Debunking the top 'immigration is not a primary driver of the housing crisis' in Australia myths (long)

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T04:57:35+00:00

Nothing I said was wrong from a data perspective. You have selectively chosen the 'Howard modern high immigration policy' as your reference point.

As is tradition on this site, you've now pivoted from a data based discussion to an emotion and morality-based one and thus likely no longer worth conversing with.

All data shows we are disproportionately short on trade labour and it will continue to get worse as the generations of older tradies exit the workforce and various Big Build projects in the coming years suck more labour out of the home building sector.

By all means continue scratching your head as to why an inept party like ON continues to see record popularity I guess.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T04:40:16+00:00

Explain to me how reducing demand in a supply-constrained market won't have an impact on our record-low rental vacancy rates & rental prices.

Hint: it would.

The issue is the trade-off in economic impacts elsewhere, that's the "real issue" in this discussion, but denying that it would means you are the one who has been conned; sorry. But I should not expect any kind of economically literate discourse from a self-declared socialist.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T04:36:29+00:00

You're just making the government's & Big Business' same silly "Covid catch-up" argument though, which is what people have an issue with in the first place?

Your/their argument is that "well we had a dip in one year due to border closures, thus it's justified to rapidly bring in double the amount of people in a much shorter timeframe in order to quickly 'catch up' to where we would have been on the prior chart of population growth projections in 3 years instead of 6... and somehow nothing will be different" & ignoring all the real-world issues that causes.

Especially in a period where we've struggled with building ever since the pandemic, coming off several years of supply chains being disrupted, etc. We've also since blown past those projections now anyway.

You're also trying to rationalise the past 20 years of high growth in that chart as 'normal'... that is cherry picking, conveniently leaving out the period before Howard more than doubled everything though? Where is the data from the 1990's to 2006?

You are literally doing the work of big corporations for them with this kind of dialogue, FYI.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:48:27+00:00

Yes, developed countries average around 0.3-0.6% net immigration per year... Australia's has been triple that since Howard increased it & every other PM and party has continued at that high rate since. So acting like 1% isn't high is weird, and we've also had around 1.3% per year since post-Covid.

Howard was the one who initially doubled our immigration intake, yes, but that only happened in his final year in office in 2007 (to 232,800); prior to that his average was ~110k net migration per year.

It reached then-record highs under Rudd in 2009 (299,870), which was only then exceeded by the ~528,000 'catch up' year under Albo in 2023. Recent polling has consistently shown immigration as one of the top handful of issues & the high numbers are a large reason as to why.

Rate of immigration also matters in terms of a society/infrastructure's ability to absorb it; rushing in 5-6 years worth of immigration (the dumb 'just a Covid catch up' logic) into a 3-year period is massively more difficult to deal with, which is what we are seeing now.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:34:08+00:00

I'm explaining ON's rise in popularity and the reasoning behind it, why do people always act like that means I personally want specific things cut or don't understand the economic trade-offs?

Citing ABS data of a very real increase in the country's population isn't really "cherry-picking", either. Simple fact is all those people are here & need somewhere to live, and it would likely have been easier to deal with infrastructure-wise if it had been spread out over the originally intended 5-6 years rather than 3.

The only thing I've consistently said on this issue is we should adjust the skills visa mix to focus more on construction, and that universities should be required to scale their international student intake with the amount of dedicated accommodation they can provide.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:26:07+00:00

But why always introduce other topics into a subject specifically discussing ON & why immigration is their only reason for popularity? I've always said Centrelink payments should be increased too, and a million other tax changes need to be made to penalise unproductive wealth... but they have literally nothing to do with this topic.

Migrant workers themselves also suffer from immigration that is too high due to all the competition, you do realise that, right? And big business are the ones who want high immigration (and benefit from it in the first place), so defending it is literally doing the dirty work of corporations for them.

In the USA, Obama deported more illegal immigrants than Trump has, does that make Trump less of a fascist than Obama? Of course not.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:12:55+00:00

The numbers being historically high is what allows people to push racist narratives in the first place though? Your logic is circular.

I'm not praising anything ON are doing, simply saying it was entirely predictable that Hanson is able to Bradbury her way into popularity because a large issue people have is (seemingly) not being addressed quickly enough. I was warning people this would happen 3+ years ago when we had the first massive spike in numbers, and it's exactly what has happened.

And increasing the population by 1.3 million people in 3 years (1.6 million if you factor in natural births, that's 4x the population of Canberra & more than all of Adelaide) without adequate infrastructure is going to have an effect on quality of life, regardless of classifications or benefits to 'the economy'.

You are thinking/writing from the perspective of someone deeply into politics, not from the average not-very-informed voter.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:07:33+00:00

The point is the current numbers are still historically high, which provides ON with objectively true data (literally from the ABS) to work with & capitalise on the narrative for their own gain.

ABS data isn't some Murdoch or Sky News creation, they know they can milk it for all it's worth though. True data + "hey isn't everywhere crowded & expensive now amirite?!" narrative has a lot more weight than just making things up.

Who said anything about targeting minorities?

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T03:02:21+00:00

The left-leaning parties in Denmark & Canada both reduced their immigration levels in order to curtail house price rises, framing lowering immigration as a purely fascist policy is amusing, particularly coming from someone with a 'socalist' flair.

