Immigration is good, actually
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- Опубліковано 11 кві 2024
- Australia’s housing crisis has become one of the worst in the world, with owning your own home becoming an out-of-reach dream for young Australians. What’s the solution to all of this? Cut immigration. At least, that’s what many people will tell you. The net overseas migration in the year to June 2023 reached a record-breaking 518,090 people, the highest in Australia’s history. Now, surely that’s contributing to the housing crisis. So why exactly would cutting immigration be a mistake? Find out in this video.
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Sources:
Source 1: news.anz.com/content/dam/blue...
Source 2: www.abs.gov.au/statistics/peo...
Source 3: www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliame...
Source 4: assets.nationbuilder.com/bca/...
Source 5: www.afr.com/property/resident...
Source 6: www.afr.com/politics/federal/...
Source 7: www.smh.com.au/politics/feder...
Source 8: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Au...
Source 9: www.afr.com/policy/economy/ch...
Source 10: www.citypopulation.de/en/aust...
Source 11: www.productivity.nsw.gov.au/s...
Source 12: www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au...
Source 13: www.rba.gov.au/publications/r...
Source 14: www.afr.com/policy/economy/ho...
Source 15: cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/bus...
Source 16: www.planning.nsw.gov.au/sites...
Source 17: www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/m...
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We seem to be bringing in more uni educated workers rather than labourers.
That's why we ask the rest to pick oranges to stay longer. Or something.
Good old 457 Visas. One of the conditions was that whoever came here to work had to assist in training and upskilling of Australian workers in their field of which we apparently lacked skilled workers. But I bet you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who worked with such a visa holder who received any training. If anything, we were probably training them on the job.
@@rakeau I work in the automotive trade and yes. They aren't very skilled
I hate to say it but with advances in AI many of these Uni degrees will not be worth the paper they are printed on. The money and jobs will be with the Trades not Uni.
@@plonkaplonka4998 So many Uni degrees weren't even worth the paper they were written on in the first place.
Oh, and the whole "you can't offshore trades" too.
i completely agree with this video, but an absolute bottleneck to achieving all of this is the quality of new apartment buildings. im a young person and really would love to live in an apartment, but as the industry is now I refuse to buy anything built in the last 20 years. there needs be some serious reform if we want higher density living to be something the majority of australians will accept
Yeah right. The yimbys are in bed with developers.
Well, that makes you an extraordinary fool!
I am 40 now. The trouble in part was that after university was made free* by Whitlam, gradually more and more people who otherwise would have gotten into a trade, went to university instead to do a BS degree.
I myself wanted to be an electrician, but I really needed a good teacher at school, which I had until they pushed him out and didn't replace him.
With skilled trades, you really need good people you can trust to teach you and I no longer had that.
So I ended up doing a BS degree (Bachelor of Science). Science is not an area that requires a good teacher if you have good text books, but skilled trades certainly is an area that requires a lot of hands on teaching.
@@user-rj5kx8wr6ybro’s never heard of the brand new Halifax Street apartments with cracks in the basement due to poor workmanship
@@user-rj5kx8wr6y what are you talking about lmao. Have you read the NSW government report on the number of new apartment buildings with defects?
Rents did NOT go up during covid, landlords were slashing rents at least in Sydney. Buying prices fluctuated depending on location etc
Buying prices went up because interest rates were slashed and borrowing capacities were subsequently massively increased, driving a surge in demmand. I recall looking at CBAs borrowing capacity calculator at the time and thinking "well that explains it...". Sellers were also fearful of putting their homes on the market because of the pandemic and media scare campaigns about a falling market. High demand and low supply situation.
@@Inflammasomesthis has nothing to do with rents
@@74_pelicans Yep, I was addressing the last part of the comment about buying prices. Rents went down becuase there was a reduction in the number of tennants, due to the fact that no migrants could arrive.
Yup I agree with most of this video, but rents definitely went wayyyy down where I lived (Newtown, Sydney) during COVID
They rose in greater Perth
You mention other ‘very liveable cities’ like Paris, London and New York.. you realise these 3 cities are also facing a housing crisis too.
I would also argue whether they're "liveable". If people love being crammed into a city like sardines then yeah, that's liveable.
The houston metro area is one of the worst hit by the housing crisis too mate. Your little argue doesn't really hold up.
Biggest misconception or maybe an oversight is that the amount of visas we approve as skilled migrants or even uni students who eventually work in to become a skilled worked doesn't quite reflect the labour market shortages. Yes they are skilled but little to none of them actually close the gap we have for trade work available.
If immigration solved skilled labor shortages, it would've stopped being a problem eons ago.
problems have a spectrum though, they aren't black and white. There is terrible, bad, fair , good and solved, immigration has helped solve some of those problems from terrible to fair but now some areas need more work. Yes we don't have enough in the trades area but that is because previously Australia had enough trades to handle the requriment and not enough in the technology and other newer sectors so we brought those in first.
Now we have a housing problem and we need to bring in more trades, so lets do it. Problem is people are not able to focus on both the good and the bad, had we not brought in the immigrants we already have over the last 2 decades, what would happen to our basic services where the locals ( lets face face it) would request larger salaries and more benefits, our chicken and chips served by the vietnemese immigrant or our coffees served by the neplease immigrant willing to work for lower wage would cost more, what would happen to our IT industries were, we can say whatever we want about indian workers, but having indian workers to help support our IT Infrastructure is better then having NO workers support our IT infrastructure.
I do conceed that as of late, our migration laws haven't had enough focus on trades but that wasn't a concern in the past and only until recently ( recently meaning 10 years or so). Now we should focus on these but remembering also that these things do take time to ramp up.
@@sia.b6184 The problem with just "bringing people in" though is that we may not get the same quality of people or quality of craftsmanship. Also, their qualifications, experience, etc are dubious, and they may not be aware of the laws, standards, code etc that things have to conform to here.
It's also bad for local tradies who are expected to undergo years of training etc whereas immigrants can be "on the tools" immediately.
Also, because of our laws surrounding pay, conditions etc, we would still have to give overseas workers all of the same pay, benefits, etc, which may eliminate much of the competitive factor. Unless they break all the rules, which again, would undermine local tradies, undermine the construction, etc .. And if those people bugger off back home when they're done, they can't be held accountable or liable for any problems.
The only way that bringing in hordes of overseas "tradies" and rapidly building housing would work is if we emulated somewhere like Dubai where we basically imported them as borderline slaves and had them working 18 hour days. But again, Australia wouldn't do that, and noone would trust such construction anyway.
However you cut it, bringing in cheap 3rd world labour will spell disaster.
@@rakeau you hit the nail on the head with that mate .. and therein lies Australia's problems and why this issue is not easily solved ... if we brought them in as borderline slaves Australia's human rights and fairness to all image would be smashed and it's a big part of Australia's identity. Ie a fair go for everyone .. so we can't take that approach which does slow things down, but Australia also needs to think of it's long-term goals and rushing immigrants in also has very bad future consequences .. but I ain't talking about this approach even though the short term gains would be visible.
What I mean is controlled migration on the things we need cause I also don't buy the fact we couldn't bring in people that do good quality work .. I am definitely not saying to lower quality, if keeping the quality high means brining in 10 instead of 100 (Even if aus needs 100 or even 1000 tradies) so be it, even if it means we bring in 1 cause not even 10 met the quality standards, so be it. As it stands now, even 1 high quality tradie is one additional skill set that can be used to build housing which we all know Australia needs. Also if an immigrant of lower quality is admitted entry into aus, it isn't the fault of the immigrant but of the assessment process, so we should not mix up quality of immigrants and the quality of work they do .. if the australian assessment process is weak, then it needs to be rectified to not allow this to happen.
Now if this one tradie is of high quality and has the same skill sets as a locally trained tradie and helps houses get built faster, brings down prices, why is that so bad .. if everything is of good quality and prices are cheaper is this not a good thing?
Isn't it far worse if prices are expensive due to less competition where players can squeeze consumers just like Coles and woolies. Remember that the powers that Coles and woolies wield is the same that tradies can due to less tradies or workmen in the market.
Again, I am not saying bring in hordes of people, nor am I saying lower the quality, but we cant be so arrogant to think Australia is the only place in the world where good quality tradies can exist. Everyday we use goods made overseas and we get by , imagine we had the same mindset with our clothes and only used Aussie made clothes, your $5 cardigan would be $500 instead.
Remember that everyone wants to come to aus, so Australia makes the rules and holds all the cards, say yes to those with the skills we want and no to everyone else .. we aren't talking about saying yes to everyone who wants in right, just to the ones who we can get benefit from and in return give benefits to, for their contribution to society in australia.
