Q: Last year 206,000 working holiday-makers came to Australia. Yesterday Bridget McKenzie said no cuts to working holiday makers. At this point do you concede it is now mathematically impossible for you to reach your migration cuts or will you reduce working holiday makers?
Peter Dutton:
No, we have been clear in relation to migration. We have had a population boom under the Prime Minister and that is why the young Australians are locked out of the housing market. The Prime Minister lied about it before the election. He brought in a million people over two years. Bear that in mind, when has ha happened in our country’s history before? It hasn’t. It is a 70% increase on any 2-year period in our country’s history. Understandably, those people want homes when they get here. The supply of housing has been crunched because of the CFMEU.
Q: I am not disputing the numbers. I am interesting you about your planned cuts to migration. Will you cut working holiday makers or can you not reach the targets?
Dutton:
We are going to reduce permanent migration by 25%. We are going to reduce the figure by 100 thought relative to where Labor’s is. We will take advice from the department of Treasury and finance and the central agencies about the settings within the economy and what we need to do.
One of the things we have done to increase labour supply into the market is to allow pensioners and veterans who are on a pension, if they chose to do so, to work for hours without it effecting their pension.
That will replace some of the international labour that people are relying on at the moment. We have thought it through carefully. Our policy is to cut migration and stop foreigners from buying Australian homes so we can get young Australians into homes more quickly.
I have said, and I am serious about the fact I want to be the Prime Minister for home ownership.
The Prime Minister has crushed the dreams of millions of young Australians. Young Australians are putting off having kids and older Australians are putting off retirement because they need to stay in the work force longer to help their kids save a deposit or make their repayments. We will have more to say in relation to the settings.
Cutting migration is not going to make houses more affordable, or increase supply to the point of lowering rents. It is a fantasy.
1 Comment
Of course those immigrants become Australians, would Dutton then keep them from buying houses? Maybe an alternative would be to stop speculation on property prices, so that people will stop increasing rental prices so that property speculators can get rich.