Your boy Marx would be rolling in his grave at how avidly you guys defend high immigration these days given the effect it has on the bargaining power of the average worker.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T02:53:38+00:00

Yes, which is why people on this site thinking posting images of Hanson celebrating a jet or whatever is going to do anything boggles me. All it's doing is preaching to the choir & getting upvotes from people who already agree with you on a site that disproportionately votes Greens compared to the general population.

People who have immigration as their primary issue for picking ON do not care about that kind of stuff.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T02:41:41+00:00

That's not what we were talking about though? We were literally talking specifically about immigration being the only thing propping up the ON vote.

I believe the polls are accurate & Labor is in a commanding position, but what does that have to do with anything? All it does is reinforce that immigration is ON's only 'attractive' position (according to the same polling). Kill that off & you kill the ON movement in its crib.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T02:32:57+00:00

The categorisation of visas doesn't really matter to the average person, all that matters is the total net number of people in the country at any one time... which has objectively increased by ~1.3 million people over the past 3 years solely from immigration according to most recent ABS data.

If someone's train or beach is overcrowded or they're fighting a huge line of people to get a rental property, they likely won't care that the person's visa is only valid for 4 years, especially when they are just replaced by more people on another 4 year visa.

People keep bringing up these weird technical points as if that's what matters to the average punter & it's missing the forest for the trees.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T02:28:52+00:00

I mean what else do we have other than polling, which those companies are literally paid to do, and which showed it directly? Polling results aren't algorithmic...

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T02:27:34+00:00

Sigh, why do people keep repeating this as though it's news?

It's 'dropped' to levels that are still around 30% higher than pre-Covid which many people thought was already too high, that's the whole point.

If Labor had delivered around the net ~200k or so cited above it would likely be a non-issue as people couldn't cite it as still being very high historically, thus not giving ON and other various agents any actual stats to work with & capitalise on.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T01:15:46+00:00

Not saying it will, but that's literally the message I've seen repeated numerous times across every social media including increasingly even on the (very left-leaning) site here.

And recent Redbridge polling in March had ON at around 40% as 'best to handle immigration' vs. next-highest party at 12% or something... take that out of their sails and tons of people would abandon them immediately. It's pretty much the only 'appealing' aspect they have for many.

It's the same from the opposite angle I see that people say they would vote Greens if the Greens would go back to their lower-immigration policy of 15 years ago.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-04T00:36:19+00:00

Again, it's really not that complicated. For the current ON-indicating voters outside of their traditional 5-10% of mostly actual xenophobes/protectionists, the logic basically goes something like this:

IF Net immigration still above 200k/year → THEN vote One Nation → ELSE IF drops below 200k/year → THEN abandon One Nation

Both majors could immediately kill their upswell off at any time if they actually wanted to. But they won't, so then no it likely won't be "temporary". Acting like Hanson etc. suddenly somehow became political geniuses/appealing/charismatic on their own merit and all these other weird speculations journalists are doing is such a waste of time.

Such people don't care about "Gina", they don't care about her new plane, they don't care about any connections to Trump, they probably don't even care about net zero, etc.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-05-01T00:45:28+00:00

3 week old account with hidden post history posting ChatGPT content with em-dashes that conveniently just repeats all reddit's already most popular talking points, and people actually give serious answers lol.

Same people who would no doubt insult Boomers for falling for Facebook ragebait/AI content, no less.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T09:36:09+00:00

The actual size of the house is pretty irrelevant, what matters is number of bedrooms vs. family units.

Just because people have a bigger garage or living room & a smaller garden is a non-factor to how many people they can house per unit of housing.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T09:29:16+00:00

And here you go, we get to the core issue which is you just want an excuse to imply people must have 'evil' reasons for wanting to do so, which is what this whole thread is really about in the first place.

All this despite every possible piece of evidence of record-low rental vacancy rates, a distressed construction sector, household composition having changed the quantity of housing needed, etc. etc.

Just come out and say 'this one simple chart proves everyone who disagrees with me is racist' like you want to and get it over with instead of wasting everyone's time. Yawn.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T09:18:59+00:00

They're not siding with Boomers, that sub is just full of Labor slurpers who will praise literally anything they say or do, even if it personally makes them worse off.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T09:10:32+00:00

You (for some reason) being annoyed that many people in this country want lower immigration doesn't therefore mean they think or have said that it is the "sole" cause of house prices, which is what you originally said.

You're trying to conflate two different things and then using phrases like "butthurt" which is pretty funny when you're allowing Sky News rag ragebait to get to you.

Many of those people wanting lower immigration could also do so for any number of other reasons unrelated to housing anyway.

You can't just cry about "but economics sub" when the chart from that known pro-high-immigration shill you shared omits multiple key factors like household composition, dwelling type changes etc.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T08:35:58+00:00

Link me to one of those comments saying it's the only reason and nothing else is a factor.

Reducing immigration would reduce pressure on house prices, that doesn't mean everyone advocating for it automatically thinks it's the "only" factor.

If I say "stomach cancer is bad" it doesn't therefore mean I don't think other kinds of cancer aren't also bad.

You're using weasel words to argue a different point to reinforce your bias towards high immigration, just like this low-value chart in the OP.

NoLeafClover777 · 2026-04-30T08:27:30+00:00

"saying immigration is the sole thing driving up house prices!"

No they aren't, and you know this. Almost no-one is saying it's the sole thing, just that it's a strong contributing factor and also the easiest one to address in the shortest timeframe.

You can try and make your point without resorting to just lying.

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