The politics of migration and housing has just become a more acute political problem for Albanese government

Migration and population growth are outstripping the nation’s capacity to accommodate them.

The basic mathematics of the migration and housing crisis has become a diabolical problem for the Albanese government.

There is no escaping the reality of the numbers.

Migration and population growth are outstripping the nation’s capacity to accommodate them, at an unprecedented rate.

And the government is now clearly sensitive to the issue.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers effectively admitted to this in parliament on Thursday in response to questioning from the Coalition on the latest official migration rates in the context of new home builds.

The policy reality is this: to achieve its goal of reducing net overseas migration for the 2023-24 to 375,000, the government will have to halve the current intake for every one of the next three quarters.

To say this is ambitious is an understatement. Moreover, it’s highly questionable considering the inconsistencies, and obvious omissions, in the data. The government is now starting to hide the data.

At the same time, approvals for new dwelling constructions have fallen through the floor. This is not in dispute.

If the current trajectory were to continue, the 1.2 million new home builds promised by the Prime Minister by 2028 would in fact become a shortfall of almost 1 million homes for the population requiring them.

The political implications of this debate are highly sensitive. Signalling a cut to migration rates has implications for the diaspora community – an aggravation Labor will want to avoid.

At the same time, the government also encounters a cost-of-living backlash in the outer-suburban communities where housing costs have become the key component in the fall in living standards.

Try as Albanese might to blame the Coalition for the housing problem, new housing approvals rose during the pandemic due to subsidies for new builds.

The reality is that this is a merging of dual crises that has been allowed to evolve entirely under the government’s watch.

It is now a baked-in problem for Albanese, largely because it has been ignored until now.

The undersupply of housing is now critical. Migration is now a large component creating the demand for housing.

The approval rates for new dwellings are bad enough on the surface. But they hide a greater problem.

The forecasts for new home building this year are around 180,000. This is a generous forecast.

Of that number, 100,000 are expected to be simply new builds as replacement stock for existing homes, accommodating natural population growth of around 120,000 a year and the increase in wealth, which naturally brings down the average number of people per dwelling.

After that is taken into account, the country is looking at 60,000 in new stock a year. And this is meant to house an annual migration intake of more than 500,000 last year and, if Treasury is to be believed, 375,000 this year.

The new home data is saying the status quo is to continue for the next six months at least. If that doesn’t tell you we have a problem, then nothing will.

The government has little hope of meeting its own forecasts. And these are forecasts that are becoming increasingly unreliable.

The government has no coherent policy prescription to address the obvious discrepancy between a broken housing market and a migration boom that is holding up the broader economy.