Institute of Public Affairs report finds we have insufficient housing for new migrants

Australia’s housing crisis is being exacerbated by an influx of migrants, with a new report finding an extra 63,000 homes would need to have been built last year to accommodate the new arrivals.

Inner city Sydney and Melbourne are the areas facing the biggest housing shortages, according to an analysis of immigration and building data which also found 380,000 more migrants arrived in Australia than homes were built in the last financial year.

According to the study by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Australia’s housing supply increased by 148,600 new dwellings in the 2022-23 financial year, while net overseas migration for the year was 528,392.

Assuming that each person occupied a single dwelling this would have meant a housing shortfall of 380,000 dwellings.

Working instead from an assumption of an Australian household size of 2.5 people, the IPA found this would have required building 211,357 dwellings, a shortfall of 62,757.

The survey also found that in the last financial year 78 out of 88 regions as defined by the ABS had fewer new dwellings added than the net number of migrants who arrived. This included every Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide metropolitan region as well as every region in Queensland and Western Australia.

Migration numbers are far outstripping new home builds throughout Australia.

In NSW there were 38,900 new dwellings added to the housing stock while 177,140 migrants were added, a gap of 138,240.

The biggest shortfall in Sydney was in the city and inner south, where the housing supply increased by 2406 but overseas migration increased by 22,398.

This was closely followed by the inner southwest, where 1825 new dwellings were added compared with 20,900 migrants.

Parramatta, too, had a massive gap, with 3194 new dwellings added compared to 21,304 new migrants.

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan has asked where new migrants will be housed. Picture: Martin Ollman

In Victoria there were 49,901 new dwellings added to the housing stock while 157,220 new migrants were added, a gap of 107,319.

In Queensland there were 31,501 new dwellings added to the housing stock while 85,002 migrants were added to the population, a gap of 53,501.

In South Australia there were 8402 dwellings added to the housing stock while 28,335 new migrants were added to the population, a gap of 19,933.

In Tasmania there were 3299 dwellings added to the housing stock while 4408 new migrants were added to the population, a gap of 1109.

In Western Australia there were 11,602 new dwellings added while 64,255 new migrants were added to the population, a gap of 52,653.

The shortfalls between housing stock and Australia’s population is set to worsen in the coming year. with data released in January showing new housing starts at their lowest level in a decade.

IPA Deputy Director Daniel Wild said the current situation was unsustainable.

“The federal government simply refuses to listen to community concerns and continues to recklessly push the accelerator on migration at the exact same time as the brakes are being slammed on housing construction,” he said.

“The government’s unplanned mass migration approach is setting Australia up for an economic and humanitarian disaster, and actively undermines Australians who are struggling with rapidly rising house prices and rental costs.”

Mr Wild pointed out that for the first time in 40 years, per capita GDP had shrunk over four consecutive quarters meaning “at an individual level” Australians were in a recession.

Opposition Immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said all Australians should be asking where all these people were going to live.

“Young people looking to buy a house will be terrified by this data,” he said.

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Originally published as Institute of Public Affairs report finds we have insufficient housing for new migrants