Latest news with #BobBirrell
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
How Albanese's 1.2million housing policy failure and record immigration has created a new category of Aussies with nowhere to go
Australia's housing emergency is now so dire nurses are living in cars while thousands of mothers and their children are sleeping rough or crammed into crisis accommodation with no path out. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to fix the housing crisis but Australia today is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world, with near record low rentals available and the worst levels of homelessness in living memory. Recent data by Homelessness Australia reveals the number of people accessing their services each month has grown by 10 per cent since the Albanese government came into power in May 2022. The situation is even more dire for women and girls, with an increase of 14 per cent. But while women and children go without a roof over their heads, immigration is booming, which experts say is putting unprecedented strain on the local property market. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show in the year to May, 1.1million permanent and long-term arrivals hit Australian shores, including international students and skilled workers. In cities soaking up the bulk of the arrivals like Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and increasingly Brisbane, the competition for rentals is fierce, sending rents and house prices soaring. Australian Population Research Institute president Bob Birrell blamed the housing crisis on record overseas migration, which meant working Australians were being pushed out of the market, unable to buy or rent. 'The Albanese government is completely irresponsible on this issue,' he said. Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie (pictured) said the Great Australian dream of home ownership is out of reach for many now and he places the blame on record migration 'They have neglected it ever since they got back into power in 2022, they've just let immigration rip. 'We've had enormous levels of migrants, which is just unprecedented, and irresponsible in the context of the housing crisis.' Dr Birrell said part of the problem is the skilled migration program recruits hardly any tradespeople, especially for the beleaguered building industry. 'Migration is not adding to the supply of those important trades at all,' he said. 'Although a lot of temporary migrants who are adrift in Melbourne and Sydney would probably like to take up an apprenticeship in these areas, they can't, because they're temporaries.' Freelancer CEO Matt Barrie said the Albanese government had created a system so perverse doctors were living in share houses and nurses were sleeping in their cars. 'The Great Australian Dream is now mathematically impossible for the average Australian,' he said. 'In Sydney it now takes 46 years just to save a house deposit. Think about that, for a child born in Sydney today, their retirement party will come before they've saved enough for a house deposit.' Mr Barrie said the housing crisis had been 'engineered' by the government which has flooded the country with the largest immigration wave in history. 'Why, in a cost of living crisis, would they allow nearly one million international student enrolments? 'Why, in a cost of living crisis, would they allow 2.46million people on temporary visas into a country of 27million when there's only 36,000 rental vacancies?' Refuge workers and frontline services are also sounding the alarm on the crisis which is leaving women and children behind. As politicians returned to Canberra for the first sitting week of the new term, Everybody's Home spokeswoman Maiy Azize said the Albanese government has a chance to deliver a lasting legacy on housing or risk being remembered for letting it slip away. It comes after the public release of a written warning to Treasurer Jim Chalmers that the Albanese government could not meet its commitment of supplying 1.2million homes by 2029. 'This is a national crisis that is now pricing out everyday people right across the country,' she said. 'The government can't ignore the increasing number of Australians who are sleeping on streets and couches, forgoing food and medicine to pay rent, and living in unsafe and makeshift housing.' Ms Azize said warnings the government is unlikely to meet its ambitious housing target are further proof that relying on the private market alone won't work. The organisation said social housing has declined to around 4 per cent of all homes, down from 4.7 per cent in 2013. 'To reach six per cent social housing Australia must build more than 36,000 additional social housing dwellings every year for the next decade,' she said. 'If we want one in ten homes to be social housing, we need to build an extra 54,000 social homes every year for 20 years. 'Whichever way you look at it, the scale dwarfs current government commitments and lays bare both the enormous demand and decades of chronic underinvestment.' During Question Time on Wednesday, Opposition leader Sussan Ley pushed Mr Albanese on whether he would abandon his failing policies to tackle the housing crisis. In his defence, Albanese said Labor had 'inherited a decade of neglect' and it would take time to catch up. One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson said Australian cities were full, housing is unaffordable, and services are stretched to breaking point. She said One Nation will cut permanent and temporary migration and restore the population to a level the country can support. 'This isn't extreme. It's common sense,' she said. 'Mass migration must stop. The system is broken. Let's fix it and give our people the chance to thrive.' For many it is too late. Shocking new data from Homelessness Australia reveals a record surge in families stuck in temporary refuges, with thousands of mothers and children sleeping rough or crammed into crisis accommodation. CEO Kate Colvin said one reason for the dramatic deterioration in families and women being pushed further into crisis is rising rents, with Labor's investment in social housing failing to keep pace with demand. Ms Colvin said many were one health tragedy away from losing a stable roof over their heads. 'It's heartbreaking when you meet people who have cancer and due to the number of hospital visits they attend they can no longer work. They lose their home and end up living in their car because you can't afford rent on income support payments,' she said. 'I've spoken to lots of young people who have been in and out of refuges for years, slept in parks or are couch-surfing with dubious people. 'There's always someone who'll offer a 16-year-old girl a bed but it comes with obligations.' Ms Colvin said homelessness is increasing for all, but women and girls are copping the brunt of this crisis. 'The Prime Minister talks about leaving no one behind but the harsh reality is that with 45 per cent of women and girls seeking homelessness support having experienced domestic and family violence, more women and girls are returning to violent homes.' Housing and Homelessness Minister Clare O'Neil said the government has invested more than $1.2billion in crisis and transitional housing. 'We're acutely aware of just how complex the challenge of homelessness is, which is why we continue to listen to people with first-hand knowledge right across the homelessness sector,' she told the ABC.
