Mortgages are skyrocketing, rents keep increasing, two thirds of young Australians believe they will never own a home and it’s hard to blame them.
The housing unaffordability crisis is the greatest issue facing Australia. Australians want to have their hard work and savings rewarded. They want a place to call their own and a place they can stay to raise a family.
The median house price in Brisbane is 10 times the median income.[1] In Brisbane it would take the average income 13 years just to save a deposit.
Rents are also rising on the back of a record low national vacancy rate of 1%.[2] Experts consider a 3% vacancy rate to be tight, a national average of 1% is an absolute crisis.
Right now, many Australians simply cannot afford a roof over their head.
Like any market there are two things and two things only that affect housing prices: supply and demand. Decades of successive governments have mismanaged both sides of the equation.
This is how One Nation would properly manage our economy and deliver cheaper houses and cheaper rent:
Cut overseas arrivals, ban foreign ownership, increase supply and stop pumping up profits for the Big Banks.
Cut the flood of overseas arrivals
In the short term, we need to stop pouring fuel on the fire. A huge amount of overseas arrivals are driving unsustainable demand.
Excluding tourists and short stay visitors, there are currently 2.3 million visa holders in the country likely to need housing.[3]
These working visa holders, students and others are putting enormous strain on the rental market, fighting Australians for a roof over their head and driving up rent prices.
The arrivals that can afford it are also buying houses, pushing up prices even higher.
The Albanese Labor government issued a record 670,000 student visas in one year when we only have 100,000 dedicated student accommodation beds.
In addition to these 2.3 million visa holders likely to need housing, there are roughly 400,000 tourist and other visa holders in the country.
While tourism is good for Australia, in the middle of our rental shortage this high demand is motivating owners to take their properties out of the rental pool and convert them to lucrative, full-time AirBnBs.
That means less rental supply for people needing a place to live and higher rents.
2.7 million visa holders, more than 10% of Australia’s population, are in the country right now fighting Australians for a roof over their head.
The country cannot sustain this level of overseas arrivals. It must be cut to take immediate pressure off housing availability and affordability.
Why haven’t we cut arrivals already?
Powerful lobby groups who rely on high immigration have been able to falsely label anyone who talks about this problem as “racist”.
Talking about reasonable levels of immigration is about securing a prosperous future for all Australians, including those who come to the country. Ruining our economy is a bad outcome for immigrants as well.
As the problem gets even worse, even mainstream media is now being forced to acknowledge the huge negative effects Australia is seeing from an unsustainable amount of arrivals.
Homelessness is a scourge affecting all our cities, but it's particularly severe in Queensland. Post-COVID migration to the Sunshine State has exacerbated a housing shortage, with some cities recording extraordinary rent inflation. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/yZUxW76iB0
— ABC News (@abcnews) December 6, 2023
The biggest winners from high house prices and big immigration are the big banks and multinational corporations relying on cheap labour.
Mortgages are so profitable for banks that they have become over-reliant on housing prices.
The ratio of borrowing for mortgages versus borrowing for business has skyrocketed to more than 200%, up from less than 40% in 1990.[3A]
That means the Big Banks are less diversified and will lose more money if housing becomes affordable.
As the Reserve Bank raises interest rates, the big banks pass that on at up to 7%, yet the banks borrowed long term funds from the RBA at just 0.1%.
They’re pocketing the huge difference leading to record-breaking profits.
There is billions of dollars at stake for the banks and other big businesses if housing became more affordable. The questions have to be asked whether government is putting the profits of greedy banks and multinational corporations ahead of Australians having affordable housing.
One Nation would never repeat the mistakes of the COVID period, where the Reserve Bank was allowed to create $500 billion out of thin air.[4]
That led to the inflation the Reserve Bank is now trying to fight and the tool it uses to do that is sending mortgage holders broke.
This only pumps up the big banks profits.
Ban Foreign Ownership
Finally, on the demand side solutions, we need to ban foreign ownership of Australian assets.
The government has no idea exactly how bad foreign purchases are.[5] A single real estate agent in Sydney sold $135 million in property to Chinese buyers in just six months.[6]
Australians can’t own a house in China, so why should we let foreign citizens buy property here?
Australian property is also a hotbed for suspected money laundering, with much of this happening in foreign connected purchases.[7]
We need to ban foreign ownership of Australian homes to decrease demand and give Australians a shot at owning their own home.
