Coalition budget reply to link housing, migration rates
Australia’s immigration intake will depend on the number of new homes built each year if the coalition wins government, under a plan to ease pressure on the country’s housing sector and challenge Pauline Hanson’s emerging One Nation.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will use his first budget response speech to outline further details of his promised crackdown on immigration, announce a dramatic cut in the number of foreigners allowed into the country and reheat parts of Peter Dutton’s 2025 election platform.
“Australia should only bring in as many people as it can accommodate,” Mr Taylor told parliament on Thursday night.
“Under Labor, immigration is running miles ahead of housing, putting pressure on rents, house prices and every young Australian trying to get ahead,” he will say.
Under Mr Taylor’s plan, a cap would be placed on net overseas migration equivalent to the number of homes built in the previous year.
Net overseas migration is the difference between the number of people arriving in Australia and the number leaving and also includes temporary migrants such as foreign students.
Tuesday’s budget predicts the figure for this financial year will be 295,000, falling to 225,000 by 2027/28.
That’s well below the post-pandemic high of 550,000, when an influx of migrants re-entered the country as borders reopened, but still higher than pre-COVID levels.
Nearly 175,000 new homes were built in the last financial year. If Mr Taylor’s policy is implemented, this would mean a cut in net migration of around 40 per cent for this financial year.
The opposition leader will also seek to challenge Pauline Hanson’s One Nation on immigration by turning to populist right-wing rhetoric around “mass immigration” after beating the Liberals in the Farrer by-election.
“This is about mass migration moving ahead of the homes, roads, hospitals, schools and services Australia can provide,” Mr Taylor will say.
The budget response speech sparked a row with Labor over housing policy after the federal government announced plans to scrap tax breaks for property investors to help more young people buy homes.
The coalition has promised to repeal the changes if it wins the next election.
Mr Taylor also revived former opposition leader Peter Dutton’s 2025 election campaign promise to create a $5 billion housing infrastructure fund to help provide water, sewerage, utilities and access roads to new housing projects.
The change would unlock up to 400,000 new homes, he said, while also promising to scrap Labour’s flagship housing funds, including the Australian Housing Future Fund, the Help to Buy and Build to Rent schemes and the New Homes Bonus.
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