The Housing Crisis

[rev]

Dont hare me because I'm right yet again..

‘We are governed by mongrels’: Driver of housing crisis revealed
A top economist has slammed “mongrel” governments for causing the crippling housing crisis that’s leaving millions of Aussies in precarious positions.

Shannon Molloy
9 min read
March 14, 2024 - 5:17PM

Governments have manufactured a crippling crisis that’s led to unprecedented housing pressures, a rising risk of homelessness, and the rapid death of the Great Australian Dream.

And while Anthony Albanese champions multibillion-dollar plans to build more homes and save families from financial disaster, the Prime Minister has avoided mentioning one key driver.

Immigration.

By June, an estimated 885,000 new migrants will have arrived in Australia in just two years, at a time when a critical undersupply of housing is pushing purchase prices and rents to new highs.

Leith van Onselen, co-founder of MacroBusiness and chief economist at MB Fund and MB Super, said the decision to “funnel in record amounts of people … is arguably the biggest driver of the housing crisis”.

Mr van Onselen said the pursuit of “extreme” population growth to drive the economy shows Australia is “governed by mongrels”.

“Federal governments have massively increased immigration since the mid-2000s, and that’s basically created a structural housing shortage,” he said.

“Now it’s worse than ever, with the largest number of migrants ever coming to Australia, resulting in mammoth population growth.

“There are way more people coming into the country than we can build houses for, and we’re feeling the pressure of that across the market.

“All the while, it takes you longer to drive anywhere, you can’t find a place to live, you’re spending your weekends at inspections with hundreds of other people, and if you find a place, your landlord will probably hike your rent $100 a week or so.

“This is what we’ve done. It’s madness.”

Brendan Coates is the economic policy program director at think tank The Grattan Institute and said the record migrant intake is “clearly a driver of pressure in the rental market”.

“We estimate that every 100,000 additional migrants above the long-term trend probably adds about one per cent to rental costs,” Mr Coates said.

“So certainly, the surge that we saw over the course of the last financial year through to June 2023, that’s probably adding three to four per cent to rent prices.

“Given that rents rose by 7.8 per cent over the course of last year, it’s a big driver.”

People are furious

This week, news.com.au’s exclusive sit-down interview with New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, dissecting his government’s proposed solutions to the housing crisis, sparked fierce debate online.

Scores of commenters attacked record high immigration as the cause of affordability pressures, particularly in the rental market, and called for action.

“It’s no wonder there is seemingly a growing resentment towards migration,” PropTrack executive director of research Cameron Kusher said.

“When you consider those that are already here in Australia are paying high prices for shelter or struggling to even find shelter for themselves.”

Social services groups say the skyrocketing cost of rent is forcing an alarming number of households into financial distress and increasing the risk of homelessness.

Currently, the national rental vacancy rate – that is, the proportion of all leased dwellings available on the market – is about one per cent.

Migration provides big benefits to Australia by helping to grow the economy, but Mr Kusher said it also creates huge demand for housing and infrastructure.

“And not enough is being done to address the deficit of either, notwithstanding the huge amount of infrastructure investment taking place in Sydney currently,” he said.

“Given this, a growing number of people feel as if their quality of life is deteriorating and that the more people that come to the country, the more it will deteriorate because this deficit of housing and infrastructure is not being addressed.”

Those in positions of power who ignore the concerns of voters and fail to act run the risk of suffering politically, he said.

“If governments shy away from reforms that allow more housing supply, improve productivity and just generally improve people’s quality of life, I anticipate there will be an increase in protest votes and votes shifting from major political parties to smaller parties.”

The mammoth increase in migration was “so sharp and so fast” that the pressure placed in housing markets must be addressed, Mr Coates said.

“If we don’t get housing right, then we’re of throwing low-income renters under the bus, and I don’t think that’s a sustainable position.”

Bursting at the seams

The significant role immigration is playing in the housing crisis shouldn’t have come as a surprise to policymakers, Mr Kusher said.

In the 12 months to June 2023, the net migration level in Australia was 510,000 and another 375,000 will be added to the tally by the middle of the year.

That record level of immigration sparked the largest percentage increase in our overall population in more than 70 years.

“Housing construction was already slowing, and rental vacancy rates were already extremely low so little if any consideration was given to where these migrants were going to be housed,” Mr Kusher said.

