Behind interest rates, Immigration is the next driver of house prices.
But high immigration has more ‘benefits’ to the government than just housing. Most financial statistics are aggregates and not adjusted per capita/population. e.g. retail spending at household level could contract, but provided we were importing more people, on aggregate it’s possible to achieve a positive number.
It also keeps wages suppressed. In 2019, the then Finance Minister Matthias Cormann indicated low wage growth is a “deliberate design feature of our [liberal] economic architecture”. Immigration is one of these design features.
The Commonwealth Government has a target for Net Overseas Migration of 201,100 for 2023-24 and 235,000 for 2034-25. It is assumed to stay at this level until 2060-61.
International Borders were closed in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic and this has had an impact on Immigration Levels.
