Melinda Collinson, CEO AMES Australia

Time and again throughout Australian history migrants have been demonised during times of hardship.

In recent months they have been directly blamed for Australia’s housing crisis and used in misleading commentary about the financial struggles of vulnerable Australians.

This is more disturbing than usual because of the strident anti-migration rhetoric coming from some sections of the community.

But a calm, reasoned and evidence-based analysis of these issues shows a different picture altogether.

Recent research by the Australia Institute found the cause of falling housing affordability may not be because of too many migrants, but because of too many tax breaks for investors.

Over the past ten years, housing supply has grown faster than the population. The number of dwellings has increased by 19 per cent, while the population has grown by just 16 per cent.

The research from 2025 shows that during the COVID lockdowns net overseas migration fell. Between March 2020 until September 2021, more than 100,000 more people left Australia than entered it.

If migration affects housing affordability, you would have expected it to improve over this period. But prices rose an astonishing 20 per cent in just 18 months.

Also, a recent report by the NGO Prosper Australia shows the number of homes sitting empty across Melbourne rose sixteen per cent last year, despite the housing crisis.

The ‘Speculative Vacancy’ report found the number of vacant homes across Melbourne rose from 27,408 to almost 32,000, increasing the percentage of empty dwelling from 1.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

The number represents enough dwellings to house everyone on Victoria’s social housing list twice over.

Much of the recent divisive discussion about migration has focused on so called “record levels” of net migration.

This assessment doesn’t take into account the effect of the pandemic. The net migration figure records arrivals and departures, and in 2023 the rate exceeded half a million per year.

But this was a combination of high arrivals of temporary workers and international students who had been unable to arrive during the pandemic, and low departures because those who were here in the pandemic were granted longer stays.

This peak was followed by record lows during the pandemic, when an exodus of temporary migrants saw net migration dip into negative territory. And since the 2023 peak, net migration has fallen sharply, with demographers predicting this will continue.

The very latest migration data from the ABS shows the number of people coming to Australia is stalling with net overseas migration falling to its lowest level since the current government took power.

In the June 2025 quarter, net overseas migration was 50,100 people, representing a decrease of 59,900 people on the previous quarter.

And rather than being a drag on some Australians’ prosperity, migrants are part of the solutions to the economic issues the nation currently faces.

One of these is critical workforce shortages across a plethora of sectors.

The current shortfall of GPs in Australia will rise to around 4,000 in 2028 and to more than 9000 in 2048; and the undersupply of nurses will rise to almost 80,000 by 2035.

Engineers Australia has reported the nation’s engineering skills and labour shortage is at its highest level in a decade.

And Master Builders Australia says 130,000 extra tradies will be needed by 2029 to meet the growing demand for new housing.

The Commonwealth Government’s Jobs and Skills Australia agency has estimated that 67 occupations covered by the ‘Technicians and Trades Workers’ category are in chronic and long-term shortage, representing about a third of all skills shortages across the country.

So, we will need a robust skilled migration program to ensure our economic prosperity into the future.

Among political scientists, Australia is known as a ‘migration state’. These are countries that have been built on migration and see it as a critical part of their economies.

In Australia, migration is part of the nation’s identity and machinery of state.

ANU geographer Professor Alam Gamlen says migration in Australia is pre-political. He says the nation has built a durable system that treats controlled migration as a normal part of society. This steadiness has helped it avoid the populist upheavals shaking other democracies.

“This stability has shielded it from the immigration-driven turmoil seen in Britain with Brexit and in the US with Trump. Though Australia has more foreign-born residents than either, its debates are calmer, thanks to both national identity and long-term state capacity,” he says. 

Economic shocks and rising inequality, energy disruption, polarisation magnified by social media and the digital revolution have undermined democracy and eaten away at social cohesion across the world.

In the face of this, we need to recognise the complexity of what is happening in terms of the crises we face and realise they are not caused by immigration. 

Orderly and regular immigration remains critical to our economy and the real challenge is to better manage issues that lean into migration, so as to ensure that things like housing, infrastructure, trust in institutions, and ultimately social cohesion, are properly aligned.

In atmospheres of fear and discontent, migrants have been portrayed as to blame for societal issues by populists peddling overly simple stories about complex issues.

Australia needs to guard against these false narratives and make a case for the abundant benefits migration and multiculturalism have brought this country.