For a nation grappling with skyrocketing rents, bidding wars for modest homes, and a generation locked out of the property market, few voices cut through the policy spin quite like Alan Kohler's. The veteran ABC finance journalist, known for his incisive breakdowns of economic trends, has long argued that Australia's "world-beating" population growth, fuelled by mass immigration, is the unspoken architect of its chronic housing shortages. In a recent video presentation tied to AMP chief economist Shane Oliver's insights, Kohler pulls no punches: the surge in international students, skewed migrant skills, and unchecked intake numbers have turned opportunity into overload. As rents climb 43.8% over five years to September 2025, adding $10,500 annually to the median tenant's bill, Kohler's critique resonates as both diagnosis and indictment. This post unpacks his arguments, contextualises them with data, and explores the broader implications for a country outgrowing its own foundations.
Kohler zeroes in on international education as the linchpin of Australia's migration boom. "Education has a lot to do with housing affordability and the lack of it," he asserts, spotlighting how universities have become de facto immigration pipelines. Over the past decade, of the 4.5 million migrants arriving Down Under, 1.6 million were students, the largest slice of the program by far. This isn't coincidental; policy tweaks under the Howard government in 2001 reclassified foreign students as skilled migrants, tripling net overseas migration (NOM) by the mid-2000s and igniting a 15-year housing undersupply.
Treasury's budget planning assumes just 16% of these students transition to permanent residency, but Kohler reveals the reality: over 40% do, amplifying demand far beyond projections. The result? A post-pandemic rebound saw NOM hit 400,000 in 2024-25, exceeding Treasury's 335,000 forecast and straining an already creaking system. Universities, chasing export dollars, enrolled 295,000 overseas students in 2026, up 25,000 from prior caps, despite government pledges to curb temporary inflows. Kohler warns this "broken immigration system" prioritises volume over viability, turning campuses into crowded boarding houses and cities into pressure cookers.
Compounding the numbers game is the quality, or lack thereof, of arrivals. Kohler contrasts today's intake with the post-WWII era, when waves of European tradespeople hammered nails into Australia's suburban dreams. "No trades are coming from India and China now to build the houses they need," he laments. "They're mostly commerce students or cooks." This skills deficit has frozen construction employment at stagnant levels for two decades, even as housing demand soars.
The data backs him: despite a 70% skilled stream in the 2025-26 Permanent Migration Program (capped at 185,000 places), employer-sponsored visas prioritise white-collar roles over the bricklayers and electricians desperately needed. Meanwhile, domestic policy has funnelled young Aussies toward university degrees, sidelining apprenticeships. The upshot? Labour shortages, elevated material costs, and financing hurdles have slashed dwelling completions to 180,000 annually, well short of the 200,000 needed just to tread water. As Kohler notes, tying immigration to construction capacity isn't xenophobia, it's economics 101.
Kohler doesn't stop at historical missteps; he calls out recent expansions. At the millennium, Australia's permanent plus humanitarian intake hovered at 86,000. By 2025, the official figure hit 205,000, but that's the tip of the iceberg. The Albanese government, since July 2023, has quietly supercharged it: New Zealanders on Special Category Visas (SCVs) can now fast-track citizenship after four years, freeing up 30,000 slots for others. Add 3,000 Pacific Engagement Visas outside the cap, and the effective program balloons to 235,000, a 170% jump from 2000.
These "secret" hikes, as former immigration official Abul Rizvi terms them, bridge the gap between permanent visas and NOM's 300,000 annual average under current settings, 15% above Treasury's rosy projections. Rizvi's maths underscores Kohler's point: without recalibration, demand will outpace supply indefinitely, exacerbating what AMP's Shane Oliver pegs as a current cumulative shortage of at least 200,000 homes.
Kohler's critique isn't abstract, it's lived agony for millions. With population growth at 2% annually (post-2005 peaks), rents and prices hit records in 2024, worsening across capitals and regions. Renters, especially young families and low-income households, bear the brunt: more starting life in rentals, more retiring there. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC) forecasts just 825,000 net new dwellings by 2029, 79,000 shy of demand under baseline projections. Factor in Rizvi's 15% faster growth, and the shortfall swells by 200,000 over five years, doubling Oliver's estimate to 400,000. No state meets its implied targets; cyclical woes like labour gaps persist.
This isn't just numbers, it's moral inversion. Investors chase capital gains amid shortages, starving productive investment, while millennials face doubled mortgage-to-income ratios. As Kohler puts it, the 2000 pivot "changed everything about how Australia operates."
Kohler advocates transparency: link immigration to housing approvals, mandate skilled trades in intakes, and revive apprenticeships. Echoing Oliver, cap NOM at 200,000 to let supply catch up, ending the rental crisis by early-2026 if historical norms guide us. The Albanese government's steady 185,000 cap is a start, but without addressing temporaries and skills, it's tinkering at the edges. Broader reforms, zoning overhauls, R&D in modular building, could unlock 1 million homes in five years, but only if demand dials back.
Alan Kohler's critique isn't anti-immigration; it's pro-survival. Australia's post-2000 experiment, swapping trades for tomes, volume for viability, has left a 200,000-home void, set to double amid 300,000 NOM forecasts. Renters suffer, productivity stalls, and the "Lucky Country" feels anything but. As Kohler urges, manage migration for national interest, not inertia. Pull the levers back, skill up the stream, and house the future, before the shortage becomes a scandal too big to build out.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2025/11/alan-kohler-busts-migration-myths/