“As a result, it has tightened supply further, created more competition and lifted rents by a significant amount.”

Big increases in the number of people coming to Australia aren’t a new phenomenon, with the average net migration rate in the decade before Covid sitting much higher than the 10-year period preceding it.

At the turn of the century, Melbourne’s population sat at about 3.4 million people, while these days it’s hovering around 5.07 million.

Likewise, some four million people lived in Sydney back in 2000, while the city is now home to a whopping 5.31 million residents.

“That’s incredibly fast growth in a very short period of time,” Mr van Onselen said. “And the vast majority of that growth is immigration.”

Experts say the impact on housing markets of 885,000 more people, in the midst of a supply crisis, can’t be overstated.

Building sector can’t keep up

The surge in immigration saw underlying demand for housing pushed up to an eye-watering level of 220,000 new dwellings per year, according to AMP chief economist and head of investment strategy Shane Oliver.

“But thanks to rate hikes and capacity constraints, dwelling completions look like averaging around 175,000, which means a new shortfall each year of about 45,000 dwellings adding to the already existing shortfall,” Dr Oliver said.

A number of things need to be done to improve housing affordability, he said, like building more homes in the right places and taxation reform.

“But it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that immigration levels need to be calibrated to the ability of the home building industry to supply housing. This is critical,” Dr Oliver said.

The level of immigration being seen currently is “running well in excess” of the ability for construction sector to build enough new homes.

Even if Australia managed to build 200,000 new homes a year, immigration levels would still need to be slashed to almost half what they have been, he said.

“Over the last decade, home building did not keep pace with increases in demand, and prices rose,” a report from the Grattan Institute in 2018 noted.

“Through the 1990s, Australian cities built about 800 new homes for every extra 1000 people. They built half as many over the past eight years.

“We estimate somewhere between 450 and 550 more new homes are needed for each 1000 new residents, after accounting for demolitions.

“And because more families are breaking up and the population is ageing, more homes are needed to accommodate households with fewer members.”

Economy needs migrants

For the past two decades, population growth has been a crucial driver of Australia’s economic growth – and the vast majority of the increasing resident base is thanks to immigration.

A strong and diverse economy is crucial in countering an ageing population and reduced productivity, economists say.

“We can slow migration, and there are some things we definitely should do, and while big cuts to the migration program would certainly make housing more affordable, they would probably make us poorer as well,” Mr Coates said.

“Skilled migrants contribute much more in taxes than they (use) in services, so they provide a really big boost to the federal budget.

“If you cut 10,000 places in that program, it would cost federal and state government budgets between $68 billion and $125 billion over the next 30 years.”

The pandemic saw migration screech to a halt – and even a hit a net negative figure in 2021 due to border closures and a pre-planned reduction in overall numbers.

In analysis for The Conversation, University of Sydney public policy and political science academic Anna Boucher and Professor Robert Breunig from the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian National University, said “immigration is vital to the economy”.

“Immigration growth drives economic growth,” they wrote.

“Lower immigration has a real effect on GDP. In the June quarter of 2020, GDP contracted by 7 per cent, which is the largest fall on record. At least some of this is due to plummeting immigration.”

In addition, international student migration and tourism form a large part of Australia’s vital exports, while skilled migrants help plug critical labour shortages in key industries like construction and agriculture.

“Fewer immigrants result in fewer people of working age contributing to the tax base,” they added.

“Many immigrants are generally under 45 and are here to work — either in skilled jobs or on working holiday visas. Losing large numbers of them means fewer people of working age in the population.”

And lower immigration rates affect levels of consumption, with “less demand for services and housing”.

Mr Kusher believes the short and medium-term benefits of migration right now don’t outweigh the consequences.

“Many will argue that migration brings with it many benefits, which I also believe to be the case,” he said.

“But when housing costs are high, the cost of goods and services is rising rapidly, and people feel like their quality of life is going backwards, many appear to be questioning the wisdom of importing so many people from overseas, especially given there hasn’t been a commensurate rebound in new housing supply.”

Are changes too late?

The current situation isn’t all the fault of the Albanese Government, which inherited a situation that was difficult to reverse.

“But there have been some decisions Albanese has made that have made the migration flows bigger,” Mr Coates said.

“He’s increased the size of the permanent intake by 30,000 a year, he’s granted New Zealand citizens the greater rights to stay permanently in Australia, and he’s certainly accelerated visa processing.”

