Ben Fordham unleashes withering spray as Albanese fails to meet housing target because of immigration

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government has been slammed by radio host Ben Fordham over Australia's worsening housing crisis.
It follows the release of a report from the Government's National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC), showing Australia will miss its own housing targets.
According to the report, housing construction is at its lowest point in a decade, with just 177,000 new dwellings completed in 2024, well short of the government's 233,000 target.
The Council warned that housing is not being built quickly enough to meet growing demand and relieve affordability pressures.
'The Council's analysis shows that expected new housing supply will be insufficient to meaningfully improve housing affordability for all households,' the report stated.
It forecasts that only 938,000 new dwellings will be completed across Australia over the five-year Housing Accord period ending 30 June 2029, far below the 1.2 million target.
No state or territory is expected to meet its allocated share.
On Thursday, Fordham lashed out at the government, blaming slow building rates and rising immigration for exacerbating the crisis.
'The Albanese government promised to build more houses, today they're building less. They promised to lower immigration, today, they're bringing in more,' he said.
'The PM will tell us he's bringing down the migration numbers... and building as many homes as he can, but we're not seeing it.'
'We simply can't build the houses fast enough. What we need is a sharp focus on skilled migration and coordination of housing supply policy with immigration numbers.'
The NHSAC report also pointed to persistent challenges such as labour shortages, low productivity, and rising material costs as major factors dragging down new supply.
Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Senator Andrew Bragg, has slammed at Labor's performance, saying the government had failed to support the very people responsible for delivering new housing.
'Labor has failed to get the houses built because they have done nothing to help the people who build houses: builders, tradespeople and developers,' Bragg said.
He further highlighted that the government's flagship $10billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) failed to deliver a single new home during the previous term.
'Instead, it was acquiring existing housing, thereby making the supply problem worse... Labor's Housing Infrastructure Fund also failed to build any homes with $1.5 billion,' he added.
Housing Minister Clare O'Neil last week pointed to bureaucracy as a major barrier to construction.
'It's just too hard to build a house in this country,' O'Neil told the ABC.
'And it's become uneconomic to build the kind of housing that our country needs most: affordable housing, especially for first home buyers.'
One person arrives to Australia to live every 44 seconds according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Under the Albanese government, overseas migration reached record highs.
In 2022–23, net overseas migration hit 536,000, the highest in Australia's history.
While in 2023–24, it dropped to 446,000, and is expected to fall to 340,000 in 2024–25.
As of March 2025, the national median dwelling price surpassed $1million for the first time, reaching $1,002,500, following a 0.7 per cent quarterly increase.
The annual growth rate slowed to 5.9 per cent in March 2025, down from 9.5% the previous year
New data about Australia's migration will be released on Friday.