The Coalition has for months sought to tie overseas migration to Australia's housing crisis, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton using his: "There have been 265,000 homes built in the first 18 months of this government, and how many migrants do you think this government brought in over that period? About 900,000.
Experts said the surge in temporary migration was the result of a pandemic-era backlog, noting that many recent students would likely return home soon and that temporary migrants such as students and working holiday makers generally do not buy houses. It said the net migration total reflected official data for the year to July 2023, with the remaining six months based on unofficial estimates.Both datasets only contained figures up to September 2023 at the time Mr Sukkar made his May claim.
He similarly told Fact Check that a large chunk of temporary migrants were unlikely to remain in Australia for much longer. The dataset's original series shows that over the same 15-month period for which migration data was available, from July 2022 to September 2023, dwelling completions totalled 217,979..". Its preliminary estimates showed there was a rise of 195,800 dwellings over the 15 months to September 2023 — from 10,886,300 to 11,082,100.Viewed this way, total population growth has indeed outstripped the rate at which residential buildings were added under Labor, but by roughly 1.7 times the rate.
According to Professor McDonald, "The persons per household ratio is likely to be somewhat higher for students and working holiday makers, two groups that constitute a sizeable proportion of the new temporary arrivals in Australia".