John Macaulay describes immigration as the elephant in the room when the cost of housing is discussed in Australia. Serious political discussion in this country is rarely entertained because of the number of issues now “encased in thick plaques of unreality”. This “shallowness” is particularly true in the case of immigration's impact on house prices. The housing and building hustlers ignore the fact that the more people after housing the higher the prices go. And our political class? Well we all know how slavish to big business they are.

Macaulay says that the housing industry lobbyists are “bought and paid for” by that pampered big business. They are “effectively paid” to keep quiet about our ridiculously high immigration's effect on housing prices. Market economists are reluctant to mention immigration through fear of raising the ire of “the corporate sector and 'progressive’ politicians”. Any independent thinking is mentioned only in passing, and is never examined seriously.

“There is no voice of reason” to examine the case for lowering immigration intake to address the housing affordability crisis. Macaulay thinks that the conservative voice is “orphaned” but it is more likely that what miserable dregs of conservatism is left in Australia is not capable of expressing the values and common sense it is supposed to uphold.

It is estimated that “every one percent increase inpopulation” sees an “eight percent rise in house prices”.

Macaulay stresses that immigration is “one of the key drivers of house prices in Australia”, and that both political parties have “pushed one of the world’s largest immigration programs on the Australian people …. with the effect of pricing many of them out of the housing market”.

A “stale and intolerant political class” has decided that we shouldn't know the truth of high immigration and its deleterious effect on locals. A high immigration policy that, if voters had asked, would have rejected.

So, there we go. An overpopulated country, with a shallow democracy, and less chance than ever of being able to buy a house. That's progressivism. (Spectator 7/2/19)

Hi Ttbn,

Perhaps, as you imply, immigrants should be barred from standard housing and should find their own accommodation in tents and wurlies, that'll serve the bastards right. And they not only take our jobs but also live on welfare too. Send them all back: no more Indian doctors and dentists, no more Filipino nurses. Reclaim the jobs, Australia !!

OR ........ maybe immigrants are as entitled to housing and jobs as the rest of Australians. But it's so satisfying to find some out-group to flog :)

Cheers,

Joe

Good thread ttbn-

An amusing thought is that the politicians that promote immigration should get a first hand experience of their policies and get to live in the "tents and wurlies" in the desert with non-english "speaking and acting" immigrants. Sadly this wouldn't fix the problem as it is driven from other nefarious sources.

Here is the link...but there's a pay (login) wall
http://www.spectator.com.au/2019/02/immigration-the-house-price-elephant-in-the-room/

CM,

The evils of immigration are similar to the evils of unreliable energy and sky-rocketing electricity prices and lower productivity and competitiveness, loss of jobs etc in the name of 'fixing' the climate: the politicians are blind to the effects of both evils.

Thanks for the reference, but that's where I got the info from. I subscribe to The Spectator because it is one of the very few organs dealing in common sense these days

The 'shallowness of Australian democracy' is the key. It is behind not just suicidal immigration, but everything else that has gone wrong in this country. But, only the West commits suicide by immigration and acceptance of faux refugees with their eyes on our welfare and and housing.

China doesn’t take in hordes of refugees who have no cultural or racial connection with it. Nor does India, or Japan, or Indonesia, or Mongolia or Nigeria. Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam, doesn’t take anyone in, Muslim or not, but is simply happy to build mosques in those white Christian countries that do admit its adherents.

Seeing that people like Loudmouth want to twist anything said about immigration, irrespective of context, to 'poor, suffering minorities' and racism, I will use his deviation from the topic to reinforce my main bugbear, immigration per se.

ttbn- I like the spectator too.

In the early 60s, I used to drive out through the paddocks from my home in Caringbah, to pick up my girlfriend from Engadine.

We would drive into Sydney CBD, park in Pitt or George street to go for a meal or a movie. Sydney was a really great town then. Big enough to have everything anyone could want, but small enough to get around & enjoy.

Last time I was there, in 2003 it was really horrible. heavy traffic 24/7, no parking anywhere, & it took 5 attempts to find anyone with enough English to give me directions in Hurstville.

I bought my first house, an old small cottage, in an outer suburb in 62 for just 2 1/2 years salary. A couple of years later I bought a nice house in a mid range suburb for just under 4 times the average wage.

Sydney was a dream city, today the dream is a nightmare, & best avoided.

All this is down to migration & population pressures.

Hasbeen,

I've been to Sydney only once, and very briefly. I've been to London several times and, although it is much bigger than Sydney, I was happier there. Sydney is a s..thole that attracts immigrants like blowies because they are used to s..tholes. I'll stick with Adelaide, which has a little of everything, but not enough to be a problem. No African gangs, no Muslim maniacs and, for the time being, no Red government. The immigrants we get here don't do anything to make them stand out, and housing and cost of living are reasonable.

I think you've got it around the wrong way ttbn, it's deliberate not accidental.
I think a nations wealth is tied to house prices and housing growth and so immigration is a deliberate method to create artificial demand for housing; so that house prices, jobs, businesses in this industry don't dry up.
There's too much follow on effect if housing growth stagnates, so they do it on purpose.

Immigrants and home prices.
The problem is two fold.
Firstly Chinese Investor immigrants are using Australia as a safe haven for their wealth.
They buy inner city properties As well as outer suburban rural acres as long term investments.
Inner suburban apartments which were originally designed for retiring Australians are being snapped up by Chinese millionaires buy them and use them once a year for a few weeks.Others are rented to students and backpackers packing 8 people in each room.