Also, there is nothing wrong with giving people the same pay if their skills are up to scratch, the goal is that giving the same pay to 10 people vs giving the same pay to 100 people will just drive down the pay of each and every person in that 100 group. This means that prices get driven down as there is more developers, more workers and they all compete for jobs. It just means there is more tradies of similar quality to choose from so naturally , salaries and wages will be less competitive and prices get pushed down, not cause of quality but competition .. so this isn't about vastly lower wages due to them simply being from overseas and compromising on quality but having more competition ..this happens in all industries from tech, engineering to retail and construction. No difference ...
And for the law breakers, that isn't the immigrants that are breaking the law, they will take what's offered, it's the locals who are giving potentially illegally low salaries, we should not blame immigrants for that. No one comes to aus as a fresh immigrant and starts a construction or developer business immediately right ?
We need to stop thinking of immigrants as beggers who we are blessing to come in but as those who have skills we don't have, as the video said it's cause we need them, we just need to be more mindful of what we need in this current times and not be so arrogant to think Australia is aways better .. we can uphold our requirements, but people who can meet them also exist outside of Australia and do want to live a life here. Why not take advantage of that and bring them in.
I run a business and when I get an opportunity to poach a star employee from a competing company to join mine i always jump at that opportunity. Their loss is my gain, that is how I see it. If a country isnt good enough to keep their citizens and good people want to leave to come live in Australia, its their loss and our gain. The problem is that the word "immigration" has become a dirty word .. all forms of it, even when in many cases immigration is beneficial. The real problem is the BS beuracrats and pollys and local councils that make it hard to build and expand upwards, thus causing a housing issue, its really really thank simple
@@sia.b6184 I'm not saying anyone elsewhere can't be a good Tradie (or whatever else their profession is), but their skills are probably just as in-demand elsewhere and they'll have just as many other places wanting their skills and may also be willing to pay. So either we have to pay more to entice them here (which doesn't help lower costs) or we have to settle for the lesser people.
Also, our regulatory environment is a massive issue - Australia is a notoriously bad place to do business due to excessive, onerous laws etc. A lot of people would say "F that" and choose to go elsewhere.
Finally, even if you did have incredible builders from overseas, not only might they not be clued up on our laws etc, but also practical things like our environment, geology, etc. So their expertise might not translate well here. Farming would be another good example - you could have someone from Europe who might be an excellent farmer, but they might struggle here, because their knowledge and methods might be completely ineffective here.
At the end of the day, again, the YIMBY crowd are just about numbers, about "bums on seats", but the only actual number that matters is simply that there is no way for us to build enough supply to meet demand. Skilled immigration won't fix it. Rezoning around our cities won't fix it. Reducing that demand is our ONLY option for the short and medium term.
Sharath, i think you're ignoring the basic reality that the large amounts of migration we see (even if its below 'projections') don't actually cause an increase in housing development. There might be other benefits, but they don't involve housing and ultimately, people are going to care more about their biggest expense and most critical need.
There are multiple factors limiting housing development - yes, worker shortage is a factor, but additionally:
1. Zoning restrictions (discussed in the video) mean a fraction of the housing that needs to be built, especially in the inner suburbs, is actually able to be.
2.Building developers (let's remember they are private companies that generate billions in profit for their shareholders and pay little tax) purposefully slow development when the real estate market slows/lulls to drive demand, then ramp it up again when the market is hot.
If you care about housing, it's far more productive to:
1.Pressure local councils to adjust zoning, and
2.Pressure the government to take a more active role in building homes.
The short and long-term economic success of this country is contingent on having adequate migration. Decreasing migration from its current levels shoots us in the foot economically and does nothing to address these other two issues above.
I'll also say that if you want more housing available NOW, the most meaningful change that would have instant results would be restrictions to (or greater taxation of) Airbnbs. Tourists who have cash to burn can just stay in a hotel, and it frees up accomodation for people who actually live in the city.
I mean, as long as they are contributing to taxes, it does mean there could be more investments into infrastructures, which could lead to more home being able to be built in an area. I know it's more indirect, but as long as each person contribute more than they consume, then in general it is better to have more people. Unless you only care about a house and nothing else.
Investors with multiple properties are more to blame than immigrants
@@JessicaWilliam-kr3fs theres not a lot wrong with what you're saying (i especially agree that the government needs to be building themselves), but i think we need to think of this as a multi-factor issue.
Supply is restrained, absolutely, but demand is arguably higher. Its high for investors who are basically insatiable, high for regular people because they need a place to live. We can't ignore the impacts of integrating tons of new people when we don't have enough places as it is.
We can talk about wider economic impacts and multiplier effects, but that type of theory really doesn't guarantee it hits any sector of the economy specifically. Even then, the flow on impacts to the building industry will only happen later on, while there are constantly people coming who need places to live now. Seems like we're constantly behind the curve on this one.
New migrants don't want to call Australia home, they want to call Sydney or Melbourne home. And that's a problem during record migration intake.
True. They're so freaking entitled.
My landlord packs 6 migrants into a 2-bedroom house. They are working as construction workers in western Sydney. Getting more migrants than houses can hold isn't even good for migrants themselves. It's a trap of modern slavery.
Well thats the point, who is going to be builders instead?
@@yourone I'm OK if they narrow immigration down to builders.
But still, these builders would prefer that than going home. Salaries are much larger in Australia compared to its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.
@@ianhomerpura8937Depending on the cost of living, that’s not always true
No it’s not modern slavery, modern slavery is selling women into wedlock, providing people with a bed who have a choice not to rent it is another mater entirely,
Ok, in before the inevitable comments: 1) 2/3rds of the migration are students (CommBank + ABS stats) 2) Interstate immigration to Queensland is mainly coming at the cost out from NSW, not because of 'dictator Dan' (ABS stats) 3) only ~10% of all residental properties are bought by non-Australian tax residents, and they tend to buy into new properties and not established ones. Australian investors buy at 2-3x as much and far more regarding established properties. (Source: NAB Quarterly Residential Property Survey Q4 2023.) - I’m not saying they aren’t a factor, but blaming the dog while the elephant is in the room doesn’t efficiently solve the issue.
Yes the overseas buyers get Thier relatives to buy them.
@@Low760 Yes, that denial has started already. TL;DR the ‘got rid of foreign buying’ thing happened over COVID lockdowns. Shit didn’t change, it fact, due to other factors, it got worse. Everything else is a distraction from the elephant in the room and the problem coming from inside the house (pun intended)
@@Low760 Stop the denial mate. TL;DR the ‘got rid of foreign buying’ thing happened over COVID lockdowns. Shit didn’t change, it fact, due to other factors, it got worse.
Everything else is a distraction from the elephant in the room and the problem coming from inside the house (pun intended)
@@Low760 the ‘got rid of foreign buying’ thing happened over COVID lockdowns. It didn’t change, it fact, due to other factors, it got worse.
Everything else is a distraction from the elephant in the room and the problem coming from inside the house (pun intended)
@@Low760 the ‘got rid of foreign buying’ thing happened over COVID lockdowns. Nothing changed, in fact, due to other factors, it got worse.
Everything else is a distraction from the elephant in the room and the problem coming from inside the house. Pun intended.
It's a common misconception about economies of scale that prices just continue to decrease with increasing output, there is an inflection point where increasing output will correspondingly increase unit costs, which is one of the reasons why there are many in the construction industry going under, this is not happening in spite of increased demand for their services but because of it.
It is also not surprising that the business council finds in favour of more immigration, wage suppression is literally one of their goals.
SQM Research shows that the combined capital city average rent reached a minima of $467 in October 2020, this contrasts with its current price of $724, an increase of 55% in 3.5 years, compare that with the price 3.5 years prior, which was $496 in April 2017, so rents actually decreased 6% in the 3.5 years before October 2020 and have increased 55% in the 3.5 years after.
I think it's misleading to average out immigration numbers from the covid years where we had a net decline with the record high numbers we have currently and portray that its effects will be the same as if it were steady throughout that same period, that's like thinking having zero rainfall in 3 years before suddenly having 3600mm of rain over a month is identical to if you had 100mm a month in the same time-frame.
But the reason building has got more expensive was material costs followed by people realising they hate Thier jobs.
Which city are you quoting?
Just on your final point, relating migration to rainfall is quite misleading as the effects of each are very different. You need consistent rainfall continually for plants to grow and life to flourish. Immigration however is a short term fix. Greater efforts and more complex solutions need to be saught to encourage younger Australians like myself to have larger families so we don't have to rely on migration. Where we can better utalise our central landscape in simmler ways to states like Arizona in the US that have the potential to be city's within their own right even if it's not next to a beach. There's so much land and space at the end of the day as we have the capacity for a larger population but need to better think where we put our homes. What land is best for farming and have office works and residential arias where farming wouldn't be possible.
