Dick Smith’s urgent warning to Australia as a record influx of new immigrants heads Down Under

Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith says a record influx of new immigrants is a “disaster for young people” and couples wanting to buy their own home.

The electronics chain’s founder, who turns 80 next week, wants net immigration into Australia reduced to 75,000 a year to ease Australia’s rental and affordability crisis.

This would return immigration levels to 1997 levels, before overseas inflows doubled within a decade, only to double again after the pandemic.

“You are led to believe that every generation should be better off than the previous generation because we are accumulating wealth and our country is growing, but when it comes to house purchases the opposite is the case,” he told Daily Mail Australia.

‘It is a disaster for young people.

“It goes back to the fact that we don’t have a population plan: every Australian family has a population plan; you can have a maximum of twenty children, but none have the number of children that they can give a good life.’

Australia’s population is expected to double in the next fifty years, with major business interests calling for high immigration to increase the labor supply.

Mr Smith said billionaires who donate to political parties were only promoting high population growth to expand their wealth by relying on negative geared tax breaks for investors.

“It’s actually driven by the greed of the rich,” he said.

Mr Smith believes immigration numbers should be reduced to just 75,000 a year to ease pressure on house prices, rents, roads and hospitals (pictured, Sydney commuters)

‘Housing has now become a way to create wealth for the rich and you have people owning five or six houses with negative gearing, and that makes it even more impossible for young couples to buy a place to live. ‘

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released on Thursday shows Australia welcomed 125,410 permanent and long-term arrivals in January, the highest January number on record.

Including departures, the net growth in permanent and long-term arrivals in January was 55,330, surpassing the previous highest inflow in January 2009 by 40 percent.

Treasury economists expect Australia’s overseas inflows, including skilled migrants and international students, to slow to 375,000 in 2023-2024.

This would be lower than the record 518,000 in 2022-2023 and lower than the annual increase of 481,620 in January.

But this would still be almost double the pre-pandemic level of 194,400 in 2019-20, before Australia went into lockdown from March 2020 to December 2021.

“What we need to do as a country is we need to have as many people in the country that we can give a good life to, and that means affordable housing, affordable food and the ability to stay warm in the winter,” Mr Smith said .

‘Those basic rights, but that has been completely forgotten.’

Official data shows the majority of new arrivals are settling in NSW and then Victoria, leading to increased traffic congestion in Australia’s two largest cities.

Most migrants start out as renters, leading to increased competition for accommodation in Sydney and Melbourne.

The high population growth is also causing problems in other states, with Brisbane being the recipient of high interstate migration as south-east Queensland attracts residents from NSW and Victoria in search of more affordable housing and warmer weather.

Mr Smith (pictured) said ‘billionaire political donors’ were only promoting high population growth to expand their personal wealth

Daniel Wild, the deputy director of the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, agreed that high immigration was to blame for Australia’s housing crisis (Sydney shoppers)

Daniel Wild, deputy director of the Institute of Public Affairs think tank, said high immigration was to blame for Australia’s housing crisis and falling productivity levels.

“The federal government’s lazy, short-sighted migration strategy is making it harder for Australians to get ahead at a time of acute cost-of-living pressures, and has failed to solve the labor shortage crisis,” he said.

“Migration has played a crucial role in our history, and will continue to do so, but it must be taken into account, and the federal government must achieve sustainable economic growth through higher productivity, not just by bringing in record numbers that we cannot accommodate. .’

Sydney’s average house price of $1.396 million is well out of reach for an average full-time worker who can only afford a home worth $639,000, based on banks lending borrowers 5.2 times their salary.