Daily Mirror
12-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
City that's on course to be as big as New York - but it won't be able to cope
Experts believe the major Australian city will struggle to keep up with the massive load of new settlers in the years to come - lowering people's living standards A stunning coastal city has been tipped for a massive boom that will eventually make it as big as New York - but it will struggle to meet the mounting demand. Melbourne, a southern seaside city, is one of Australia's biggest, with its permanent population of more than five million rivalling the country's capital, Sydney. That already huge population is set to nearly double in the years to come, officials believe, increasing closer to New York's more than nine million. But the assessment isn't a particularly welcome one, as Melbourne is already struggling to cope with "huge challenges" caused by its current load. Business leaders and politicians gathered to discuss the city's growing population at the Melbourne growth symposium, predicting more than nine million people would call the city home by 2050. Bob Birrell, president of the Australian Population Research Institute, said the projections show "huge challenges of population growth", adding: "They are here with us." Melbourne's population has been increasing at a much more significant rate than many other Australian cities, with data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showing 142,000 people moved there between 2023 to 2024 alone. The jump, the largest in the entire country, meant that, as of last year, 5,350,705 people now live in Melbourne, just over the number of people - around 5,231,147 - who lived in Sydney in 2021. The exponential increase is set to make Melbourne larger than Sydney by around 2031. More people living and working in the city will mean increased congestion, new strains on local infrastructure and a decline in liveability, according to Mr Birrell. Mark Crosby, a Professor of Economics at Monash University, said the projections bode well for Melbourne given the city's largely poor track record of managing population booms. He told "The population was four million at the 2011 Census and now, depending on the estimate, it's about 5.2 million to 5.4 million. "The last million or so people, we've really struggled to deliver all the things a city needs." Dr Birrell said the current pace of growth will mean that people will likely end up priced out of the city, with "no meaningful improvement on the horizon". He said: "The building industry can't provide enough housing, let alone affordable housing. The main driver of demand for housing is immigration. I don't see any meaningful improvement on the horizon, especially with the extent of population growth that's projected. "The only outcome is that home prices remain high and young people continue to be priced out – or they take on enormous mortgages that account for 40 per cent or more of their salaries."
