Immigration, the Accommodation Crisis and the Universities, By James Reed

Here are more words of wisdom about Australia's immigration crisis. An apt summary: "One of the most important causes of Australia's housing affordability crisis is excess immigration over many years, and the problem with immigration is that the government doesn't control it." And noted as well, consistent with what Macrobusiness.com.au has been arguing this year that the universities have a big part to play in this runaway mass immigration scenario: "Most of Australia's migrant intake has been outsourced to universities and colleges, who see new arrivals as customers rather than migrants.

They use "education agents" in other countries to recruit them, paying sales commissions to spur them on.

And those agents are mainly selling visas, not education. They're a bit like legal people smugglers."

The history of this is detailed in the extract below, which is interesting, but as always, the more important question now, as the horses have already long ago bolted, is what can be done now? Clearly a mass movement to oppose this immigration invasion is needed. Th Opposition Leader is too weak to do this, and must be challenged and defeated. Many of us here see Senator Price as a winner, after her great job done in the No side of the Voice campaign. Being Aboriginal she can tackle the immigration scam without any worry of the magic racism laser death ray weapon being effective, which is total kryptonite to Whites, who at mere mention of "racism," dissolve into a puddle of their own pseudo-guilt.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/08/why-has-australia-outsourced-immigration-to-universities/

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/08/19/alan-kohler-australia-immigration-housing-crisis

"One of the most important causes of Australia's housing affordability crisis is excess immigration over many years, and the problem with immigration is that the government doesn't control it.

Most of Australia's migrant intake has been outsourced to universities and colleges, who see new arrivals as customers rather than migrants.

They use "education agents" in other countries to recruit them, paying sales commissions to spur them on.

And those agents are mainly selling visas, not education. They're a bit like legal people smugglers.

2001 … a housing odyssey

The foundations of this were laid on July 1, 2001, when two changes were quietly made to it by the Howard government.

Philip Ruddock was Immigration Minister.

Incidentally, that was nine months after the 50 per cent discount was applied to capital gains tax, leading to an immediate surge in investor demand for housing.

The foreign student changes took a few years to get going, but they certainly did get going: Between 2005 and 2008 Australia's overall migrant intake tripled to more than 300,000 a year.

The two changes on July 1, 2001 were: First, entry from "non-gazetted" countries, including India, Pakistan and China, was opened up and streamlined, having previously been almost impossible – an echo of the White Australia Policy – and second, there was a more transparent and open pathway to permanent residency for foreign students.

Australia 'changed forever'

An Immigration Department official at the time, Abul Rizvi, writes in his book Population Shock, that the changes were designed to "slow the rate of population ageing and push back the day that deaths would start exceeding births in Australia".

But he goes on: "The changes were so small that the media barely noticed. They were preoccupied with sexier headline-grabbing topics.

"But those July 1, 2001, changes to the migration regulations changed Australia forever".

Subsequent Coalition governments made two other sets of changes: In 2012 they shifted the risk rating to providers instead of countries, and in 2022 the then immigration minister, Alex Hawke, eliminated visa application fees and allowed unrestricted work rights for students (it had been limited to 20 hours).

Twenty three years later, it is evident that Australia has, indeed, been changed forever.

Housing crisis

We now have well-funded universities, a vibrant multicultural society and enough constant population growth to ensure that we never have a recession, ever, and … we have a dire housing crisis.

The current Labor government's point of view is that the universities have become addicted to foreign students and they should not be deciding Australia's population growth based on their desire for revenue.

The government should manage it based on national interest, especially in the midst of a housing shortage.

But making that happen is easier said than done. For one thing, education is now our largest non-mineral export and employs a lot of people.

Also universities really need the money in the absence of government funding – without foreign students, research would dry up and the national science effort would suffer.

Also, foreign students don't live in three-bedroom houses in the suburbs and they don't drive up the prices of family homes.

The government now wants to cap the foreign student intake by giving each institution its own number, tailored in part to the accommodation that each provides.

Universities challenge

Universities are pushing back ferociously, demanding that the nation's 39 public universities, at least, be carved out of the plan, and warning that 46,000 jobs are at risk. Business groups have even warned it could cause a recession.

Also, they've started sending out their offers for next year already and are facing chaos and reputation damage if they have to start withdrawing them.

There are about 1400 tertiary education providers in Australia – coming up with a reasonable number for each is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Getting a handle on migration statistics is mind-bendingly difficult, because very few people know what's going on.

Statistical issue

We learnt last week from the ABS that the number of net permanent and long-term (NPLT) arrivals into Australia in 2023-24 – 12 months to the end of June – was 469,140, made up of 1.1 million arrivals minus 641,000 permanent departures.

Long term is defined as more than 12 months, so it includes students, but we don't know how many were in the NPLT arrivals, or departures.

We do know that 375,000 temporary visas were issued to foreign students in 2023-24 and another 110,000 to graduates (mostly previous years' students). There were also 235,000 working holiday visas issued and 100,000 temporary skilled visas (what used to be 457 visas).

So total temporary visas issued last year were 820,000. Permanent migration visas issued in that year totalled 210,000, made up of skilled, family and humanitarian, and that roughly adds up to the 1.1 million permanent and long-term arrivals reported by the ABS last week (some arrivals would have got their visas in the previous financial year).

By the way, the temporary migrant intake is uncapped and entirely demand driven, while permanent migration is capped.

Dutton reality check

When Peter Dutton talks about cutting migration to 140,000 a year, he's only talking about permanent migration, currently 210,000; presumably he intends to leave students and working holiday-makers uncapped, although he hasn't said that.

The government has a target of 235,000 net overseas migration a year, which includes both temporary and permanent, and as it happens that is exactly half the 469,140 net arrivals in 2023-24, which is why there really has to be a cap on foreign students.

That target is partly based on the capacity of the national construction industry to supply accommodation, which is why each institution can increase its cap by building more beds.

With 2.4 people per house, 235,000 migrants would need about 100,000 roofs over their heads. Natural increase (that is those turning 25, minus this year's deaths) is about 70,000, so divide that by 2.4 as well, and total houses needed for that level of population growth would be about 130,000.

Construction dilemma

Housing construction is running at 150,000 a year, but the government's target from the National Housing Accord – which the National Housing Affordability and Supply Council has said won't be met – is 240,000 a year.

A better question might be whether the immigration target of 235,000 a year will be met.

Where they land on this is anybody's guess, but getting Australia's population growth down to something approaching the actual capacity of the construction industry to build houses for them all – as opposed to what the government might wish it was – is not going to be easy.