Campbell: Dutton’s migration promises a year too late to seize political initiative

Peter Dutton, already a year too late, needs to show there’s more to his housing policy than shutting the door on migration, writes James Campbell.

It isn’t often you can claim to be a political Nostradamus, so to please beg your indulgence, can I just say: I told ya so!

In March last year I argued a combination of collapsing building approvals and surging immigration meant “the winner of the Red-Hot Political Issues Stakes at the 2024 election will be Australia’s looming housing crisis and the soaring rents it is going to cause”.

Back then the Government was still saying – officially anyway – that net overseas migration would be around 300,000. It ended up being more than half a million.

On Thursday night, in his budget-in-reply, speech Peter Dutton finally grabbed the political opportunity this represents by promising to cut permanent migration for two years from 185,000 to 140,000 – or by 25 per cent – and to work with universities to set a cap on foreign students.

He will also ban foreign investors and temporary residents from buying existing homes in Australia.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton delivers his budge-in-reply address. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Sadly, as an attempt to seize the political initiative it would have been much better to have made this promise in his budget-in-reply speech last year.

Since then, not only has the Albanese Government made concrete efforts to cut the number of students arriving, ramping up the number of visas it is refusing, but has announced it will legislate to give the government the power to put a hard cap on their numbers.

The Government has already linked immigration to the rental crisis. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Swift

In other words, having realised the political danger, the Government has already tried to limit the impact of an anti-migration push at the next election. There’s no squeamishness from Labor about linking immigration to the rental crisis either.

A week or so ago a joint press release from the PM, Treasurer, Housing and Education ministers said that “in order to reduce pressure on the private rental market” it would regulate to force universities to increase their supply of student accommodation for domestic and international students.

But, as you can imagine, it is one thing for Labor to acknowledge immigration is causing problems, it is another thing for a Liberal to do it.

On Friday, the ABC’s Laura Tingle warned aspects of Dutton’s strategy were “disturbing”.

While apparently it’s OK to tie immigration to housing – how could it not be when Labor has done so already? – the problem is Dutton is going further and suggesting it might be connected to other problems of daily life, such as the difficulty of finding childcare, seeing a doctor or getting elective surgery.

Tingle was particularly concerned Dutton was even blaming migrants for the “congestion on our roads”.

Why it is acceptable to blame high migration for difficulties finding somewhere to live but not for time spent stuck in traffic was unclear.

Tingle made a series of other – much more valid – criticisms of Dutton’s announcement, criticisms I am sure we will be hearing more of going forward.

The simplest way to summarise these is to say that it doesn’t really matter how much you promise to cut permanent migration numbers, because they are not the issue.

The issue is the total number of people arriving both permanently and “temporarily” and, unless you’re prepared to put a hard cap on that number, you’re not really serious.

For Dutton, the job is to persuade people it’s not the detail that matters here but the aspiration to make more homes available.

To do that he will need to show there’s more to his housing policy than shutting the door on migration.

To “win” this argument he needs to convince people he has a plan to increase the number of housing being built.

He also needs to increase the number of Australians who can afford them.

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Originally published as Campbell: Dutton’s migration promises a year too late to seize political initiative