The issue is that hardly anybody can afford to buy or even rent because costs are very high. So when should those people have time for family.
You referred to how productivity will fall with a shrinking population and the tax base will contract but no one is really advocating for a smaller population - most people just want stabilisation.
Additionally, mass immigration can cause a fall in productivity as the high availability of cheap labour puts less pressure on businesses to adapt and invest in productivity improvements through new processes and technologies. Additionally a growing population causes a sharp rise in the costs of building infrastructure and providing government services which often offset any rise in tax revenue.
They've been relying on cheaper labour a long time. But the interest rates going up from 2% to 6% for a loan has made everyone who is involved with a mortgage struggle. Renters, mortgagees etc.
You can only improve productivity in scale. Automation or Innovation will not negate the need for millions of new workers in construction and industries and maintance.
housing prices increased at an increasing rate. excessive Immigration exacerbates this.
I'm an immigrant myself and while I'll agree with you on skilled migration and partner visas as I have people in my family who are both and I see the benefits but I remain unconvinced that this is the appropriate time for record immigration
imo could easily be solved if 1. apartments could fit a family and wasnt shit 2. townhouses (especially if these free standing homes barely have any backyard lol) near train stations in smaller towns 3. banning air bnb. air bnbs were supposed to be hosted in your own spare room not as an IP and its been too exploited
@khaddy72632u
But that won't in reality be done.
Housing isn't difficult or expensive to solve (Vienna) , they don't want to solve it.
Maybe Minns does though.
While this is record migration for this year, there's a whole section of video that states a) this is lower or about the same level of migration as 10 years before the pandemic and b) when we did shut out borders during the pandemic it obviously did not help us get out of the housing crisis considering we are still in one.
You would deny others the same treatment you received?
15:45 it's not called being selfish, it's called making more money which is what most people would do
Why did you come?
Australia does have a record low rate of unemployment. However, there are 1.5m people (2023) who want work but can't find work, therefore have given up on work. I was a part of this statistic last year as a highly skilled professional, who could not find work unless taking a pay cut which took me back to 10 years ago. I want to highlight this because Australia does have a hidden unemployment issue. It may have to do with immigrant labour being hired to do the same work, but cheaper (my salary did increase during the pandemic). I am a 2nd gen migrant myself and pro-immigration. It would be good to just be aware of the situation affecting unemployment. My eyes opened largely last year after a 12-month stint of unemployment in a digital career where there's constantly a demand for skilled jobs, however, the change in 2022 and 2023, was Australian companies were no longer willing to pay for it when boarders opened up.
Unless you're proposing forcing immigrants into construction jobs or only bringing in construction immigrants, then your argument (from what I've seen of previous videos) of "having more immigrants leads to more people building houses" doesn't work. And your regular ole' international house builder typically doesn't have the funds or the time to move across the world to do what they're already doing
That is what is happening in Canada and in the US though. Professionals who have worked as doctors and managers in their home countries are now working as caregivers and butchers, since those are the jobs available to them. For sure in Australia that is also the case.
Your last comment is good. Settled, skilled people don't just leave their country. It's a big decision and cost.
The boy simply does not know his stuff!
What surprises me is the number of people commenting here who think he does.
Has this silly little twerp EVER written/spoken anything on the environmental consequences of this enormous population growth he promotes?
He ought, perhaps, revisit the history of his country of origin and ask himself why it is he or his parents found his/their way here!
None, presumably, is all that keen on lots of people!
Even if only some migrants were construction workers, that still increases the number of construction workers. Even if we assume that the percentage of construction workers is the same in the migrating population than the previously existing population, that increased number of people would probably help the construction sector speed up due to economies of scale.
There are many issues in construction that cannot be solved with more people, but would instead require policy changes... but migration doesn't really impact whether the government reforms zoning regulations and whatever else
@@briannem.6787 except it's not, so your assumption is fatally flawed.
Just a note irregardless is not a word. It's either irrespective or regardless.
Unfortunately, irregardless is a word. And it means the same thing as regardless.
When the rich buy too many houses it costs everyone else. 30% of Australian property is owned by investors. As long as housing remains 'for profit' then we will not solve the housing cost crisis.
The problem is most of the investors are from overseas and wont rent out the homes. There was a Fed gov report a few years back that showed nearly 900,000 homes/flats sitting vacant that are foreign owned.
Record shortage of houses IN EVERY STATE (supply), record immigration (demand).
We need various skilled labour, but is immigration supplying that (by stat's)?
We need houses now, wishing it so doesn't produce it.
Emotional arguments are part of the problem, not the solution.
Yes, most immigrants are either skilled or are students that are paying to become skilled.
Not even most skilled visa holders are skilled. Over half of skilled visa holders are unskilled family of the main applicant.
Australia has a low skilled migration programme
It’s weird how Japan, while having very little immigration, still is able to build and construct more homes despite declining population and a mostly domestic skilled home building labor, all while Japanese homes are generally overall cheaper and newer. Also, only about 7%-14% of Japan’s housing involves being leased out via public sector, and that most homes in Japan, while dense, is actually mostly detached homes.
Balance is key, we don't want too much where we can't keep up with building the needed infrastructure...nor do we want too less when labour shortages arise...unless we want to start forcing people to work in jobs with shortages as oppose to the freedom of doing work that we like/are good at more importantly.
I agree with being stricter on the kinds of people we bring in, to people both trained/willing to be trained in areas of need.
Lastly, I don't think its a bad thing to want a detached house...but you should be prepared to deal with the consequences (far away from everything and potentially no PT). This can and should change to allow more buses/other PT to weave through the outer suburbs to connect people there to the amenities/trains to further discourage driving...imagine a bus every 5 mins to suburbs like Marsden Park connecting to Schofields station, Dee Why to Chatswood station (Despite NB needing a train line), Carlingford to Parramatta/Epping stations, Eastgardens to Mascot (Eastern Suburbs needs metro).
I don't think Sydneysiders are prepared to let go of their obsession with cars/detached housing yet...but I'd say, live in America/Canada and look at cities like LA/Houston etc...and ask yourself...do you want that for Sydney? Do you want congestion all around? Do you want to have to drive everywhere, especially your future kids? Do you want to live in a detached house that is not close to any amenities?
So the solution is an extra 500,000 people year, and rampant construction to build apartments to pack them all in, and more people to fill in the jobs of constructing apartments to pack them all in migrating to do the work...... sounds sustainable. A society built entirely on constant growth to enable us to survive.
Subdivisions for subcontinentals. Just keep expanding out and out. Rinse and repeat…
Our founding fathers would be appalled at the obsession of making a lazy buck at the detriment of the Australian people, the folk.
Professional population economist here (albeit retired). There are plenty of arguments that immigration is good for Australians (including new Australians) and some that it is bad for them, though all the arguments are much more complex than you can fit in here. But the first complexity is that we should be talking about what is good or bad for AUSTRALIANS, not what is good for AUSTRALIA - the wellbeing of people is what matters, not the ability of our politicians to grandstand at the UN. It is a question of focus.
And a point you are simply wrong on is that immigration is a solution to issues of population aging. It isn't, and the reason is that immigrants grow older at exactly the same rate as the rest of us. I've done a LOT of number crunching on this over the years. You can defer population aging by a one-off increase in working age migration, true, but the effect is numerically weak and purely temporary. To keep deferring population aging you have to continually increase your migration rate. The only ways to permanently increase the share of workers in the population are a big increase in the birth rate (which takes at least 20 years to work while you pay out to feed and educate the little blighters) or a big increase in the death rate of older folks like me.
So true. Should there be incentives to have children to increase the local birth rate?
@@jonfoxtrot5135 Want to make a video to debunk this one? It frustrates me that people keep saying that migration some how "fixes" our aging population
@@curiousinvestigator5448I would love to make a video debunking this and a number of other myths. The argument that growth is a good thing is idiotic. There is never sufficient planning or infrastructure. There are no incentives for home grown population growth.
We're stuck in this global economic whirlpool where the population, particularly the middle class gets to do all the heavy lifting. So many stupid policies for decades on end.
@@jonfoxtrot5135 Surely it would be a lot cheaper to just pay retirees to emigrate!
"To keep deferring population aging you have to continually increase your migration rate. "
So a Ponzi, but instead of dollars, it's people.
Ah, interesting. My dad migrated here for a teaching job in Sydney in 1971, took me along with him (and his wife). Don't meet too many others who had the same backstory
The economic argument kinda falls flat when you try to think about who benefits from this. Who cares that the economy is going well when I can't afford rent anymore?
it doesn't fall flat because the solutions to rent prices aren't intrenched with immigration but economic growth is
As an economist this is a good point. Yes, undeniably immigration makes the average Australian richer (wealth is only generated by trade - broadly defined - between people. More people crammed together=more trade between them. All experience, as well as theory, shows this is true). But some people gain a lot more than others - in fact some people can even go backwards economically. So the "average Australian" term is hiding a lot of differences.