Let tradies build homes
On the supply side, government needs to get out of the way with their restrictive building codes, green land restrictions and a spider web of employment law.
Our tradies know how to build homes. Government just needs to get out of the way and let them build.
While increasing supply is an important part, it is important to note that supply can only be increased so much in the face of overwhelming demand, fuelled by overseas arrivals and foreign purchasers.
Australia has typically built homes at nearly the fastest rate in the world, fourth out of all OECD countries.[8]
Supply chain issues, high interest rates and rising construction insolvencies mean its very unlikely we will be able to easily build even more supply than the high amount we already do.[9]
Looking at how Australia punches above its weight in building houses and increasing supply already, it’s clear the biggest issue we have to fix is the demand side currently driven by overseas arrivals.[10]
One Nation would make home ownership a reality for Australians
A home is a castle.
The family unit and our society flourish when we have stable places to build our lives and raise families.
Decades of indifferent governments from both sides of politics have ruined this dream for many.
Only One Nation has the guts to make the decisions that will make the dream of home ownership a reality for all Australians.
Affordable houses, lower affordable rents and a flourishing economy is all possible under One Nation.
[1] Housing unaffordability hits grim new peak (afr.com)
[2] The Latest Rental Vacancy Rates around Australia (archive.is)
[3] Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 on X: “A new all time high for the number of temporary visa holders in Australia likely to require some form of housing.https://t.co/6NQ8HXu3i4” / X (archive.is)
[4] RBA creates inflation by printing money out of thin air – Malcolm Roberts (malcolmrobertsqld.com.au)
[5] Housing ‘scandal’: Foreigners buy twice as many homes as recorded (archive.is)
[6] Chinese millionaires snap up Australian properties in Toorak, Armadale, Malvern, Hawkthorne and Kooyong | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site (archive.is)
[7] No questions asked: money laundering thrives in Australia because of professionals willing to facilitate it | Crime – Australia | The Guardian (archive.is)
[9] ASIC data shows insolvencies in the building and construction industry have hit pre-Covid levels | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
[10] Why more supply will never fix the housing market – MacroBusiness
This makes complete sense. Glad someone in politics is acknowledging the seriousness of the issue and putting forward some genuine solutions to it.
Stop all immgration, when the students have their degrees they must go home. House Australian first, then let the people in. It may take two to five years but Australian deserve a home.
How about cutting off the head of the snake. End the RBA. We built this country without a central bank, fought 2 world wars, Snowy Mountains Scheme, Sydney Harbour Bridge, etc, etc.. End The Fed!! The country will boom quickly!
100% agreed – thank you for your hard-working & commonsense approach
Australia is largely empty. With much of that land being desert. Several countries have large desert greening projects. Which Australia isn’t practising! This would employ thousands as well as open up more affordable land for building housing. But Australia needs to spend more on infrastructure. More on thorium energy generation. More on trans Australia rail. South to north & east to west. Also joining the belt & road projects to ensure sustained growth in trade. The end of NATO & US hegemony has begun. Time for Australian politicians to pull their heads out of the dark ages and embrace a prosperous multi-polar world along with the 7 billion who were left out of the Wests failed world domination.
I never thought I would see this in my Australia. Prior to covid we were sailing along, all of a sudden it all changed, and that’s thanks to the WEF, WHO and the UN. Anyone ever heard the story of the slow boiled frog- that’s us.
Young Australians hoping to buy a home also have to compete against investors with spare cash or with access to capital. Is there some way to even the playing field?
I agree entirely that there are big problems with foreign ownership and an economy which ‘needs’ immigration in order not to slip into recession (what sort of economic planning is this?)
But it also seems that the situation where there are too many local landlords has tipped things against those who actually want to buy a property to live in it themselves. Everywhere I see house for sale, they are promoted as investment opportunities – it’s worth so much a week in rent. I see a house with a sold sign on it. Right next to that, there’s a ‘For Rent’ sign put up.
Why should someone looking to buy their first property be priced out of the market by those looking to by a second, third, fourth, etc. property? I’d like to think there’s some way to even the game a bit, but greed always seems to find a way to ruin it for the rest of us.
“I got mine and I want more” seems to be the dominant mentality.
Does a Fair Go exist anymore?