And while immigration plays a big part in the housing crisis, it’s not the sole driver of dwindling supply, Mr Coates pointed out.

There has been a change in how many Australians are choosing to live since Covid, with the rise of working from home seeing some choose larger homes, and a shrinking in the size of households, he said.

“Immigration is probably not the biggest driver of rising rents right now. It’s probably the second biggest after the fact Australians are demanding more housing.”

The Federal Government has responded to concern and criticism by announcing in December that it would bring migration “back to normal levels”.

But Australian Catholic University research fellow Rachel Stevens said the cuts were “not as dramatic as they seem”.

“The government says these changes are the ‘biggest reforms in a generation’ (that) will ‘dramatically cut’ the immigration intake, but don’t be fooled by the hyperbole,” Dr Stevens wrote in analysis for The Conversation.

“The intake cuts are overstated and will largely be the result of a natural evening out of migration patterns in the post-pandemic world.

“Even the Department of Immigration acknowledges the spike in arrivals is ‘temporary’, a phenomenon labelled as ‘the catch-up effect’ by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.”

Right now, an estimated two million foreign nationals are in Australia on temporary resident visa, comprising mostly skilled workers from New Zealand, international students, and recent graduates.

The Albanese Government has committed to finding pathways for skilled migrants to become permanent residents.

Temporary visa numbers have been uncapped since John Howard was prime minister and the number of foreigners here for short and midterm tenures has doubled in the past 15 years.

Even with immigration reducing in coming years from its post-Covid record highs, Mr van Onselen projects it will remain above the long-term trend.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-es ... 1b132ee727

[cmet]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

[abc]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

evidence?

[rev]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

Negative gearing is NOT the cause of the housing crisis.

There is a shortage in supply.
There is more demand then there is supply.
We are adding more demand (by importing more migrants). This is compounding the supply & demand issue.

Whether it's a supply issue for people trying to buy a house, or people looking to rent. Both are being made worse because we are importing more people.
Nearly a million people migrated to Australia in the last 2 years. That's an obscene number. And estimates of more of the same over the next two years.

[SBD]

Interesting article, and despite pushing "immigration is bad" in the top part, it levels out further down.

I noticed "“Housing construction was already slowing" and "Building sector can’t keep up" for example. The state government keeps "releasing" land for housing, but there are not houses being built - why not? Is either the state or federal government making magnanimous headline press conferences, but failing to follow through with the less-sexy things like actually selling its land to developers at realistic prices, processing subdivisions, and providing water, sewer, electricity and road connections and training enough tradespeople to enable construction?

I'm not convinced negative gearing is the issue - if a landlord has set the rental price based on the expectation of tax benefits on future capital gains, then reducing those benefits leads to raising the rent.

A bigger impact, but at state not federal tax level would be to reduce or remove stamp duty on property transfers. Imagine if instead of paying $30000 to the state government in addition to the removal costs etc of empty nesters downsizing from a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom house, they received $30000 from the state government to encourage them to make the larger house available to a family that needs the space.

[gnrc_louis]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

Negative gearing is NOT the cause of the housing crisis.

There is a shortage in supply.
There is more demand then there is supply.
We are adding more demand (by importing more migrants). This is compounding the supply & demand issue.

Whether it's a supply issue for people trying to buy a house, or people looking to rent. Both are being made worse because we are importing more people.
Nearly a million people migrated to Australia in the last 2 years. That's an obscene number. And estimates of more of the same over the next two years.

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

[gnrc_louis]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

Absolutely- both these things would help massively.

[abc]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

Negative gearing is NOT the cause of the housing crisis.

There is a shortage in supply.
There is more demand then there is supply.
We are adding more demand (by importing more migrants). This is compounding the supply & demand issue.

Whether it's a supply issue for people trying to buy a house, or people looking to rent. Both are being made worse because we are importing more people.
Nearly a million people migrated to Australia in the last 2 years. That's an obscene number. And estimates of more of the same over the next two years.

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

[A-Town]

Get rid of (grandfather) negative gearing, allow much more intensive development around key corridors, transport hubs and employment centres and you’ll fix half the problem.

Negative gearing is NOT the cause of the housing crisis.

There is a shortage in supply.
There is more demand then there is supply.
We are adding more demand (by importing more migrants). This is compounding the supply & demand issue.

