Worrying number of immigrants arriving in Australia every week – and why it’s bad news for our housing crisis

Australia is accepting more than 10,000 immigrants a week, despite Anthony Albanese’s promise to halve the number of new arrivals next year.

More than 1,500 new arrivals are arriving every day, or 60 migrants every hour, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In 2024 alone, Australia will absorb more than 500,000 immigrants as its population faces a worsening housing and cost of living crisis.

To keep up with the current level of growth, an additional 4,200 homes are needed every week, but fewer than 1,000 are currently being built.

The sobering immigration figures come just weeks after the Prime Minister promised his government would halve immigration levels within a year.

Australia is accepting more than 10,000 immigrants a week, despite Anthony Albanese’s pledge to halve the number of new arrivals next year

More than 1,500 new arrivals are arriving every day, or 60 migrants per hour, according to new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (pictured, Sydney commuters)

Sustainable Population Australia president Peter Strachan called for immediate cuts to immigration.

“We understand the call for an end to immigration in light of the terrible effect that the addition of a million migrants in two years has had on the housing market, but also on infrastructure and services,” he said.

“In the past 20 years, immigration has been far too high, based on the false claim that we have too few skilled workers. The resulting population growth has created more skills gaps than it has filled.

‘The real reasons for mass immigration are to keep wages low and house prices to rise. This is not in the interests of Australians, nor in the interests of migrants who are disadvantaged in both jobs and housing.”

Mr Strachan urged that net overseas migration be limited to just 70,000 a year.

Australia is expected to be home to 45 million people by 2070, after attempting to grow its population by 75 percent in just a few generations.

“We can keep the number of refugees at 20,000 and still have room for the skilled migrants that employers want to sponsor, along with their family members,” Mr Strachan said.

“However, Australia must stop importing people on points-tested visas, who typically do not get skilled jobs.

‘The only reason the government is doing this is to push immigration beyond the numbers employers want. This drives up consumption and GDP, but productivity and GDP per capita go down.”

With elections taking place within 12 months, the Treasury now expects immigration inflows to shrink to 395,000 for 2023/2024.

‘We are determined to do that. We inherited a system that was a mess,” Albanese told 3AW in April.

A new Labor plan will force universities to build more international student accommodation amid a huge influx of students (pictured, University of Sydney)

“And what we’ve done is ensure that in areas like vocational education, for example, people came here to take courses that were, quite frankly, Mickey Mouse courses, and used that to stay here for a very long time. .

‘What we do is bring integrity and accuracy back into the system. Now the students who come here are an important source of economic income.’

Mr Albanese has not revealed what he thinks the annual immigration figure should be.

“We’re not just going to pluck a figure out of the air, but what we’re predicting is that net overseas migration in the next financial year is expected to fall to 250,000 in 2024-2025,” he said.

Meanwhile, a new Labor plan will force universities to build more international student accommodation amid a huge influx of students.

Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers announced in May that universities would have to build more housing for international students if they wanted to continue to rely on their initial fees for a lucrative income stream.

By the end of 2024/2025, foreign inflows are expected to halve to just 260,000 – down from 528,000 in 2022/2023.

But a net 1.38 million migrants are still expected to move to Australia in the five years to 2027/28.

With a shortage of construction workers, it is hoped that forcing universities to build more accommodation will make it harder for the higher education sector to accept so many applications.

International students make up the bulk of long-term arrivals in immigration figures, with permanent migrant inflows capped at 190,000.

“If universities want to take on more international students, they need to build more student housing,” Dr Chalmers said.

4,200 additional homes are needed every week to keep up with current levels of growth, but fewer than 1,000 are currently being built (stock image)

“We will limit how many international students can be enrolled per university based on a formula, including the amount of housing they build.”

Nearly half of Australians believe too many migrants are moving to Australia, according to a poll conducted by the Lowy Institute earlier this month.

The poll found 48 percent of respondents said the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year was too high.

This result was a slight increase from the last time the question was asked in 2019, and remains six percentage points lower than the 2018 peak.

The number of people who believed that migration inflows were ‘about right’ also fell from 47 percent in 2014 to 40 percent in 2024.

Despite this, nine in ten Australians still believe that the country’s culturally diverse population has been positive for Australia.