parts of the country – where you’re getting double-digit increases in house prices year-on-year.’