Whether it's a supply issue for people trying to buy a house, or people looking to rent. Both are being made worse because we are importing more people.
Nearly a million people migrated to Australia in the last 2 years. That's an obscene number. And estimates of more of the same over the next two years.

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

It's not the sole reason by any means, but a lack of housing supply is the largest contributing factor to the increases in housing costs, and this has been driven by record high immigration rates over the past 18-24 months.

[SBD]

Negative gearing is NOT the cause of the housing crisis.

There is a shortage in supply.
There is more demand then there is supply.
We are adding more demand (by importing more migrants). This is compounding the supply & demand issue.

Whether it's a supply issue for people trying to buy a house, or people looking to rent. Both are being made worse because we are importing more people.
Nearly a million people migrated to Australia in the last 2 years. That's an obscene number. And estimates of more of the same over the next two years.

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

Ok so Y is that less houses are being built. What's X?

Even better, do you have a suggestion on how to get more housing built? Highrise apartments/shared living for students?

[abc]

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

Ok so Y is that less houses are being built. What's X?

Even better, do you have a suggestion on how to get more housing built? Highrise apartments/shared living for students?

There is a limit to the amount of housing that can be built which is set by factors such as:
- availability of land
- availability of building materials
- the pace of the supply chain
- availability of adequately skilled builders
- availability of resources to approve buildings

there are likely more factors, however the fact remains you cannot simply speed things up without throwing a massive amount of resources which we don't have at the problem and even then there is a minimum amount of time it takes to traverse the critical path of a project. If you'd ever managed one you'd realise this.

One thing that we can control is demand and demand is directly related to the intake of migration.

[rev]

No single thing is the cause of the housing crisis - like most things there’s multiple factors. Just like migration isn’t the sole cause of the issue, rather a contributing factor. It’s naive at best and in bad faith to argue it’s any one cause and not multiple.

Negative gearing is a big contributor to making home ownership harder. As you say regarding supply, there’s a limited amount, if people own multiple properties - like they do with negative gearing it makes more difficult for first home buyers. Without negative gearing and changing the capital gains tax on housing, you’d likely increase supply because it would make it less economically beneficial for people to hoard housing.

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

Ok so Y is that less houses are being built. What's X?

Even better, do you have a suggestion on how to get more housing built? Highrise apartments/shared living for students?

To continue on the quoted posts, as one was addressed to me. Of course high migration isn't the main reason. But, it is a major contributing factor that is making the situation far worse then it needs to be.
It is having negative domino effects, and those will get worse as time goes on in the next few years.

As to why more houses aren't being built, because the industry is seeing issues, with many builders collapsing.
SBD you have suggested that migrants can help fill that void. Sure. Where are they going to live in the meantime? In tents in building site car parks?

I don't know what the solution to fixing it all is, never have pretended to know. But what I do know, and what should be obvious to everyone that is looking at this situation genuinely and honestly, is that adding hundreds of thousands of more people is not a solution.

There needs to be a massive slowing down in migration intakes. We do not need another 2 million people in the coming years.
We do need more houses for the people already here, we do need better healthcare for the people here already, we do need more and bigger schools for people already here, etc etc etc.
Some of that could be fixed by highly skilled/educated migrants (most aren't, but anyway), but at what cost? That's what is being ignored. The cost to the social fabric of this country.

Sure the government is going to rake in more revenue from taxes and gst. And do what with it? Spend it on more/bigger hospitals, better infrastructure, or supporting the growing number of people on welfare and other support?
If more migrants was going to equate to enough money to cover everything, we'd be seeing that today. Instead we have record and growing debt levels as states, and as a nation.

People need to stop pretending like high migration rates are the silver bullet to all of Australia's woes.

[SBD]

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

Ok so Y is that less houses are being built. What's X?

Even better, do you have a suggestion on how to get more housing built? Highrise apartments/shared living for students?

There is a limit to the amount of housing that can be built which is set by factors such as:
- availability of land
- availability of building materials
- the pace of the supply chain
- availability of adequately skilled builders
- availability of resources to approve buildings

there are likely more factors, however the fact remains you cannot simply speed things up without throwing a massive amount of resources which we don't have at the problem and even then there is a minimum amount of time it takes to traverse the critical path of a project. If you'd ever managed one you'd realise this.

One thing that we can control is demand and demand is directly related to the intake of migration.

