Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Over the past three years, net overseas migration has added approximately 1½ million people to Australia's population. There were 171,000 in 2021-22, a record 536,000 in the year 2022-23 and 446,000 in 2023-24. Based on the average household size of 2.5, that represents a demand of around 450,000 additional homes on top of normal requirements. But housing supply isn't keeping pace. As Ross Gittins put it:

… our housing industry has been too slow to respond to the increased demand for housing. This comes from our rising population which, thanks to continuing high levels of immigration, has grown faster than most of the other rich countries.

Then comes the warning from Gittins:

… housing is becoming hereditary. Young people can afford to buy a home only with help from their parents, but parents can help only if they're well-established home owners. Without so much help from parents, home prices would have to fall to make homes affordable.

The impact on affordability has been devastating. Alan Kohler notes that, if the house-price-to-income ratio had stayed where it was in 2000, four instead of the current eight families would be paying about half of what they are now. Twenty years ago, the typical household devoted 36 per cent of their income to a mortgage, and today it is over 50. That is simply not sustainable. This is not an argument against immigration itself; it's a simple matter of mathematics and capacity. When population growth exceeds housing construction, young Australians pay the price, locked out of homeownership, facing record rents and losing faith in the system, putting off having a family and putting down roots. (Time expired)