The growing debate around international students ultimately comes down to a single question: does the government think housing for Australians is more important than education for foreign students?
Labor says it can still do both, but their optimism masks their recklessness. NSW Premier Chris Minns has already waved the white flag on their housing targets, with the state on track to fall well short of their plan for 75,000. And talk of tighter visa restrictions has had no tangible impact on numbers, with four out of five visa applications still being accepted.
Meanwhile, record rental price hikes are fuelling a worsening cost of living crisis, and demand for homelessness services is rising by the day. With the RBA Governor Michele Bullock stating this week that “massive” immigration levels “adds to demand” and has “put big pressure on the housing market.” Thanks, we know.
Despite this, the government has nevertheless baulked at the idea of caps on international students, who make up a major bulk of our intake.
“It would be cutting off our nose to spite our face,” a Labor source told the AFR. But whose face do they mean, Labor’s or Australia’s? Be
As the article explains, the government is “also sensitive to the politics of alienating voters in the large Chinese and Indian communities, whose countries of origin have been the most lucrative source of foreign students.”
Meaning the tragic truth is this: Labor now believes that keeping the international student intake high is more electorally important than actually solving the housing crisis. A sad indictment of Australian politics.
Which might explain the incredible position we find ourselves in. An astonishing 713,000 international students are in Australia – meaning 1 in 37 people in the country right now is a foreign student. Compare this with the USA, whose ratio is closer to 1 in 333, and you realise how markedly different Australia is.
Nobody blames foreign students for wanting a decent education, but with record low housing affordability, maybe it’s time to reassess national priorities.
“I am 27 years old and today I am moving back in with my parents. This is not the plan I had for 27-year-old me.” To see how hard Labor’s immigration intake is hitting younger generations, you simply need to look online.
Reddit posts ranting about ridiculous rent hikes, TikTokers posting teary explainers about living paycheck-to-paycheck, others recording in dismay the dilapidated and overpriced home they’ve been forced into.
It might be tempting for older generations to scoff at young people doing it tough, especially when a loud minority of them protest for policies which actively make us all poorer. But the truth is that for the majority, theirs is one of the first generations to be looking down the barrel of continued downward social mobility; stifled wages, a hostile housing market, and shattered social cohesion. Yes, some of them might pitch tents for Palestine in elite university campuses across capital cities, but elsewhere, an average young battler is asking themselves where they’ll camp if evicted.
The other grand tragedy in the housing-turned-immigration debate is that while a younger voter from the left can find a voice in the likes of the Greens, the average young Aussie doesn’t have a serious political home to get behind. This means that while left wing protest parties now get to push real policy outcomes in Canberra, the young punter’s protest vote fails to translate into any material living improvement. For the young of Australia, political homelessness is now translating into real homelessness.
But there are a number of easy solutions to the housing crisis lying in wait for any enterprising political force.
The first would be to follow the advice of a report by UK think tank Onward, which last month urged the government to ‘slash student visas’, close ‘backdoor’ routes to residency, shift focus away from ‘low quality’ institutions, and lower immigration targets to the ‘tens of thousands’.
The second, and more substantive option, is to double down on offshore study: there are right now 178,000 ‘offshore’ students, studying in ‘Australian higher education courses without coming to Australia.’ Switching to a model that promotes this model will go a long way to freeing up housing, rents and homelessness – and will keep the money coming in.
Labor is right. There is a solution to the current housing crisis – it’s just not what they think. If they don’t want to make the tough decisions needed to solve it, Aussies will find – or form – a group that will.
Jordan Knight is a director of The National Conservative Institute of Australia
First published in The Spectator as “Labor must put young Aussie batters before international students” on 6th June 2024.
