More than 40 housing and welfare groups say they are concerned migrants are being scapegoated as the main reason for Australia’s housing crisis, calling on the prime minister and opposition leader to show leadership on the issue.
The organisations – which include the Australian Council of Social Services, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia and National Shelter – say decades of poor policy choices by successive governments, including investor tax incentives and the chronic undersupply of social housing, have fuelled the crisis.
They point to fresh analysis from SQM Research that shows weekly asking rents rose by $84 nationally in the two-year period when Australia’s borders were closed between March 2020 and February 2022. That was higher than the $69 increase in the entire decade prior between March 2010 and March 2020.
In a letter to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton, the groups said: “We write following the rise in disturbing rhetoric linking Australia’s migration levels to the current housing crisis. We are deeply concerned that migrant communities are being scapegoated as the primary reason for this crisis.” The letter did not give examples or criticise any specific politicians.
Maiy Azize, a spokesperson for the housing campaign Everybody’s Home who coordinated the letter, said it was “nonsense to blame migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making”.
“During the Covid era which had lower migration, rents actually increased more than they did in the preceding decade,” Azize said.
The organisations called on the government and opposition to show leadership in the housing affordability debate and focus on what they say the main drivers.
“Migrant communities are being scapegoated for Australia’s housing crisis,” Azize said. “Governments have given handouts to investors, allowed unlimited rent increases, and stopped building homes for the people who need them.
“It’s a distraction to suggest that migrants are to blame.”
Data from CoreLogic shows monthly rents had started to surge long before the borders were reopened in February 2022.
The Albanese government announced last week that net overseas migration would fall over the coming years as a result of its new 10-year migration strategy. The Coalition criticised the plan for not going far enough.
CoreLogic’s head of residential research, Eliza Owen, said migration had affected the rental market but it was “definitely not fair to only target overseas migrants as something that is contributing to the housing crisis”. She noted that migrants were already entering a tightening rental market when borders opened.
“A lot of it is structural, a lot of it is the failure of successive governments to keep up the provision of social and affordable housing,” Owen said.
“And a lot of it is the change in household size domestically. So this is fuel to the fire. It’s not something that started the fire.”
She said a key driver was the change in average household size, which had decreased since the start of the pandemic from about 2.6 people to below 2.5, meaning more homes are need to house the population.
“That’s a short-term decline. Longer term, average household size has actually been declining for decades and that has been driven by things like the ageing population,” she said. “So there’s been more empty nesters.”
Owen said Australia’s tax policies, such as negative gearing and capital gains tax, have also been structured in a way that is more favourable to increasing prices.
Other experts have previously told Guardian Australia that the effect of the spike in migration on housing was unclear.
