Australia's mass migration 'disaster' overwhelming Labor's housing plan, availability going backwards by hundreds of homes every week

Sky News AU

a day ago

Australia is bringing in migrants faster than it can house them, with Labor's mass immigration plans outpacing new home construction and shrinking the housing supply by more than 1000 homes every week.
Australia is bringing in migrants faster than it can house them, with Labor's mass immigration plans outpacing new home construction and shrinking the housing supply by more than 1000 homes every week.
Despite promising to deliver 1.2 million new homes over five years, new forecasts reveal the country will fall short by 260,000 homes by June 2029.
The State of the Housing System 2025 report forecast the country will build only 938,000 new homes by June 2029, short of the 1.2 million promised.
Meanwhile, net overseas migration will total about 1.2 million people by 2029-30, according to the federal government's own 2025–26 Budget.
That means, by the time the government finishes building the homes, the country will have gone backwards by 200,000 homes.
That shortfall translates to a net loss of more than 1,000 homes per week, when matched against population growth and existing shortages.
Adding in natural population increases, the shortfall increases even further.
In response, Migration Watch Australia Director Jordan Knight has accused the Albanese government of creating a 'total disaster in the making'.
'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 told Sky News.
'The Housing Minister Clare O'Neil herself has said she wants house prices to continue to rise, and the government is using mass immigration to achieve this.
'Homeownership is a core pillar of our society. If we lose it, it will be chaos.'
Mr Knight rejected the government's repeated claim that migration is needed to support the construction industry, labelling it a 'lie'.
'The lie that we need migrants to build houses is ridiculous. A minuscule amount of new migrants work in construction—and they need to be housed before they can build housing,' he said. — Migration Watch Australia (@migrationwaus) April 6, 2025
Immigration Minister Tony Burke announced changes in December to 'attract migrants' in specific occupations, including construction.
'The biggest bulk of our migrant intake comes from international students. Frankly, they can study online. We need to fix our problems first before we bring any more people in,' Mr Knight said.
Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) President Col Dutton also warned that Labor was falling far behind its commitments, citing new industry data.
'UDIA National analysis has found that Australia will actually undershoot the Housing Accord target by up to 400,000 homes,' Mr Dutton said.
'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.'
Under the UDIA projections, the net losses in housing increase to more than 1,500 houses every week.
Mr Dutton said the industry was being choked by red tape, slow approvals, and infrastructure bottlenecks.
'Supply is being choked by development approvals processes through councils and state governments, lack of funding for enabling infrastructure to service development ready land and cumbersome environmental approval processes lacking a co-ordinated approach between all levels of government," he said.
According to ABS dwelling completion data, Australia built only 166,000 homes in 2024, compared to 446,000 net overseas migrants entering the country that same year.
With an average of 2.5 people per household, that created a housing shortage of roughly 12,400 dwellings in a single year—even before accounting for the existing shortfall.
Rental vacancy rates have remained at near-record level lows of around 1.3 per cent, while the average time to save for a deposit has increased to 10.6 years.
Housing Minister Clare O'Neil recently argued that the government has been laying the groundwork for long-term reform.
'It takes time to turn the tide on a housing crisis a generation in the making,' her spokesperson told Sky News last month.
'That's why it's so important the Labor government keeps building on the foundations laid last term."
But critics have said the numbers don't add up—and the government's vision is being overwhelmed by its own migration settings.
The Property Council of Australia echoed the warnings, saying 'alarm bells' were ringing over national housing supply.
Chief Executive Mike Zorbas said the nation's construction and planning systems were still 'not fit for purpose'.
'The sad fact is that many Australians feel that homeownership is out of reach,' he said.
'More than 30 per cent of the cost of a new home is government taxes and charges.'