Immigration levels should return to around 150,000 or where they were pre-2005. Unfortunately, both parties and their political donors want a big Australia.
Meanwhile our real wages go backwards and existing citizens have to compete for jobs that new arrivals from overseas will gladly do cheaper.
This is a race to the bottom.
In addition recent migrants bring their employment practices from overseas where they exploit their own nationalities by not paying award wages.
For example is 7- Eleven were exploiting students and recent dumpling restaurants.
Comparing Oranges to Houses is the most dumbest thing I ever heard.
@@nickm7297cost and labour input structure agriculture and construction is pretty similar.
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world and also the driest inhabited continent on earth, with the least amount of water in rivers, the lowest run-off, and the smallest area of permanent wetlands of all the continents. Its ocean territory is the world's third largest, spanning three oceans and covering around 12 million square kilometers. One-third of the continent produces almost no run-off at all and Australia's rainfall and stream flow are the most variable in the world. Australia also has some of the oldest land surface on earth and while rich in biodiversity its soils and seas are among the most nutrient-poor and unproductive in the world. As a result, agricultural yields are low compared to other nations, German farms produce over 9 metric tonnes/ha compared to Australia's 2 Tonnes. Australian soils are highly dependent upon vegetation cover and insect biomass to generate nutrients and prevent erosion. It is the native vegetation's long root systems that help break down the subsoil and bring nutrients to the surface while insects, bacteria and small animals reduce ground litter and add nitrogen. Land clearing, water extraction and poor soil conservation are all causes of a decline in the quality of Australia's soils, now the collapse of insect populations adds another blow.
The two most significant direct causes of land degradation are the conversion of native vegetation into crop and grazing lands, and unsustainable land-management practices. Other factors include the effects of climate change and loss of land to urbanization, infrastructure and mining. However, the underlying driver of all these changes is rising demand from growing populations for food, meat and grains, as well as fibre and energy. This in turn leads to more demand for land and further encroachment into areas with marginal soils. Market deregulation, which has been a trend since the 1980s, can lead to the destruction of sustainable land management practices in favour of monocultures and can encourage a race to the bottom as far as environmental protection is concerned. The 2016 State of the Environment report noted that;
Current rates of soil erosion by water across much of Australia now exceed soil formation rates by an order of magnitude or more. As a result, the expected half-life of soils (the time for half the soil to be eroded) in some upland areas used for agriculture has declined to merely decades.
The 2021 State of the Environment report went much further including;
“Population growth contributes to all the pressures described in this report. Each person added to our population increases demand on natural resources to provide food, shelter and materials for living.”
Antarctica is drier than Australia despite all the ice.😢
@@johndwilson6111 My statement was that Australia was also the driest inhabited - meaning with humans -continent on earth, w
Hoo boy Sharath wading into the minefield of immigration policy.
Clearly immigration levels should be in synchronous with the available accommodation. That is NOT rocket science..
But of course that should not be a reason for rejecting asylum seekers and family reunions while allowing unlimited business immigration.
Should immigration's synchronicity be determined byvmatters of environmental sustainability?!
@@user-rj5kx8wr6y
Try to think if you can more globally.
Humans have over populated this planet, and that is a sad fact of life. And at this stage the environmental damage humans have caused is on a planetary scale. We have to cope with that problem everywhere, be it in Oz or elsewhere. Given the well developed industrial/economic status of our country we should be able to cope with population pressures better then some other less better off countries. After all we do have the know how and the technology to do exactly just that.What is missing is the political insight and determination.
So when the production of oranges doesn't keep pace with the increase in people, you end up with a fight over the limited amount of fruit. Some people hoard, some are forced to share meagre portions, some eat rotten fruit, and some starve.
And some people start eating apples and laugh at all the orange eaters, oranges are only so limited and exclusive because you all want one, move to a regional city and you can have it all
@@Kath1eenKoh1erExcept, unlike the limitless options of fruit, there are not many options for housing, owning and renting wise, and that unlike fruits, housing is not considered a depreciating asset value wise overall
@@Kath1eenKoh1erAh the old have you considered moving to a regional town where there are few jobs and little infrastructure argument.
There is a reason people want to live in the cities. It's because that's where their job is, where high quality healthcare facilities are, good schools, the list goes on....
It's hard to live out regionally if you don't have a job. Living regionally works perfectly fine for those who work in certain industries, eg farming, but it just doesn't have the amenity to support most people.
@@Inflammasomes plenty of large regional towns, with great facilities and almost all the same types of jobs, many only a few hours drive or train ride from a capital city, maybe some slight inconveniences might be worth being able to own a home🤷🏻♀️ but if not, that’s fine, every choice comes with benefits and negatives
@@Kath1eenKoh1er I appreciate your perspective. I still think the government should stop deliberately making the problem worse, especially with policies that literally no one asked for (except lobbyists) like excessive migration. For me personally there is no way I could move from the city, I need access to highly specialised/expensive equipment for my role and these facilities are all located in metro areas.
Immigration is good no doubting that but too much immigration is definitely a detriment to the younger generation who can’t afford to buy or rent in the major cities where the jobs are.
I think we had the right levels of immigration in the 90’s & 2000’s of around 150,000 on average coming in. The numbers currently are way too high as we can’t catch up with infrastructure and Gen Z will get pushed out the market more and more as prices keep getting ridiculous.
If you look at a chart comparing wage growth to property prices they where side by side until John Howard brought in the 50% Capital Gains Discount and property prices took off. Than in 2008 during the GFC Kevin Rudd allowed temporary residents such as students to buy property’s as everyone was worried what was happening in America and after that property prices took off even more.
So yes it’s not just immigration but our tax polices that are also to blame. I’m a Gen X and I was probably the last generation to be able to afford a house in Sydney for a reasonable price. If you’ve ever wondered why people don’t have kids anymore it’s because the cost of living is far too high and both couples need to work to survive. Long gone are the days of been able to survive on only one income earner. I just feel so sorry for the young ones today as they are screwed unless the parents help them out.
The biggest problem in my eyes, is that the government do not invest enough (in the right places) in infrastructure, for the population increases. We invest reactively, trying to patch up problems.
If you were only allowed to own one house and all the rich people were made to sell their investment properties then that would bring the cost of housing down. Also before you retrofit the old suburbs with flats you need to start building walkable suburbs in the west. We are still doing single family homes with no public transport or infrastructure in the west.
So, you imagine this a solution?!!
Some months ago, twitter was running adverts with images of two Indian migrants who, between them, owned thirty investment properties in Australia.
The fact that both these men were Indian made the target audience pretty damn clear!
Aspirational Indians by the millions!
I defy anyone to explain how such things are good for Australia and the Australian environment!
Sharath's world view is not that dissimilar.
It's forever growth - and foever greed -- and his clientele number in their billions!
Another issue is that a lot of the new housing stock is -In less desirable locations far away from public transport -Still unaffordable. In Sydney, unless we literally raize all the suburbs within a 15km radius of the CBD and build massive apartment blocks (ala Japan), there will always be massive housing shortages in well-connected, accessible suburbs.
It makes little sense for a new migrant to move to Australia for work and study opportunities, just to move out to somewhere like Narellan, where they need to commute 1 hr+ each way just to access said opportunities in the city.
It was genuinely frustrating to listen to this video, as the content of this channel is usually stellar. Citing reports from the BCA and other corporate lobby groups, who's interest do not align with average Aussie household, and providing little critical analysis or opinions from economists who hold well founded contrasting views, is not fair coverage of the issue. Please read some Macrobusiness, and try and understand just how much incentive there is for corporate Australia to drive the narrative that large population growth is always a good thing.
You also seem to cast people who oppose excessive population growth, in with those who are genuinely racist and don't like foreigners. This is not fair, there are many people who recognise the importance of immigration, especially its role in building the country into what it is today, with all of its fantastic diversity and dynamism. But who also, simply advocate for a more sustainable policy (which yes, does mean dramatic cuts, but certainly not curbing immigration): bringing in around 80k - 120k net migrants per year to address genuine areas of skills shortage (not just the laundry list of occupations that corporate Australia would like to push wages down in) and reuniting families, whilst taking pressure of infrastructure and housing demand would be a much more preferable situation for the average household. We certainly don't think the government and corporate Australia want to bring in migrants for charity purposes, that is ludicrous.
I also agree that we need to bring in more trades people, but for some reason the current Labor government that is run by the trade unions doesn't want to do that.... Hmmm... but if you're and engineer or a low paid hospitality work - apparently there is a huge "skills shortage". Aren't workers who are in high demand meant to be paid well? Also, I have lost count of the number of uber drivers with overseas engineering degrees that I have met. You need to realise the term skills shortage is quite nebulous and is in the eye of the beholder to some extent - it depends on your perspective.
