Sustainable Population Australia Media Release
Without a mature discussion on population growth, the housing crisis will extend for years to come, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).
SPA National president Peter Strachan says there is deep denial within the government that population is the main factor driving housing demand.
“The government’s focus is on supply while the demand side is ignored,” says Mr Strachan. “The result is a diabolical housing crisis causing misery for renters and home buyers alike.
“Instead of doing something about population growth, all sorts of reasons are found to blame ordinary Australians for somehow causing this crisis.
“They say we have too much space in our homes and we need to increase the occupancy ratio. They say we are NIMBYs for resisting inappropriate development. They say we need to get used to living in shoddy high rise and don’t worry about green space. They say we need to lift restrictions on development, adding to urban sprawl and destruction of the natural environment.
“All of this just so these unprecedented levels of population growth can continue. It is absurd.”
This is despite the respected economist, Alan Kohler, having recently laid out in forensic detail how, over two decades, population growth fuelled by high immigration has led to the current housing situation.
“We are now at the point where housing construction has no chance of catching up to ever-increasing demand caused by population growth,” says Mr Strachan.
“It will be impossible to reach the Albanese government’s target of 1.2 million new dwellings over five years. For that to happen, we need to be approving an average of 264,000 dwellings per year. In the past 12 months (to July 2024), 165,250 dwellings were approved, which is even lower than the 175,130 approvals in the preceding 12 months. We are heading in the wrong direction.
“The Urban Development Institute of Australia concedes that we are building less than we were five years ago and we are facing an ever-increasing housing supply gap.
“All of the supply side solutions, including social housing, require houses to actually be built. But this is not happening at anywhere near the rate required, due to a perfect storm of factors including: interest rates at a 12 year high; a 40% rise in construction costs since the start of the Covid pandemic; high rates of construction industry insolvency; and competition for materials and labour with big infrastructure projects.
“The obvious solution is to stop adding to demand with sky-high immigration levels,’ Mr Strachan says. “This can be done relatively quickly by adjusting immigration visa policies and targets.
“Why the government is not doing this is one of life’s great mysteries. But one thing is certain, if we don’t do it, this housing disaster will drag on for years.”
Further information can be read in the SPA commissioned report “The Housing Crisis is a Population Crisis“.
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Many profit from a crisis, from misery, agony, downturns, poor management and policy, so, profiteers will snigger at articles about housing, immigration, tax matters, etc. Conservative donors, profiteers, plotters, will always push, e g., behind the Victorian chambers of commerce or business organisations of all kinds, for opportunity calls, bugles, tempts and government failure is just the kind of opportunity many cunning types relish, There’s a quid in it, Sid.
The blaming of First Nations folk, land theft and construction extortion is the oldest business in the colonies of the colonial project. And of course, the necessity of immigration to drive the projects for fattening of thieves and extortionists is the main underpinning game, whilst at the same time, blaming them.
The only time public / affordable housing occurred, was when the immigration ball needed a kick along so that we could screw their money from them.
The olde guarde exploiters never change their stripes, they just indoctrinate new members and collaborators.
Politicians, bankers, bean counters, lawyers, churches, and the judiciary set it all in motion, and now neoliberalism ensures everyone wants to get into the act. But now we’re up shit creek, because supply of labour and materials is strangulated because of a mindless focus on exploitation and money.
The LNP and the Greens patently don’t want to resolve it, and we’ll have to wait and see what Labor gets up to. In any case it’s likely to take a decade or so to resolve.
Despite blocking attempts by the Greens and the coalition the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) is now through the Senate unlike the Shared Equity Home Scheme which the Greens successfully blocked from becoming legislated in the Senate last week.
The HAFF has required the government to create a Future Fund with a nominal capital of $10 Billion guaranteeing an annual return of $500 Million (5%) per annum which will all go into new affordable housing, administered by the States and Territories – any shortfall in the annual five percent return will be topped up by the federal government so there will be an ongoing $500 Million going into housing each year for the foreseeable future. Of course the coalition, should they get into office, will probably scrap the scheme.
‘New data issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the national population grew by 2.3 per cent to 27.1 million in March this year. It’s an increase of about 615,300 people over the previous year, with net overseas migration driving about 83 per cent of this growth. But, net growth for 2021/2022 was virtually stagnant due to Covid restrictions. So, much of the recent increase has been a catch up on the low levels of growth during Covid Sure, we need to carefully monitor our population growth but we also need to ensure that housing growth planning is not undermined by minor parties for short term political gain.
Class SPA Tanton Network agitprop masquerading as analysis to create doubts about immigrants and population growth; this one lacks the ‘jazzed up stats’?
There is no evidence for media and mostly bipartisan LNP/ALP claims linking ‘immigrants’ ie. mislabelled international students caught under the NOM net OS border movements (ie. not permanent settlers), to supposed shortage housing issues (<5% of rental market, but Air BNB gets a free pass?).
Issue for house market is stagnation and decline in median house values for past decade, apartments far worse; does not signal a healthy property market?
One presumes it’s linked to the demographic phenomenon that hath no name according to SPA, LNP and RW FIRE MSM who focus on the ‘other’, ageing permanent population (ex. NOM) with transition of 5+ million boomer ‘bomb’ in or to retirment, joining the oldies; the oldies & boomer cohort is 7+ million about to start the ‘big die off’ till mid century.
They are the last of the high fertility generations and no similar demographic ‘powder’ to follow.
I don’t buy the argument that increasing population is the source of all our housing woes. The incredible level of profiteering among property investors, significant under-use of existing housing stock and the way the construction industry operates in its exploitation of apprentices and tradesmen are all major factors.
As a census worker, I have seen first hand the many empty houses that exist in towns and on farms. ABS figures show 10% of residences were empty on the last two census nights. While some were between owners, or had been left empty because people were elsewhere that night, there are many fine houses that are kept for corporate purposes such as guesting overseas visitors. On the land, many of the former share farmers, stock man’s and milkers’ cottages, and even homesteads, are empty, just used for storage. A massive number of family homes are only occupied by one elderly person, quite often wanting to downsize but their adult children prefer to wait for the inheritance.
Having one person living alone in a 4-bedroom house on a large block of land must be discouraged. Maybe the first thing the Government could do would be to assist pensioners to take in boarders or set up a house-share, without tax and pension problems
As for the construction industry. Unless you have a well-established business, few wage earners have job security. They are hired and fired within the life of their contracts. Many become sham contractors (though this is illegal) because they can get called back when a new job arises. Apprentices have a dire time as businesses cannot last the length of time needed for an apprenticeship to run its course; quite often they go through several changes of company/trainer and are not able to engage in the full range of training with a single boss. My carpenter son did his apprenticeship with a trusses and frames factory, and emerged as a tradie who had never hung a door.
@ Lyndal: Agreed. The principal cause of the housing crisis can be traced back to the Howard concessions to property owners on CGT, to market boosting incentives of assisted Australian citizenship for North Asian investors who lived for 30 days for each of four years in an Australian property worth at least $5 MILLION, and the refusal of any government to remove Negative Gearing from secondhand houses, and restrict NG to new build houses only.
Then, residential real estate ownership should be limited to Australian borne or properly naturalised ”foreign” natural persons thus excluding corporations from owning residential real estate and receiving the many taxation benefits from their investment.