Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has opened his election campaign with a populist offer to fix the housing crisis by slamming the door on higher migrant numbers. The Reserve Bank has concluded that there are no quick fixes to the housing market, but the Coalition and Labor are both determined to seek out quick-fix answers that provide no solution.

Mr Dutton’s fingering of immigration as the culprit delivers him crowd-pleasing lines to “restore the dream of home ownership” which simply dodge all the real structural problems in housing supply. Indeed, developers fear it might worsen the 600,000 shortfall of builders and tradies and backfire completely.