Also, come one dude, you are running with the whole catch up migration argument?? We went through a pandemic that slowed construction of infrastructure and new dwellings and wrecked havoc with supply chains and costs, so there should have been a dip in net arrivals to compensate for that...
Please don't be so biased in your views and do a bit more research, like you normally do.
Also, the whole argument you made about, "how come during the pandemic house prices didn't go down?" is hopelessly over simplified. The period of no arrivals was not actually that long and the government injected massive stiumlus into the economy to prevent people needing to sell. People were fearful of selling so there was not much on the market and demmand was massively increased due huge increases in borrowing capactiy (due to lowered interest rates and loose macroprudential policies). However, counter to your point, during the covid boarder closures was the one and only time I have ever seen rents fall - housing in some respects actually did become cheaper, but as soon as the floodgates were opened back up rental competition became extremely fearce and prices have sky rocketed. Hmmm I wonder why that happened... Not enough oranges and too many people who want them... You really have just cherry picked data points from the senarios you have described to suit your point of view rather than giving them a fair and balanced consideration.
Bro typed his whole university essay
Agreed. Please use paragraphs though x
@@en_tee haha. Fair, fixed it.
@@Inflammasomes G
All i can say, i have an inner city apartment for rent in sydney. 1st year after covid lift i had very little interest (wasnt rented during covid and for 6 months after), then 1 year later overseas students came back and i have to turn down weekly repeated offers from real estate agents(?) (People finding accomodation for students) even though my place is not on the market (it's being rented) offering over $100+ current rental price (they can still see the old price online somewhere). Currently my studio is rented for $700/w but have an offer as high as $940/w.
It is in a very nice building and in the middle of the city, but also ive had very bad experiences with student renters (late payments, breaking contracts and damaged property) so only rent to long term workers now (usually from interstate).
In comparison, pre-covid never even heard of people trying to find accomodations for students, and rent was around $550-$600/w had very little interest from students only working professionals. Students came in between times of longer term worker renters
Rents went down during Covid. I don't believe his figures.
I'm not anti immigration at all, but if you actually looked at the skilled workers we bring in, hardly any of them are going into construction or adjacent tradesmen jobs - so I disagree with your argument that more immigration can help increase our building capacity and fix the housing crisis.
Also, it's not a black and white question of do you support or not support immigration, the conversation should be redirected towards the degree of immigration. For example, I suspect 500k per year for a
Under Scott Morrison the amount of skilled migration was reduced by a lot.
The introduction of labour-market testing and extra fees like the Skilling Australians Fund Levy are big reasons why the number of visas granted to temporary sponsored workers in construction has fallen from more than 9,000 in 2011-12 to just 4,021 in 2022-23
There's big swathes of unoccupied/underutilised space on the boundary of Marrickville & Sydenham within walking distance of Sydenham station (which is attached to Metro line). Even some of the space taken up by warehousing and light industry could be redeveloped to put multiple stories of residences above commercial levels.
But even then we need a big boost in public transport options like buses and cross-city rail PLUS redistribution of work hubs. The road bottlenecks through Newtown and similar inner city suburbs are not up to sustaining the boosts in infilled housing.
“Who’s going to do the jobs?” Australia has brought in 8 million people since 2000. Why do we STILL have a skills/labor shortage? 🤔 How many more millions will it require to fill all the barista jobs (of cafes that are closing down at a rapid rate due to cost of doing business).
Well said. The whole “we need immigrants to fill jobs” is utter BS spoken by big business to governments who lap it up.
No, it is true that Immigration does make housing much worse bc supply doesn't keep up, OBVIOUSLY. And OBVIOUSLY through no fault of an immigrant themselves. I'm an immigrant too.
No doubt immigration is required, it's the level of immigration that should be the focus of debate.
We definetly don’t need 600,000 a year. Labor importing votes at a crazy rate
Thankyou for your video I love hearing different opinions and points of view, rezoning hopefully won't happen in my Lga of Fairfield ,we have our wonderful Mayor Frank Carbone against the new reforms ,along with mostof us residents ,he says If Chris Minns Government planning reforms go ahead ( which are really a taxation policy to raise more money) are imposed on local Communities without any public consultation in Western Sydney.His reforms will make all homes at least half the size and others 1/4 of the current size with no parking or new public transport.His reforms won’t make housing cheaper, it will only make it of less quality with third world planning and it will be more expensive.I note he has never stated his policy will make housing cheaper. The only winners of the planning reforms are Property Developers and his budget, with an extra $12000 tax for every new house built. His planning reforms are not about housing but a taxation policy to raise more money from the misery of residents trying to afford a new home. Our community has taken more migration over the last few years, than his area ever will take in 30 years. Fairfield council will not be bullied into his dictatorship and demands. Some areas have very little money put into them , some have but either way still think we need to build out , not up
NSW apartment quality crisis caused a lot of new developments on halt. That could be the biggest and direct impact of the housing crisis because no people want to buy new apartments anymore then no developers wants to build them if no one is going to buy. House quality is also there but it's hard to cause any public notices. Sydney needs high density buildings with good quality. Only people trust the building quality and willing to invest in and love the convenient livestyle, it can let the city has the capacity for higher population.
Look building, I'm in Taiwan, like Japan, Korea, Singapore, they have low immigration, probably too little, but it results in low rents, in most of these countries. I'm not saying ban immigration, just halve it and most of the infrastructure problems evaporate. I know what you're going to say, 30% of the population, are satisfied with the current high immigration and only 70% want lower immigration, so it would be undemocratic, to give the people what they want.
I'm a huge fan of the Metro, high speed rail, that's why I'm here in Taiwan, to ride them, but the Metro costs $63 billion, and transports, a fraction of the population, the road works cost another $63 billion and the Rozelle interchangeable, is already clogged, like the inner West light rail.
No no, your solution, huge immigration expenses, therefore lower rates of foreign aid, we take these countries wealthiest people and make them middle income or less. Depriving their home countries, of their skills and capital, why, to increase their carbon dioxide emissions, instead of investing in renewable energy, in their mother countries. 667,000 people last year, you're not stupid, you know the kind of infrastructure burden, increasing a countries population, by a third, in a single decade causes. That's why, it takes 19 minutes, to try and turn the figures around, it's more twisting, than a pretzel, a contortionist, it's a rope factory, of twisting.
China and Japan have too much housing, declining population, an aging population, a problem I'd like to have, artificial intelligence, robotics, 25% youth unemployment in China, doesn't seem like a labour shortage, clean disruption, is capital intensive, not Labour intensive. Increase the numberof consumers, inflation, so where, is the capital, going to come from, where's the disposable income, gone on rent, electricity, education, roads, rail, water, sewerage, none left, working poor, welfare dependence.
Very good video and very well explained. Keep up this good content. Goodluck in the market it's horrendous.
We brought in 630000 immigrants yet we are 90000 in the building sector
That's because of Scott Morrison and the Leavy on hiring skilled migrations. Higher costs for permits means less construction workers going to australia.
The chart you show at 6.40 shows around 2.5 million increase in population over 7 years. Sydney's population is 5 million, so that means every 15 years there will be a new Sydney due to immigration - I can see how people see that as a flood. You need to question why we want a population increase instead of keep the population stable. I know our narcissistic leaders want population increase so we can become a bigger power for their egos. And I know the privileged urban design nerds just like to think about infrastructure at a macro level like they are playing a video game - and dont think about the realities of living in a small apartment with high body corp fees, noise and fire alarms from neighbors, no nature etc - and having to catch public transport where you have to stand the whole journey because its a metro system with no seats (i often saw old people in HK bring mini camping chairs for seats). Be cautious of the urban planning high density delusion.
" ... high density delusion" Nice
I lived in Japan for many years. High density is not good. 😢
@@bradg7701 It's a little jarring when people complain about high density, invoking cities like Japan and Hong Kong, while ignoring that Australian cities set records for how *low* their density is.
It's like worrying about drowning when you're parched in the desert.
You paint a negative picture of a high density delusion but our quality of life will be far more degraded with a shrinking, no growth economy. Our dollar will weaken and imports will become much more expensive (and no we can’t replace all imports with domestic sources - we live in a global economy. Looking inward is a recipe for disaster.)
Due to too many People Migrating to Australia and too few Homes. Immigrants have no other option but to live in Tents because houses are too expensive. But Immigrants who live in tents are increasing until more houses are completed which is not great because Sydney has now got a lot of Homeless People. What are we going to do? We can built more Apartments but Apartments in Australia are not built for Families. What are the other options to build houses and lower prices? We need to decrease the Homeless Population.
