Quit Telling Me Putin Is the Reason Everything's So Damn Expensive

Australian governments have deliberately eroded our quality of life while pretending that it is all beyond their control

Successive Australian governments have deliberately eroded our quality of life while pretending that it is all beyond their control.

Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his colleagues talk endlessly about the war in Ukraine and about climate change and about a dozen other reasons for the cost of living crisis which are outside of their remit.

But the one thing they do control - the one thing which is driving so much of our pain - is the one thing they will not talk about.

Immigration.

Half a million people moved to Australia in the 12 months to September, fuelling annual population growth of 2.2 per cent.

That’s the highest of any developed country in the world.

The population surge, driven primarily by overseas migration, comes at a time when housing has never been less affordable.

The rental vacancy rate is 1.1 per cent nationally. So good luck finding a place.

And, if you want your own home, the average family now need to save for 10 years just to scrape together a deposit.

Our government appear completely unaware of that old economic fundamental of supply and demand.

When the supply of houses cannot meet the demand for houses, the price of houses goes up. So the government’s migration policy is making the housing crisis, which they claim to care about, even worse.

And there is no end in sight.

NSW alone is expected to take in 500,000 migrants over the next five years.

Some have argued that the current high rate of immigration is not a problem since it is just making up for a slump of overseas arrivals during the Covid years.

That’s like saying that drinking 30 beers tonight is not a problem because I’m just making up for the fact I didn’t drink any beers last month.