Liberal James Paterson lambasts ‘dangerously out of touch’ BCA over migration

James Paterson has attacked the nation’s peak business group, warning it is ‘dangerously out of touch’.

Liberal senator James Paterson.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson has accused the Business Council of Australia of being “dangerously out of touch” after making a “tone-deaf contribution” to the debate on ­migration and housing.

Senator Paterson was responding to a BCA paper on migration reform that argued that the boost in net overseas migration numbers should not be used as a “scapegoat for poor planning and failure to deliver housing supply”.

The BCA contribution comes ahead of a crucial meeting next week of state and federal leaders on housing policy, with Anthony Albanese hoping to advance a deal to strengthen renters’ rights while freeing up supply.

Any breakthrough on the government’s flagship $10bn housing package was cruelled on Thursday after the Greens and the Coalition teamed up in the Senate to refer the legislation to the economics legislation committee for report by October 24.

The Housing Australia Future Fund legislation still looms as a potential double-dissolution trigger, with the Greens refusing to back down from demands that Labor invest up to $2.5bn each year in affordable housing and provide a further $1bn to entice states and territories into implementing a two-year freeze on ­rental increases.

Responding to the BCA warning that the national failure to free up housing supply not be used as a “scapegoat” to reduce the migration intake, Senator Paterson suggested the business lobby had made a “particularly tone-deaf contribution”, rebuking it for “suggesting that the only numbers that matter were the permanent migration program and not the temporary workers, students who are coming here right now”.

“We know they are coming in extraordinary numbers and by the end of this year, I’ve been told by people in the industry, it’s going to be eye-wateringly high numbers, perhaps the largest on record,” he told Sky News.

“For the business community to dismiss the impacts of that on people’s rent, on people’s mortgages, on their ability to get in the housing market is dangerously out of touch for them.”

The opposition immigration spokesman, Dan Tehan, rejected the BCA argument that Labor was not pursuing a “Big Australia” policy, saying the “1.5 million people arriving in Australia under Labor need somewhere to live”.

“The issue has always been that Labor is running a backdoor Big Australia policy with no plan to deal with the impact on housing, on rents, on congestion, on the health system, on the environment,” he said. “The Coalition wants a better Australia, not Labor’s Big Australia.”

New doubt was also cast over Labor’s plan to build one million new homes by 2029, with Master Builders Australia forecasts suggesting new dwelling starts would run at 189,000 this financial year, 175,000 in 2024-25 and 188,000 in 2025-26. “Building enough of the new homes we need is difficult against the backdrop of rising interest rates, high costs and hesitant demand,” said MBA chief executive Denita Wawn.

“The data speaks for itself; new home building approvals fell by 7.7 per cent in June, higher-density home building approvals sunk by 21 per cent. Failure by states and territories to approve enough new homes and delays in delivery of government programs that support investment in housing … risk prolonging the problem.”