You’re an awesome human being Sharath, thank you for this video - I can’t like it enough!
While I’m not in the best situation financially, I’ll find a way to support you and your excellent work! ❤
Sharath, I have a video idea:
Are there any POSITIVES for the removal of Sydney’s old Tram network (given we are now seeking to build a Light Rail network).
What I mean is: given we are now building Light Rail lines, we often grumble at the past, saying “why didn’t they keep their trams?!”. Well I’d like to explore what benefits Sydney experienced from their removal and what benefits (if any) we have by building new Light Rail lines from scratch, not constrained to the past.
Your videos are getting better and better thanks for the quality
More like worse and worse especially the immigration and 15 min smart city one
I was really hoping you'd provide an argument that I may not have heard of which would get me to change my view.. unfortunately it did not, tho a number of your points are valid. Fact remains we need to moderate immigration to address a lot of these costs, as someone elsewhere mentioned about the misconception of economies of scale and how that works.
Well presented video however. Well done. It's the first one I have seen of yours and I will likely check out others. Keep the ideas flowing!
Until Australia has majority tenants, no one is going to take any actual major housing reform action. All the calls for action forget the key fact that a majority of Australian households are owner occupier, and no party can afford a majority going against them. A great example of the tyranny of the majority.
Unlimited immigration is NOT good. If it were managed properly, okay. I think the "housing crisis" is a different matter, more related to people making money out of it.
IMMIGRATION = Housing crisis.
It is that simple!
Just a question with all due respect can you point to the place in the video where unlimited migration was mentioned?
Australian immigration is Extremly limited to work and student visas. In addition to spouse and family visas which mostly don't change the demand for housing.
Enough is enough. It is impossible to get an affordable rental in Sydney.
A trip from the International to Domestic terminals on the new section of Airport Drive clearly illustrates your point. The unit blocks around Mascot station stand out like a sore thumb in a sea of low rise buildings that stretch out all the way to Sydney CBD.
Unfortunately, just increasing housing density in the capital cities is not the solution. We have plenty of neglected regional cities that we should be creating infrastructure, housing & jobs in, making them just as attractive to settle in as our capital cities are now. We should be aiming for closer to a 50/50 split rather than the 67% who live in our capital cities right now.
Love the starting anecdote
Building beautifully intros are the best part
I disagree. It’s a close second to the humour (and Sharath’s delivery) IMHO.
Isn't immigration the source of positive GDP growth in Australia? Without it we would have huge demographic issues due to the low fertility rate (seen in most developed countries) and our low productivity would likely mean very small or negative GDP growth. This would likely mean a stagnating economy and less opportunities and prosperity for the remaining residents. Yes, the housing market would likely crash eventually and prices would come down but so would employment opportunities and wealth generation.
Total GDP is growing, but per person it is declining.
So if there was an economic benefit how come per capita GDP growth slumped in line with the ramping up of immigration in 2006? As did productivity growth and wages growth. We now rank lowest in the OECD for economic complexity.
It’s getting to the point that GDP per capita PPP and median personal wage are rather disconnected more than anything. Wages may grow, but the cost of living grows greater, which reduces one’s purchasing power.
If high immigration eased the housing crisis, then houses would be relatively cheaper than 20ish years ago when Howard opened the floodgates.
If high immigration worsened the housing crisis, then housing would be substantially more expensive than 20ish years ago when Howard opened the floodgates.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Oh, and rentals were way cheaper in 2020-21 when immigration went down. It was fantastic. I finally sorted out my condo (I refuse to say Apartment) deposit & bought off the plan & am now happily settled.
Oh, and my choice to live in a condo is definitely a minority position. Australians want suburbs. Deal with it. We don't want to be forced out of our comfort zone to accommodate the foreigners being forced on us?
And most of my ancestors were either born here, or were transported here against their will, or were aboriginal. Convicts aren't immigrants, and we're a convict nation.
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". I don’t see any serious discussion about stopping immigration. I do see a lot of discussion about what is the right rate and type of immigration for the current situation, which is an argument we should be having. There also seems some abuse of various types of visa, for example agencies pushing people entering to work in low paid menial jobs under student visa, with no intention of completing meaningful studies. Chris Minns high density transit oriented development plans may need 25 years to realise, and we may have years of lawfare before we see any progress is several leafy suburbs where opposition is already well organised.
Exactly. I'm not opposed to immigration but I'm opposed to the extreme rate that we currently have. Australia has the highest immigration rate in the world
124k increase in economic output for each migrant? And that with them getting paid already taken out of that sum? Wow, those migrant workers seem a LOT more productive than the ones I'm working with in the finance sector.
As someone who recently came out of homelessness, this is incredibly tone deaf and only tells one very niche side of the issue. That of the economic side of the crisis, migration has a huge psychological impact on local populations. I was thinking of counter arguments to what you were saying as you were saying it, we are exhausted. I love your channel, but I really wish you maybe had a panelist or commentator who has experienced the brunt of this crisis. Not just 2 cherry picked speakers and an analogy to oranges, incredibly oversimplified. I’m really disappointed by this video.
Yeah the two people he interviewed clearly had massive hard-ons for immigrants. This is a very misleading and poorly thought out video.
We also need more incentives for people to work in industries the industry i work in is not getting new blood coming in at all really and it is becoming a problem
Babe wake up, New Building Beautifully Video Just Dropped!
People never seem to acknowledge the amount of houses being taken out of the market.
Whether its to demolish to build services such as fast foot, service stations etc or to turn residential into commercial such as medical, lawyers hairdressers or for short term rentals like holiday rentals and Air BnB or for "renovators" buying houses that can sit unoccupied for many years, replacing cheap housing with more expensive ones. All of this contributes to less house in the market and the ones in the market being more expensive.
People (jobs and businesses) need to spread out more. Instead of everyone trying to squeeze into major coastal cities. Look at USA or China, they have cities all over their country instead of just a few on the coast.
Initially start with building up satellite cities 100 to 200km apart, with high speed rail in between them.
What no, most of China's population live on the east coast
Also, Australia is forced to live on the coast due to accessibility of water, you can't build a city in a desert with no access to fresh water
I want to start by saying that I thoroughly enjoy the level of detail you put into your videos, and I am a genuine fan. You are correct about a lot in this video, although in my view have not fairly balanced the positives of high immigration with the negatives.
Most of this video would be accurate and reasonable if Australia had adequate investment in housing and infrastructure. A major reason we don’t is because State Governments only receive about 20% of income taxes. They have been unable to keep up with funding schools, hospitals, roads or indeed housing owing to this, and so have been selling off public assets for 20 years, making the cost of living higher on the average Australian.
The Federal government benefits most from higher immigration levels with visa plus income tax-take. The next best-served are large corporations who can lower their wages/costs and expand franchises. Last and definitely least is the common person who has to compete harder for work that is now paid less, pay more for services such as healthcare, is subjected to more traffic, more pollution and, despite the assertion of this video, must compete with more people for fewer homes… because believe it or not, not every Australian dreams of a tiny box in a sea of tall glass rectangles when they imagine owning a home of their own. So the price of free-standing homes will continue to outpace the price of apartments, because building new ones in good locations can’t and will never keep up.
Rises in rental prices have been directly correlated to immigration inflows since covid. Yes it’s not the only factor but the point is not to pour more fuel on a fire that was already out of control. The argument is not to stop immigration but to slow it to a manageable level.
As for job/skill shortages, we need to stop playing god with the markets. If left alone the ballooning cost of trades people would resolve itself. Eventually people in other less paid/less crucial jobs would be encouraged to learn a trade precisely because the salary is sky-rocketing, which in turn creates a flood of supply of trades people, which then lowers the salaries offered to those jobs. In the meantime materials costs would also reduce because this process takes time to correct, and therefore less construction demand. Let me be clear. This method would be slower than bringing in tens of thousands of builders, but in the long term would allow for cheaper building costs.
The other elephant in the room not covered in this video is that GDP is nowhere near as important as per capita GDP, which has been in decline also for 20 years. As the population increases, the average person is able to take smaller and smaller slices of the overall pie. Australia is a commodity-based economy. At least half our wealth as a nation comes from minerals/resources within our land. We can blame some of this on mining corporations not contributing enough/any tax revenue, and on low productivity… but the problem still remains that we are something like the 78th most complex economy in the world.
In summary… Australia is trying to grow its way out of a 20-year economic decline. We need to address simple facts like why we don’t have our own Silicon Valley for example. Adding hundreds of thousands of extra people to a nation is not working, because the nation is literally not working. We can and should offer everyone looking to become an Australian citizen a ticket to do so. It’s just that at this moment in time we are falling behind in our capacity to offer them or existing citizens the same quality of life that we have historically. So for a 5-year period, unfortunately we do need to dramatically slow immigration. It’s not a racism issue. It’s a mathematics issue.
