‘It’s just about numbers’: Aussie dad facing homelessness pleads for immigration pause

He’s the battler dad who sparked a national debate about a taboo topic that makes most Aussies uncomfortable. But Morgan Cox says politicians still aren’t listening.

He’s the Aussie dad who sparked a national conversation. But Morgan Cox says politicians still aren’t listening.

Mr Cox, 42, an electrical installer who lives in Gosford on the NSW Central Coast with his partner and three young children, recently received a “crushing” rent increase notice of more than 40 per cent.

Their small two-bedroom apartment will go from $410 to $590 per week - an extra $9360 a year. Earning $70,000 and already working two jobs, Mr Cox has no way of finding the extra cash.

Morgan Cox triggered a debate about immigration and housing. Picture: ABC

MORE: Where the population has boomed most and why

“Where can you get $10,000 from every year?” Mr Cox asked news.com.au.

“I’m earning what a couple of years ago was pretty decent money. I’m not poor - well, I haven’t been poor until recently. And it turns out there are literally millions of people in the same boat.”

After the initial shock, Mr Cox said the experience of looking for new rentals was equally jarring.

“There is hardly anything available in my price range at all, and what there is the line-up is maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 people, many of them immigrants,” he said. “I’d have no chance competing against them.”

Last month, Mr Cox appeared on the ABC’s QandA where he pleaded with the government to cut immigration before “every regular working Australian is homeless”.

A clip of his question — and his exasperated reaction to the panel’s response — racked up millions of views online and triggered debate about the impact of immigration on housing.

Mr Cox said after he went viral, he got “some support”, while others online branded him a “racist” and a “Liberal plant”.

“It has nothing to do with race and it has nothing to do with politics,” he said. “It’s just about numbers — the number of people and the number of homes. That was pretty upsetting, to just stand up and say something I thought was just common sense mathematics.”

Mr Cox lives in a cramped two-bedroom apartment with his family. Picture: Supplied

MORE: Huge prediction for Aussie house prices

Mr Cox was left shaking his head in “disbelief” and “frustration” listening to the ABC panellists describe the situation as “complex”.

“The government’s job is to manage the country,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem all that complicated to me - surely they know there’s this many houses and only this many people can fit in them, basic stuff like that, and they should be able to set limits. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for them.”

A recent study estimated more than three million Australians were at risk of homelessness, a 63 per cent increase since 2016, coinciding with a sharp increase in rental stress.

Nearly 280,100 people were assisted by specialist homelessness agencies in 2023-24, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

“It’s elderly people, even working families like my own living in tents,” Mr Cox said.

“There’s two vans parked in my street that are homeless, there are people living in their cars at the shopping centre. If we’ve already got 300,000 people on the street, it just seems terribly unfair to be bringing in 200,000 students when we’ve got vulnerable women living in cars. It’s just abhorrent to me. I don’t understand why they would allow it.”

Mr Cox camped outside of the PM’s Central Coast mansion with this message on his tent. Picture: X

He was left shaking his head in ‘disbelief’ listening to the panellists. Picture: ABC

On the campaign trail, Mr Cox said, people were “literally shouting” at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese but “it’s like wilful ignorance”.

“I’m not blaming [the international students],” Mr Cox said. “To be 100 per cent clear, I’m blaming the government. My partner is an immigrant. I’m not against immigration at all. I just don’t want my family, my one-year-old, to be homeless and I don’t want millions of other people to be homeless either.”

For now, Mr Cox is still negotiating for a reprieve on his rent increase. Short of that, he is “between a rock and a hard place”.

“There’s no way I can buy — you need something like $300,000 a year now to buy an average house,” he said.

Mr Cox, who already relocated from western Sydney to the Central Coast due to rising costs, said he was stunned at the rapid change in the country.

“Five years ago, everything was OK,” he said.

“We could occasionally go on holidays, occasionally buy the more expensive brands of foods. Now I’m in poverty, by definition. I just can’t believe it.”

The struggling father found himself in the headlines again this week after pitching a tent outside Mr Albanese’s clifftop mansion on the NSW Central Coast.

“I’m here at Albo’s $4.5 (sic) million mansion, we’ve just turned down his $100million road, we’re here on behalf of 3.5 million Australians who are struggling, who are in poverty, facing homelessness,” Mr Cox said in a clip shared to X.

“All we want is to be heard, all we want is for politicians to listen to us.

“Everyone deserves a home Albo.”

If he could speak to the Immigration Minister, Mr Cox said “I would like to walk around the streets with him”.

“Talk to some of the women living in tents, some of the families living in vans with kids,” he said. “I’d like to show him what it’s really like.”

[e-mail]