The Albanese government has hurt many Australians by importing a record 1.2 million immigrants in less than three years
Bringing in so many people was always crazy, and young, poor Australians have paid the price.
Andrew Bolt
Don't miss out on the headlines from Andrew Bolt. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Albanese government has finally admitted the tidal wave of immigrants it’s letting in is stopping young Australians from affording their own home.
Not that it wants to say so that bluntly.
Who wants to shout that they’ve hurt many Australians by importing a record 1.2 million immigrants in less than three years? Bringing in so many people was always crazy, and young, poor Australians have paid the price.
Fifty years ago, the average age of Australians buying their first home was around 25; today it’s 34.
That’s a social disaster, and not just because it puts the dreams of the young on hold.
Buying your own home binds people more to their community and – I’d bet – to their partner.
It’s a civilising influence, particularly for young men. Just ask real estate agents: what’s the difference between a house the residents own and one they just rent?
On average, the rented one doesn’t get looked after as well.
Just check the garden.
And now, just before the election, the government thinks: oops. The public is getting angry about this housing crisis.
So on Sunday, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil was promoting a new policy, pinched from the Liberals.
The government would now ban foreign investors, including “temporary residents”, from buying existing homes here for two years.
And here’s the admission, put very subtly: O’Neil said this was “an important move … given the housing pressures that Australians are facing today”.
As in: pressures on Australians from foreign buyers.
But if foreign buyers are indeed putting “housing pressures” on Australians, why stop at just banning the buyers who live overseas or are here temporarily?
What about the foreigners who come as permanent immigrants? Why not slash their number, too?
Banning just foreign buyers overseas plus temporary residents is peanuts. The latest figures show there were 5360 foreign home purchases in a year, less than 1 per cent of all sales, and less than a third of those purchases were of existing homes.
A truly “important move” would be finally slashing the immigration the government is using to prop up its tax revenue and hide the fact we’ve been in a recession for nearly two years, measured by growth per person.
But that would force the government to admit to more than pricing the young out a home.
It would also be admitting it’s making them poorer.
Originally published as The Albanese government has hurt many Australians by importing a record 1.2 million immigrants in less than three years
Join the conversation
Bolt: Debate devastated if voices from the right lost
Creating more clones of the ABC or Guardian would destroy a vital point of difference.
Read more
Bolt: Labor’s green dreams exposed in catastrophic steelworks collapse
How much have these climate dupes now cost us by believing a huckster’s claim that a miracle gas, green hydrogen, would save the steelworks which prop up Whyalla?
Read more