Im happy to pay more taxes to support urban sprawl infustructure. Having soil is far better than living in an appartment. Coming from someone that lived in both.
So true. We also wouldn't need so much sprawl if the population wasn't growing so fast.
The key issue is that "increasing supply" just means more shoddily built 2 bedroom apartments. Designed for investors, young people and not families. I know you have an entire video on this.
Doesn't help that we have had successive governments in all levels defund the training of the trades that build these homes. Along with decades of Australian society telling children they are a failure if they don't go to uni.
We desperately need tax, strata and renting reforms to help with building upwards. We need to encourage the right kind of density development, encourage people to live in these denser developments and protect they rapidly growing cohort of voters who, for the foreseeable future, are locked out of the property market.
They have increased it in recent years but yes. Privatisation of service's also took away trades. I find I can't train an apprentice as well anymore because things need to fixed quicker than in the past because of a backlog.
You cant grow Sydney land supply.
The huge number of immigrants is masking the fact that Australia is in economic decline. GDP per person has been going down for many years. Population growth isn't economic growth though it may look like it. Immigration is wonderful if you own large numbers of properties. Property value surging; rent sky high. Too bad if you're on the bottom end of the economic scale
It's a long term process, we already did see it work out in mid 2021 when prices actually dropped overall in Sydney. A stable population will always, eventually equal a smaller demand for housing
For context, I'm a Australian born and raised, who's parent's immigrated to Australia from India in the 90s. And as a fellow young 20-something-year-old Aussie living in Sydney who's dreams of buying a home is close to nil in probability.
I agree that skilled immigration is a net positive to our economy, for the reasons you have explained which is why some of the problems in Europe for instance hasn't reached Australia to that extent (their immigrants are more refugees who aren't educated and thus are a burden to to the economy, e.g. in healthcare). Australia 100% needs skilled immigrants.
However I believe the rate at which we're bringing in immigrants is a bit too much considering the lack of developments that are being undertaken, creating more stress on our resources and facilities. You mentioned a lot of them being "orange farmers" which is fair enough, maybe some are in construction, but at the same time you said you believe not enough are tradies (which kinda contradicts the orange farmer argument - I think I'll agree with the rate of immigration if a big chunk of them were tradies who's jobs would help mitigate the housing and cost of living crisis. But the thing is most of them are students). I don't blame any of the immigrants, rather I blame the government for not effectively building more quality (emphasis on this) high-density homes like you mentioned.
I will say though in regards to the NIMBYs, whilst a lot of them are ridiculous, some of them have a point. Some of the suburbs mentioned in the project (Upper North Shore specifically) are filled to the brim with Federation homes which have a high chance of being demolished since a lot of them are close to the train station. I believe we can have high density buildings without loosing the character of the suburbs architecture but I don't think the government is approaching this as delicately as I'd personally like them too.
You obviously didn't watch the video. Sad.
@@user-vj9hb3gy6d I did though. I constantly mentioned aspects Sharath said in the video, read my comment again.
Your points about supporting immigration if we were bringing in more skilled workers rather than students is spot on. It isn't the number of students that I have a problem with, it is the proportion.
My grandparents on one side of my family immigrated after WWII as skilled immigrants, if they don't let people in then next generations don't exist. I find recent immigrants are more against more immigration in personal experience which I think is crazy, the rise up party was lots of Indians from what I saw in the ads and I think that it's more about protecting Thier bit where I see the bigger picture.
@@lbell9695 When is the rate "acceptable". As pointed out in the video, prices kept rising during the pandemic years and there was next to no migration. If policy was made the way you're suggesting, "to reduce the rate", it wouldn't make any difference to the housing market as it did nothing during a time when net migration was near 0. The point the video is making is that it's not about migration rate, it's about the fact we aren't building enough.
Sir..i think i saw you at rouse hill town centre just now at the foodcourt entrance. Im a big fan!!
what about more development like public transport, parks and commercial districts around the detached houses further out of the city?
I get what you’re saying but i’m not sure lining the pockets of Mirvac is the solution. they build apartments that aren’t even structurally sound and stagger their sales, keeping properties vacant for no other reason other than to drive up prices. we need a lot of reform around building standards and property developers before I’d fully get behind this.
Love your usual work, nothing against you personally; but this video asserts so many innacurate statements about immigration that I wish to unpack. Watched on 2x speed so might have missed a couple of points.
1. For your stat on '1,000 migrants' providing (x) economic benefits. Yes, of course more people (particularly more adults at income earning stages of life) will provide more tax to the ATO. Of course the GDP output will rise. And yes, of course these migrants will have savings which they will invest; property (which from the demand side will increase house prices lol, stocks, super). But you need to reframe these numbers from a per capita basis. In reality; in the same time period as we see a slight uptick in overall economy size, the GDP per capita has been falling.
2. You assert that immigration increases labour supply in critical areas - nursing shortages, cafe workers. This just gives these businesses the ability to underpay a worker (not illegally but by suppressing wage growth, particularly affecting those who have not seen their incomes keep up with cost of living).
3. Your rebuttal on 'big Australia' and Covid-19 migration. Yes we have people leaving to go overseas; however unfortunately these are some of our brightest minds seeking employment else where - likely Saudi, Singapore, London etc., often driven out by inaffordable real estate (I don't have a stat on this but I'm sure Home affairs would not where they are going).
4. You outlined that covid-19 period saw house prices go up massively. This is actually because Australian's were taking advantage of interest rates being at 0.1%, an historical all time low. Of course this will lead to a property bubble; especially when the recession in 2020 was very mild with full employment being maintained throughout. Furthermore, rents actually fell in this period as there was more housing supply available as tempoary migrants had left.
5. Migrations coming in as construction workers to boost the construction industry exposes your lack of understanding on the Australian construction industry. Australia has the second highest number of construction workers per capita in the OECD nations, just behind New Zealand. We can't just ramp up more; its a very mature industry. Couple this with astronomical building costs; we cant just build our way out of the housing crisis. We must turn off demand.
6. Your orange farmer analogy: sounds nice but again, not true because GDP per capita has been declining; not improving thus the share of 'oranges' per person in the economy is falling.In the long run yes, but by enabling the drug of mass migration, we are subduing the ability for businesses to focus on boosting productivity rather than just hiring unskilled workers.
7. And its not valid just to dismiss the so called 'nativist' concern. Australia is not some economic zone. Of course we need to maintain Australian culture and history. This is less of a housing point but I felt it important to raise this concern. Mind you though; I feel that everyone will agree that being able to own your property is a quintessential right here so I do agree that affordability is a major concern from a values point of view.
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Agree with you that zoning is poorly designed though; allowing councils to prevent upzoning near stations etc. However, do worry about the architectural legacy of some of the apartment buildings popping up (as well as building quality - same in the developer created sprawling suburbs too...)
6. You point 6 is especially valid. Migrants are much less likely to work in construction than natives. But they are just as likely to need a house. So migration makes builders shortages worse.
This was actually mentioned by the fat bloke. "migrants dont steal jobs because they increase demand". Funny how their grab bag of half thought out arguments arent even internally consistent.
The ignorance displayed in this video is breathtaking.
Not to mention the condescending tone.
I don’t like the argument of migrant numbers being low before Covid. The simple fact of the matter is there is less infrastructure to house Australia and homeless rates keep rising. To many students coming in not enough labours you disappoint me Sharath!
You need to let go of the idea to knock down heritage listed suburbs in sydneys inner west. Plenty of room elsewhere ( A whole new city is being built...) Look at the new housing being built in sydneys west, all those houses could have been apartments. But they're not.
Sorry mate, really like your content and you hit the mark often. But this time, do not agree.
Most immigrants are students, who provide benefit to our universities sure through tuition but this has little impact on everyone else and in fact is likely somewhat of a detriment given the forever rising costs of a uni degree. These students compete with locals for white collar jobs primarily with very few going into construction.
I work in the mining industry and can say first hand that getting enough skilled workers is tough and we should definitely be open to bringing in people to fill job shortages, but in the current economic circumstances, bringing in so many relatively useless (students) migrants into Australia is placing a massive strain on infrastructure and housing.
Totally agree we want to grow more ‘oranges’ and on board with the push to increase supply but the reality is government will not act efficiently and NIMBYs gonna NIMBY so the reality is development will not keep pace
So if "most immigrants are students" why is the average age of an immigrant 36? Maybe research a bit more before talking rubbish
@@74_pelicans i love it when people just say “do more research” but haven’t done any themselves.