Secondly, there are genuine migrants who come to settle and purchase a home.Some Europeans arrive with enough to purchase a "cheap" home in Australia.
An average London home being worth in excess of $3 million.

High speed rail links to regional Australia would help slow down City property prices.

Armchair Critic- I agree with your comment mostly but I don't think the Nations Wealth has to be tied to increases in housing prices- but is just the strategy of the current crop of inadaquate leaders- led by the Economic Liberals. In fact it's not just the current crop it's been going on since the Liberal "revolution" under Henry VIII. Where the responsibility to the people on the land (the Traditional Owners) was separated from the land itself. Economic Liberals cause periodic upheavals in the Economy such as the GFC- due to their greed. It's well past time to put the Economy in more traditional and stable hands- perhaps we could leave them a pool to play in.

The concept of cultural ownership of the nation seemingly provided a balance between the flexibility inherent in a property market while ensuring the culture wasn't vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the markets- even if the individuals were- a balance between flexibility and safety.

People are subject to the same supply and demand concepts as other items- with the growth in populations worldwide people are less valued. To value people more- we need to reduce the number of people in certain parts of the world. Communism believes the opposite- believing that the burgeoning population "mono-culture" / anti-culture will sweep away capitalism (Economic Liberalism)- a cure at least as bad as the disease.

We are losing cultures and languages every few days- the days of the Communist Anti-Culture are here because of Social Liberalism.

The Social Liberals label Traditionalists and Conservatives as extreme because they cannot accept a different viewpoint- that freedom on it's own is not good- neither can we accept their viewpoint.

Loss of land by the people is probably the fundamental way in which poverty is entrenched in the community- but this is the basis of Liberalism and Communism.

ttbn,
Who in the hell is this John Macaulay? I never heard of him, not that I disagree with what he says in general, but where did you get his name from? Whats he done to be quoted on immigration or anything. I googled his name and got a few, but no Aussies. I'll put him down as a big fish in a little pond.

The problem with immigration here is that both major parties are in the pockets of big business. Business likes big immigration because the extra population means the sale of more consumer goods, not just houses, and business can increase sales without having to compete with each other. So business readily donate to major political parties to ensure the trend keeps going and to hell with any consideration of what the community requires. He who pays the piper, calls the tune.

There is a lot of negatives that go with high immigration. Not only in increasing house prices, but as Hasbeen pointed out , more traffic, more accidents and less parking. Travel time to and from work is increased so ordinary people are burden ed with those costs and children now have to be taken to school and picked up by parents. Last November I attended a concert in Melbourne and it took 3 hours just to get out of the parking station after. Won't go to football.

Then we have lots of good agriculture land being covered with bitumen and concrete and we are loossing farm land at an alarming rate. Farmers are being pushed further and further out onto marginal land.

Our standard of living falls each year.

Then we should consider the social problems of multiculturalism which are obvious every where you look.

I have been opposing high immigration for years and years but never had the name Macaulay come up.

ttbn,
To add insult to injury, our esteemed PM of the day, Bob Hawke, brokered a deal between the two major parties, not to debate immigration and related issues but leave it soley to the party in government. The reason given to us (the people) was that immigration was too complex for us to understand.

So we do not get a chance to debate or discuss anything and the press play anything down because the major parties are major advertisers and will not comment. That is the way they want it.

Nothing will happen until that deal is broken as both major parties agree to high immigration.

Henry,

John Macauly is the NSW director of Australian Conservatives. If you Google 'John Macaulay, Spectator, you will be able to read his article.

Immigration is good for big business, and for governments as a display of artificial growth. No good for the rest of us, as GDP per person drops.

As you say, both parties are guilty of mass immigration, and they refuse to accept that it is an election issue; not one they need to worry about, of course, because both parties are at it. We need to vote AC in the senate to have any hope of stopping it.

If Australians can't buy property in China then the Chinese should not be able to buy property here. Same should apply to any National with no reciprocal arrangement.
We can't blame the foreigners for buying up property here if some Australians are stupid enough to allow it !

Individual,

People have been saying that for years,but the political class isn't interested. They care only for themselves, big business and the bribes they get from them.

That's why it is waste of time for the average person to vote while we don't have primaries to select from a number of candidates to get one nomination not selected by a party or a bunch of 'power brokers'. Nothing will ever change the way things are now, particularly with the the only two parties capable of forming government pretty much the same, as they have become. The two party system is really now a one party system with slight variations. That's why we have mass immigration and multiculturalism, and why we can no longer be sure that our borders are safe. If there are votes in it, the Liberals will fold on border protection in a flash; hanging on to power in seats threatened by stooges of the Far Left is more important to them than policies and the values they once espoused.

Anyone doubting the uselessness of the Liberal party and its current leader-in-passing, should read "The Liberal Party loses heart, loses vision as the election year begins", by Tom Waite in The Spectator today.

The lobbying firm of NSW LIBERAL powerbroker Michael Photios has started donating to the LABOR Party. Photios confirmed yesterday that his firm, Premier State, had for the first time joined the Federal Labor Business Forum and had spent $22,000 this year via the forum to attend Labor functions.

Mr Photios also hired ­Sabina Husic — an ex-staffer to Labor premier Kristina Keneally, one-time NSW opposition leader Luke Foley and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, to attend state Labor fundraisers in the lead-up to the March 23 state election.

And this bloke manipulates and influences the preselection of Liberal candidates. The Liberal party is really finished when tolerates this sort of behaviour from one lf its members.

As much as I am convinced Labor will be no different now to what it's always been since the Goaf, I can't get myself to vote for the Coalition anymore either. It's independents for me from now on.