From yesterday's newspaper
The Advertiser
Adelaide South Australia
20 September 2023
"Australia ignores the alarm bell that even woke Canada"
(article by Kevin You copied here as written)
"You know there is a problem when even the most woke, left-wing government in the western world is considering capping its student migration to fix housing shortfalls.
Canada's Housing Minister Sean Fraser recently said that a cap on the number of foreign students to alleviate housing pressure "is one of the options we ought to consider."
Fraser went on to note that "we've got temporary immigration programs that were never designed to see such explosive growth in such a short period of time."
But don't expect such refreshing, and unexpected, honesty to make its way to Canberra any time soon.
New official figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed Australia is in the middle of the most rapid expansion in our migration numbers on record.
In the first seven months of this year, the Federal Government has presided over a record 317,800 new arrivals, which is already more than the entire annual intake in 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year.
And the bulk of this increase is Australia's international student intake, which now accounts for some 80 percent of total net migration.
Australia has the highest intake of international syudents in the western world as a share of population.
This record surge in Australia's migrant intake is occurring amid a nationwide housing shortage, with the number of new houses approved for construction now at its lowest level in more than a decade.
And it is international students who are snapping up the lion's share of the properties that are available on the market. Just last year, international students took up the equivalent of seven in 10 of all new properties built. And they are expected to take up around half of all new houses constructed this year.
So, at the same time as the government is pushing the accelerator on migration, the brakes are being slammed on housing construction. While the Fedreal Government is lauding its deal with the Greens on the Housing Australia Future Fund, it is only a drop in the ocean, creating, at most, just 6000 houses per year over the next five years, compared with the more than 300,000 new migrants who have already entered Australia this year.
And, unlike Canada, where alarm bells are being heard, our Government is failing to act.
Australia is, and has been for decades, a tolerant and welcoming country. No reasonable person could question the critical place migration has had in our social and economic fabric, especially since World War 11. The issue, however, is the apparent lack of planning and foresight on behalf of the Government.
Australians are asking how it is possible, let alone logical, the Government can commit to record expansion in migration and international student numbers while dispensing with any plan to house them. The Government should consider placing a temporary cap on students until enough houses are built for our current population."
Dr Kevin You is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
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Over to you, Canberra.
Please discuss and perhaps share this with your local MPs?
Interesting. I really, really hope that our Governments (state and Federal) co-operate and put an end to this crisis.
ReplyDeleteElephant's Child; I hope so too. I'm more concerned about the housing crisis than the migrants.
DeleteI wasn't aware that temporary overseas students without residency were counted as migrants. If so it skews the migration figures badly. I don't think it is overseas students causing the problem. They don't buy large houses or apartments to live in. Many here live in student flat accommodation within the city and nearby and small cheap private high rise apartments that Australians would consider poor and too small accommodation.
ReplyDeleteOverseas students taking up 70% of new housing? I find this figure doubtful and would include the accommodation I've described above. Overseas students will will take up half of all new houses built this year? And where will they get this money from? Working in a 711? Being an underpaid waiter in an Asian restaurant? This is a garbage story.
Let me check...sure enough. Adelaide Advertiser is a Murdoch newspaper. I'd expect nothing less.
But having had my little rant, migration levels are very high and many would argue, including me, too high.
Andrew; they might count as migrants if they stay for several years of uni study and I agree they do mostly live in student accommodation within the city. But I also know there are many migrants who are outbidding locals in sales and rentals offerings. I took the story at face value, assuming many are being funded by parents in their home countries.
DeleteRegardless of migrants and students, the original housing problem is still very real.
Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. The media exasperates me frequently and often.
DeleteImmigration is a hot issue here in the UK too. Although most are perfectly legal , we also get a fair few illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel in boats from France. There is also the problem of a criminal element arriving here from places like Albania. There's no easy answer, unfortunately. Transporting illegal immigrants is BIG business for the criminal element.
ReplyDeleteAMKT; I don't know that we get too many illegals here, I do know there are many, many international students here. My real worry is the lack of housing, for our own people with so many already homeless because of cost of living rises. They can't afford mortgages or rents and cheaper places just aren't to be found. Whole families are living in caravans, sheds, cars.
DeleteOur housing crisis has been going on for years. To solve it, planners are given permission to build on flood plains . . . We have small houses on small plots, generally, and judge houses by the number of bedrooms, regardless of the size of them.
ReplyDeletejabblog; here we tend to build on good farming land leaving the market gardeners to move even further out and use more resources to grow the same vegetables. Back to front if you ask me. But still, not enough homes are being built for the current population.
DeleteHere in the UK they encourage overseas students to fund universities rather than funding them properly. They don't invest in anything that costs too much. We live beyond our means.
ReplyDeleteTasker Dunham; same here, the universities have necome used to the funds brought in by overseas students so more is done to encourage more students while Australians already living here are doing it tough with ever rising rents and sales prices that only a few can truly afford.
DeleteThere seems to be a housing crisis everywhere. It doesn't help when one person owns 3 or 4 houses that they don't use very often.
ReplyDeleteMike; that sort of thing really steams me up, what is the point of owning more than one house unless you then rent the others to people who need a home. Politicians here have recently been exposed as having multiple homes, some they rent out and some they only use themselves once or twice a year. Holiday homes. Regular people who are well off or even dare I say, rich, do the same thing. Where is the equality that everyone dreams of?
DeleteI had similar thoughts to Andrew. It seems odd to count overseas students as immigrants, unless they're staying beyond their uni years.
ReplyDelete