There's 200 ha of land near me that was released f or housing by the Rann government to relieve the housing crisis that hasn't been developed yet, so I assume availability of land is not the issue (and Eyre, Playford Alive and Riverlea also have space to grow).
Building materials may be an issue. Apparently feral koalas have taken over one possible source of timber.
I don't know much about the current state of other parts of the supply chain.
Approvals are presumably in the government's control, and I think I saw stats that councils are doing their bits in less than two weeks most of the time.
Skilled builders might be the problem - are the old ones retiring and didn't have succession plans with an adequate supply of apprentices? Did Australia put too much emphasis on degree qualifications and forget about trades?

Migration Program planning levels - ​​​​​​​2023­–24 permanent Migration Program says that 72 per cent of the permanent immigration program is in the skill stream "designed to improve the productive capacity of the economy and fill skill shortages in the labour market, including those in regional Australia."

[SBD]

^
This is called muddying the waters folks.

When one factor changes, lets call it X; and Y is a product of X, and Y changes dramatically...then its a sure thing X is responsible.

Ok so Y is that less houses are being built. What's X?

Even better, do you have a suggestion on how to get more housing built? Highrise apartments/shared living for students?

To continue on the quoted posts, as one was addressed to me. Of course high migration isn't the main reason. But, it is a major contributing factor that is making the situation far worse then it needs to be.
It is having negative domino effects, and those will get worse as time goes on in the next few years.

As to why more houses aren't being built, because the industry is seeing issues, with many builders collapsing.
SBD you have suggested that migrants can help fill that void. Sure. Where are they going to live in the meantime? In tents in building site car parks?

I don't know what the solution to fixing it all is, never have pretended to know. But what I do know, and what should be obvious to everyone that is looking at this situation genuinely and honestly, is that adding hundreds of thousands of more people is not a solution.

There needs to be a massive slowing down in migration intakes. We do not need another 2 million people in the coming years.
We do need more houses for the people already here, we do need better healthcare for the people here already, we do need more and bigger schools for people already here, etc etc etc.
Some of that could be fixed by highly skilled/educated migrants (most aren't, but anyway), but at what cost? That's what is being ignored. The cost to the social fabric of this country.

Sure the government is going to rake in more revenue from taxes and gst. And do what with it? Spend it on more/bigger hospitals, better infrastructure, or supporting the growing number of people on welfare and other support?
If more migrants was going to equate to enough money to cover everything, we'd be seeing that today. Instead we have record and growing debt levels as states, and as a nation.

People need to stop pretending like high migration rates are the silver bullet to all of Australia's woes.

One possible solution for that is that a mass building program could use dongas like a mining site to create a temporary builder village.

Another possible solution is local temporary accommodation. Most of the year, there are plenty of hotel rooms in Adelaide that could accommodate much of the crew for an apartment block or row of townhouses. Once they've built the first block, they can move in and build more. For regional areas, it will need (local and state) government coordination to ensure that the local accommodation is only allocated once - not once for roads, once for mining, once for building, and once for professional services. I had a weekend at Port Broughton late last year. Most of the rooms in the motel were occupied by people working on Augusta Highway upgrades. I presume everywhere closer was full!

I'm not "pretending like high migration rates are the silver bullet to all of Australia's woes'. I'm realistic that Australia has jobs that the current Australian cohort are unwilling, unqualified or unavailable to do. I'd rather encourage people to permanently move than become a FIFO economy.

[rev]

Migration Program planning levels - ​​​​​​​2023­–24 permanent Migration Program says that 72 per cent of the permanent immigration program is in the skill stream "designed to improve the productive capacity of the economy and fill skill shortages in the labour market, including those in regional Australia."

Uhuhhh.
We've heard all this before. "Skilled migration" to fill this or that gap. Yep, right. Because every other time the government has said that's what they'll do, that's exactly how it turned out
Let's pretend that the majority aren't in unskilled/non-higher education related jobs right now, driving uber/uber eats, security, cleaners, orderlies in hospitals. Many of those who have become nurses or carers, did so HERE IN AUSTRALIA through government (tax payer) funded programs.
And the students you keep talking about, many came here on bogus student visas and have rorted the system along the ghost RTO's setup. All aided by the huge surge in "migration agency" firms that have sprung up everywhere.


But I'm sure with a top bloke like Albo in charge, this time for sure 100% you can count on the government that they're not pulling your leg this time.