It perhaps should not have been a complete surprise on Friday when Opposition Leader Peter Dutton linked Australia’s housing crisis to his assertion that the Albanese government was deliberately (or possibly haphazardly) allowing Hamas sympathisers into the country from the horror of the Gaza Strip.

He has, after all, made the link between migration and housing before, saying after the budget in May that the Coalition would cut migration to ease the housing crisis, as well as the pressure on schools, childcare and road congestion. Arrivals were supercharged after the pandemic, ironically, by lax Morrison government policies on international student work rights.