According to latest ABS data 2022-23 saw 737,000 arrivals of which ~139,000 were citizens or PRs. This leaves us with ~598,000 non citizen or PR arrivals. Of this ~41,000 arrivals were from NZ, 283,000 were students and 271,000 were other temporary visa holders of all other visas including tourists, which were around 106,000, who you probably can’t call immigrants.
This leaves us with a total immigration number of 492,000 for the year when you take out tourists. Basic maths would show that 283/492=57.5%.
Meaning that 58% of immigrant arrivals are students.
Nice research bro.
Source: www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/record-high-net-overseas-migration-driven-temporary-visa-holders-2022-23
www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release
@@74_pelicans you are probably referring to all immigrants including those who arrived in previous years, I am referring to new arrivals who are placing current strain on housing.
students are great for the economy though, they bring in money from overseas and spend them here, for a country so reliant on digging limited things out of the ground, students are basically an unlimited alternative. Sure they do cause issue with housing, but I wouldn't be so dismissive of what they can provide. And considering most students live in apartments anyway, you know, the thing that "nobody wants to live in". Also most students would live near their university, meaning they have limited impact on infrastructures near most places.
@@dr94279well said
All we could stop treating houses like an investment opportunity and stop listening to people worrying about the value of their property falling
Thank you for making this
We’ll need a recession to bring the house price down. The so called increased supply is under control by developers whose sole purpose is to maximise profit. If I recall correctly, Chinese people used to be obsessed with house ownership before 2019, but in 2023 people who owned houses were given look of sympathy as the price had been slashed by more than 20% comparing to 2019, while there was a deflation going on pushing down price of everything.
Low price and low house price… hmmm isn’t that what we want right now?
The rich are recession proof now. We're in a technical recession already. The boomers who sell Thier house they have been in for 40 years for 2m are spending big still.
I’ve already got my orange, so more oranges or people in those oranges, or the price of oranges makes no difference to me. So how is immigration any good for me? It’s good for Treasury (tax base) and good for big business (profits) but what about people already here? More congestion, more traffic, packed trains/buses, pollution etc. I can’t even go to the doctor without an appointment anymore, because they’re too busy. All of these things economists call ‘externalities’ - if we placed a tax on migrants paid to those already here to offset the lower quality of life, that might balance the equation, but I can’t see that happening. Greater density = lower quality of life. It’s like a hidden de-facto tax we are forced to pay without a choice.
If you look at net interstate migration, NSW is experiencing an exodus - people who care about quality of life are escaping to other states. Why? All of the reasons above. And mass overseas immigration is partly making up the shortfall. If someone pulls the bathplug, do we turn the tap on harder to keep the bath full?
This is exactly why I moved to Melbourne from Sydney - you get so much more for your money. Rapid and poorly executed increases in density are basically taxation by stealth for those who aren't wealthy enough to live in areas where people understand this and oppose rapid and poor quality development.
Yes and no. I think the immigration system and housing having very big issue. Housing crisis caused by many factors including immigration, not sole factor. The gov is encouraging property investment that escalate the situation of the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. on the other hand, the immigration system in this country has a big issue as well. they dont target the right people to come.
The massive influx of Chinese/Indian students coming to Sydney and flooding the housing market are not a net positive to the Australian economy. If my rent has gone from $450 a week to $880 a week for a 1 bedroom apartment in 2 years, I don't care how the general economy is performing. These are students, studying medicine, law, software engineering etc etc. These are not skilled labourers. They are not pouring the concrete for new houses in Australia. You've totally missed the mark here.
immigration is essential to a growing economy. However, it's bad for the 'brain drain' experienced by the country of origin. In the 1980s I remember the NZ Prime Minister commenting on the immigration across the Tasman to Australia - it raises the average IQ of both nations.
Hey there are lots of really ugly really big really spaced out houses on the urban fringe... and there are lots of terrace houses and walk up flats in the inner suburbs! How do we fix this? Obvious! We pull down the terrace houses and walk up flats and build high-rises, and keep building (slightly fewer) McMansions on the floodplains.
The workers per retiree metric isn't particularly relevant after decades of compulsory superannuation; please stop with the assumption that every retired person is taking money off struggling workers.
You missed the bigger problem where one person has bought all 5 oranges so they can rent their oranges to people who can no longer afford to buy their own orange.
Immigration is such a scapegoat for the more structural problems underlying the housing and rent crisis. The biggest impact of immigration on the housing market is all the flippin' AirBnBs taking away apartments that could be rented long term by people who actually live in the city!
I know
good video sharath very interesting
In a point in time where australia and the rest of the world is struggling to find national identity, you make a point about all of us being migrants. The day someone becomes an Australian citizen they must pledge their alliance to australia not future migrants.
Also, your professor from Brisbane has resorted to calling baby boomer generation ‘morally selfish’ - for working hard all their lives and wanting to live in their home? - baby boomer can use their land how they like and I’m a young person renting in Sydney.
Your idea of increasing density is not the australia we love. We don’t want to lower our standards- simple!
Great video. Spot on.
Few want to stop immigration what we need is a discussion on is the number of migrants. Also these businesses such as hospitality where the business model relies on migrants has to be carefully thought through as this sector is rampant with wage theft and unpaid overtime. As others have pointed you need to avoid cherry picking numbers or statistics as many can see the through flaws in your assumptions. We also need to factor in the infrastructure costs as Victoria where I live is having enormous budget pressures on delivering infrastructure due to a growing population, if immigration was so beneficial shouldn’t Victoria be swimming in cash reserves!
You have failed to consider what happened in the pandemic. Houses and rents went up because construction project’s reduced because of the forced closures and higher costs to build.
petition for sharath to visit darnick as a 50k sub special! lets get him there for this!
Two things I think are overlooked when discussing this issue are: (1) Quality of homes - people that like to live in single family homes want a backyard, people that like to live in apartments don't. (2) Heritage protection - it is important to protect older homes in our suburbs too, our we lose the beauty from days past. Many homes from pre WW2 are much more beautiful than modern copy-paste developments.
I see this "aging population" argument as a Ponzi scheme myself. This has been touted since the 90s in my memory and population aging has not caused the economic downturns anticipated. If our population is aging and we increase younger generations, we are just maintaining a cycle that will never improve. At which point do we say enough?
Note - I'm 100000% for immigration
Are there any examples of population aging not causing an economic downturn? Id like to look into them. The way I see it, an aging population puts significant pressure on the younger workforce. There is an increased burden on the productive population (so people in the workforce) to maintain the economically dependent population (social security, pensions etc). And welfare programs are much harder to fund because of this because there are fewer workers relative to retirees.
It has caused the anticipated economic downturn in Japan and parts of Europe, you haven't seen it here because Australia has the highest rate of immigration and the youngest population in the West along with the wealthiest economy, which can continue because we can *always* have the highest rate of immigration in the West
Check out Italy and Japan
It's simple maths, there were more boomers born than the silent generation, and less gen X a millennials born after. So the population is Aging and industry has changed drastically.
Japan has an aging population and has been in economic stagnation since the 80s. That is now accelerating with the destruction of the yen in recent weeks… this means less purchasing power for their citizens and lower quality of life. Replacing older generations with younger people isn’t a Ponzi scheme just the natural order of revitalisation in life and if we put a stop to it, it leads to death
You say 220kish/yr, why was January 108k immigrants and lost due to pandemic was
Whilst generally I am on the same page as Sharath, I have to say that in the context of the housing crisis Immigration is a negative. No doubt migrants are crucial to the Australian economy however I thinks its paramount we reduce inflows until we sort out the housing crisis. In the video Sharath comments on how in 2020 even though inflows were stagnant housing prices did not fall, using this as proof migration's impact on the housing is overblown. However this ignores how supply was also stagnant that year due to the lockdowns and construction works being physically unable to complete their jobs. Additionally Sharath brings up economics however fails to mention the issue of government interference in the housing market which inhabits the free markets ability to reach equilibrium. All sorts of measures like negative gearing, zoning and industrial regulation have culminated to distort the supply of the housing market.
Average 2 bedroom rental home in Wellington is $800/week, which is more expensive than Auckland's & Christchurch's average of $500/week. Auckland is too spread out, Wellington is too hilly and too windy, but is compact. Sydney is cool., with cheaper food/retail, excellent public transport, and higher wages compared with NZ. I LOVE charlies orange juice. The average income per adult in NZ is only around $65,000/year before tax which NZ calls middle class. Minimum wage would give $53,000/year before tax. The NZ Government hired immigrants to be bus drivers as citizens don't want to work the wack crazy hours. Good thing about immigrants is they do their job quietly while some citizens act like they're so entitled.
Australia completed around 170,000 new homes over the year to March 2023, In the year ending 30 June 2023, overseas migration contributed a net gain of 518,000 people. See the problem we are importing more demand than we can supply. We are unable to supply to the current population let alone continual growth of immigrants.