‘Breaking point’: Western Sydney mayors blast shocking migration figures

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun says Sydney’s west is at ‘breaking point’, at the crest of a record wave of immigration with 100 new residents a week flooding the area.

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun has declared the area “is at the breaking point” of a migration surge, with more than 100 new residents a week contributing to a record national net increase of 548,000 arrivals in 12 months.

“We are at a breaking point, with 100 people moving into Liverpool every week and over 500 people moving into the whole south-west region, our roads are blocked,” Mr Mannoun said on Sunrise on Friday.

“We like immigration, but we want the actual infrastructure to go for it and the Feds to pay for it.”

Mr Mannoun is among a host of the city’s mayors who have blasted both state and federal governments for serving them a double whammy — lack of investment in infrastructure plus unprecedented levels of migration — that has exacerbated pressure on roads, health, housing and school services.

“Our community is stuck in traffic, if you live in Middleton (Grange) it takes you 35 minutes to travel 300m in the morning and it is unsustainable,” Mr Mannoun said.

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun. Picture: Monique Harmer

“Nothing will change unless the Government does something about it.”

In the year to September 2023 there were only 44,100 new homes built in NSW, while the state’s net overseas migration increased by more than 186,000 people.

“There’s too much bureaucracy, too much red tape. Give us control and get on with doing our jobs,” Mr Mannoun continued.

“The Government went out and said $10 billion for housing. They have $10 billion, but haven’t built one house.”

Earlier in the week, Mr Mannoun said the Albanese government should ensure the areas playing host to new migrants were adequately funded.

“The Labor governments don’t have a plan to build infrastructure,” he said.

“We can have migration, but the government policies don’t support migration in reality.

“It’s lunacy.”

Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone. Picture: Richard Dobson

Calls for more support come as the Minns government launches a push for NSW’s GST share to reflect its intake of migrants.

While NSW has taken on 36 per cent of new arrivals, according to the latest data, the 2024-2025 GST carve up has given the state just 27.5 per cent of the GST share.

Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone said the increase in migrants was hurting his community by increasing competition for homes and rentals.

“Quite clearly these numbers might be helping the Prime Minister’s bottom line but it’s impacting people’s budgets in southwest Sydney, it’s increasing competition and people’s ability to put food on the table and shelter over their head,” he said.

“When you triple migration, you’re tripling competition for homes. Their policies mean our children’s future is at risk.”

On Friday morning, Education Minister Jason Clare said federal, state and local governments must work closely together to ensure houses are built shortly after DA approvals.

“A big part of that is the $2 billion we have given the states to fast-track the building of houses that have already got DA approval,” he said on Sunrise on Friday.

“We have to work with the private sector on this as well.

“The forecasts show that migration is expected to go down over the next year or so, we want it to go down (but) we have to build more houses and homes for Australians.”

Deputy Opposition leader Sussan Ley said building approvals aren’t matching the rapidly rising migration numbers.

“We have the government saying migration numbers will go down, they have gone up 60%,” she also said on Sunrise.

“Meanwhile we have builders going bust, we have Australians who can’t afford their rent, who can’t find a home to buy or live in.

“So, there’s this imbalance between the building that we talk about and the migration numbers that the Government doesn’t seem to be able to monitor properly or bring down in the way that they said they would.”

One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson speaks to a private members bill on migration levels in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, March 21, 2024. Picture: AAP Image

Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said migration rates under Labor were “baking in” the nation’s housing crisis.

“Analysis of Labor’s own migration data shows between July 2022 and December 2023 there were 900,200 net overseas arrivals, yet over the same period there was a meagre 265,000 building completions,” he said.

The record September intake, has also thrown Labor’s forecast of 375,000 net overseas migration for the entire 2023-24 financial year into serious doubt.

Asked during Question Time on Thursday why overseas arrivals were increasing at four times the rate of new home builds, Anthony Albanese tried to turn the attack back on the Coalition.

“Migration is lower than it was anticipated to be … under the former government,” the PM said.

“New housing supply has been falling over the last half decade.”

The new figures inspired One Nation leader Pauline Hanson to double down on her infamous decades-old claim Australia was being “swamped” by “Asian” migrants.

“Our Australian people are refugees in their own country. Build the infrastructure we need … once we are on top of that I’ve got no problem,” she said.

Ms Hanson, who put up a failed private members bill seeking to have a plebiscite on Australia’s migration policies, told The Daily Telegraph migration should be at net zero despite a high demand for labour reflected in the unemployment rate dropping to 3.7 per cent.

Independent Fowler MP Dai Le. Picture: Martin Ollman

But Fowler independent MP Dai Le, who arrived in Australia as a refugee, said migrants should not be used to instil fear.

“Migrants are the ones working in factories to make your food, they are the Uber drivers that drive people, they are the people dry cleaning your clothes, — who will do these jobs,” she said.

“I call on the government of the day to ensure that immigration policies have proper planning, where to resettle them, how to house them, to ensure they are set up to succeed.”

Economist Leith van Onselen said net migration should be below 150,000 a year to allow the infrastructure to catch up.

“The population has grown by 660,000 in the 12 months to September … Australian only added in the 12 months to September 156,000 homes to the national housing stock,” he said.

“Nationally, we only added one home for every 4.25 people. That is why the rental crisis has gotten worse.

“The only way to fix the housing crisis is to have an immigration program that is below the capacity of the nation to build homes. We have simply gone too hard for twenty years outside the pandemic.”

For the September 2023 quarter, NSW had the largest net increase of migrants with 51,902, followed by Victoria with 42,105 and Queensland with 21,946 net overseas arrivals.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said international student arrivals were the main source of the “relatively high” migration intake in September.

Mr Chalmers said “substantial action” taken late last year to put downward pressure on net overseas migration was “not yet accurately captured in” in the data.

This weekend a crackdown on dodgy education providers, a new “genuine student test” and strengthening English language requirements come into effect.

Mr Chalmers also challenged the Coalition to support Labor’s policies to address Australia’s housing crisis.

“There is a shortage of housing in this country and we’re doing our best to address that and alleviate that,” he said.

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