News.com.au
12-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Melbourne is growing so rapidly it's on track to be the same size as New York City
Melbourne is growing at such a rapid pace that the Victorian capital is on par to have a similar population to New York City in the distant future. Last week, business leaders and politicians gathered at a symposium to discuss how to prepare for more than nine million people calling the city home by 2050. But experts say Melbourne is struggling to cope right now with a mammoth increase to its resident base over recent years, leaving doubts about how it will manage the millions more coming. 'The huge challenges of population growth aren't in the distance,' Bob Birrell, president of the Australian Population Research Institute, said. 'They are here with us.' More congestion, a greater strain on infrastructure, higher demand for housing, an increase in cost-of-living and a decline in liveability are all on the cards, Dr Birrell warned. The nation's capital cities grew by a combined 427,800 people in the 2024 financial year, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data, marking a 2.4 per cent increase. Melbourne led the charge, adding 142,600 people to its population in just 12 months, following by Sydney at 107,500 people. Net overseas migration accounted for the overwhelming majority of growth. While economists largely welcome Australia's booming population, which contributes strongly to the country's fiscal stability, it comes at a cost. Professor Mark Crosby from Monash University's Business School said the projections 'don't excite me' because of how Melbourne has managed growth over the past 15 or so years. 'Badly,' Professor Crosby summarised. 'The population was four million at the 2011 Census and now, depending on the estimate, it's about 5.2 million to 5.4 million. The last million or so people, we've really struggled to deliver all the things a city needs.' As a result, it's fair to say Melbourne isn't well-placed to manage the growth of the future, he said. 'Unless they can address the issues, I think nine million people will make it a pretty hectic place to live, if you ask me.' The number of migrants aside, a major challenge is that 80 per cent of new arrivals settle in Greater Melbourne, putting intense strain on housing and infrastructure. 'A rapidly growing population requires a huge infrastructure build,' Dr Birrell said. 'Unfortunately, Victoria doesn't have a great track record when it comes to infrastructure.' The state is already facing an uphill battle in delivering the needs of Melburnians today, spending hundreds of billions of dollars on crucial projects. Some of them are either delayed or over budget – or both. 'The current government's signature policy, the Big Build, depends entirely on debt and it now has a very, very serious problem with what it owes,' Dr Birrell said. The state is forking out about $26 million a day in interest repayments on a staggering $188 billion worth of debt. Infrastructure is just one of the challenges, as significant as it is, with the other equally significant concern being housing, Dr Birrell said. 'The building industry can't provide enough housing, let alone affordable housing,' he said. 'The main driver of demand for housing is immigration. I don't see any meaningful improvement on the horizon, especially with the extent of population growth that's projected. 'The only outcome is that home prices remain high and young people continue to be priced out – or they take on enormous mortgages that account for 40 per cent or more of their salaries.' Tim Lawless, executive research director at Cotality, formerly CoreLogic, with a high likelihood of 'significant affordability challenges'. 'We've seen historically that when you simply pull the population growth lever, and pull it quite hard, it just forces prices higher if you don't have a supply response alongside it,' Mr Lawless said. And there isn't an adequate supply response, as much as governments have focused their efforts on stimulating home-building over recent years. 'The challenge is Melbourne has a lot of big infrastructure projects underway that use the same type of labour and materials as [housing construction],' he said. 'We're also not seeing any material improvement in feasibility for private sector housing builders either. We've seen construction costs increase by more than 30 per cent over the past five years, and even though the rate of growth has slowed, it's hard to see costs going backwards.' Over the next decade, it will be 'really hard' to get sufficient supply into the market, Mr Lawless said. A flight for housing affordability fuels urban sprawl and the more Melbourne sprawls, the more infrastructure that's needed, Professor Crosby said. 'All the new fringe suburbs in Melbourne tend not to be very well-planned in terms of public transport. It's definitely a big issue.' One way of coping with population growth is to prioritise density as well as infill development in inner and middle-ring suburbs. The fact you can find a house on a 500 square metre block within a few kilometres of the CBD – provided your budget is big enough – shows the need for a focus on infill development. Dr Birrell said the response to the current housing crisis has led to 'draconian' measures. In February, Premier Jacinta Allan delivered an ultimatum to councils to allow more dwellings to be built – a projected 2.24 million across Greater Melbourne by 2051 – or face the consequences. 'It's simple – work with us to unlock space for more homes or we'll do it for you,' Ms Allan said. 'We're in a housing crisis and the status quo is not an option. It's time to shake things up.' Councils now have until late 2026 to overhaul their planning processes to make it easier and quicker to develop housing stock at scale in their local areas. If they don't, the State Government will strip them of their planning powers. But overhauling planning systems is just one element of required change, Mr Lawless said. 'It's really about the actual mechanisms of delivering supply now,' he said. 'The costs associated with building simply don't stack up. There's a real disconnect. There are more immediate ways government could improve supply, like taxation reform. Taxes add about $50,000 to the cost of a dwelling, for example.' An infrastructure contribution fund, covering early stage costs for developers and builders, is another, he said. There's also an opportunity to explore ways of enticing people to consider alternatives to Melbourne and Sydney, which would support the growth ambitions of secondary capitals and smaller cities, Professor Crosby said. 'Can we get immigrants to go to other cities or smaller regional cities? What can we do to facilitate that? I think those are important questions to consider.' At last week's growth symposium, Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece asked those gathered: 'What should Melbourne be like in 2050?' For his part, Mr Lawless said he remains an optimist. 'I would like to think by then we've seen some significant improvements across residential construction. I hope we've learned our lessons the hard way from history that we need infrastructure and housing supply policies that run hand-in-hand with population growth. 'But I'll also conclude by saying that if history is anything to go by, Australian cities do tend to have a nasty habit of not building enough to cater for rapid population growth. Hopefully history doesn't repeat.'
