Factcheck: Is immigration really causing Australia’s housing crisis?

The Claim

In the lead up to the May 2025 federal election, then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said:

“We’re going to cut immigration because Labor’s brought in a million people over two years and that has created the housing crisis”.

This claim was just the latest in a consistent trend of Australian politicians attempting to stoke fears about migration for what they perceive to be their own political advantage.

More recently, Liberal Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s accusation that the Albanese Government is allowing “large numbers” of Indian immigrants into Australia because they vote for Labor became a new flashpoint in the debate.

At the same time, a series of nationwide anti-immigration rallies have provided a platform for neo-Nazis to spread fear and misinformation about the role of immigration in Australia.

But what is really happening? Are more people coming to Australia? And what impact is migration having on housing availability and prices?

The Facts

The Australia Institute’s Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff says it is nonsensical for Peter Dutton to blame the rising cost of housing in this country on Labor’s migration policies.

“The housing crisis has not just appeared in the last few years,” Grudnoff says, “it has been getting worse for more than two decades.”

In relation to current rates of migration, Grudnoff explains that net migration has been higher in the last few years, but that was after the COVID border closures which saw a reduction in Australia’s total population.

“Looking at the quarterly change in population over the last 10 years we can see the huge impact COVID had and the bounce back after the borders had reopened,” Grudnoff says.

But what about the overall impact this has had on Australia’s population? Has the bounce back been bigger than the slump?

“No,” Grudnoff says. “In fact, Australia’s population is still lower that it would have been, had it grown at the same rate as before COVID.”

The idea that population is growing at a faster rate than housing availability is also not supported by the data. In the past 10 years, Australia’s population has increased by 16% while the number of dwellings rose by 19%.

According to Grudnoff, this shows that we do not have a “big Australia” problem and migrants are not taking Australians’ homes and jobs.

“The problem of housing affordability is due to a lack of supply from the public sector of low-cost housing and rental properties, mixed with tax breaks for investors that has turned Australia’s housing market into a speculators paradise.”

The Verdict: False

Peter Dutton’s claim that Labor’s migration policies “created the housing crisis” is FALSE.

While social tensions continue to rise and certain voices attempt to inflame public debate for their own political advantage, analysis from economists has repeatedly pointed to long-term economic policies, and not immigration, as the central driver of Australia’s housing crisis.

“Scare campaigns about immigration are as old as history. But this latest version of them falls apart when subject to the evidence,” Grudnoff says. “Discussion about this period needs to include the whole context and not just selectively pick at parts to make a political point.”