Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that prioritise Australians FIRST. Both the Liberal-Labor uni-party have been implementing massive immigration, opening the floodgates despite making Australians homeless.
Australia has reached a record 2.43 million temporary visa holders, excluding tourists, which translates to a need for up to a million extra houses.
During COVID, when our borders were closed, rental vacancies near universities increased, showing that fewer international students mean more homes for Australians. The truth is, some universities and private education/training providers are abusing the system, using student visas as a backdoor for work rights, and eventually staying in Australia permanently. Many on student visas work full-time illegally and send money back home, with remittances hitting a record $11 billion in 2023. The claim that international students are a major export is a lie, as most work to support themselves here.
Until housing and infrastructure catch up, immigration needs to be dropped to zero and we have to ban foreign ownership. You can only trust One Nation to put Australians first.
Transcript
Thank you to Senator Pocock for raising this issue. Australia desperately needs housing and population policies that work for Australians. The Labor government has no coherent or practical policies. Both chiefs of the Liberal-Labor unity party have been implementing massive immigration. It’s essentially: ‘Open the floodgates to arrivals, no matter how many Australians are made homeless.’ We need a policy that does the opposite and puts Australians first.
Australia just hit a record level of temporary visa holders. Excluding tourists and other short-stay visitors, temporary visa holders in the country now number 2.43 million people. This blows the previous record of 1.9 million out of the water. That’s up to a million extra houses needed for these people. And 680,000 of these are international students—another record. This is putting untold pressure on the housing crisis. When the borders were closed during COVID, nearly all suburbs close to universities experienced higher rental vacancy rates. That means that when international students couldn’t come into the country there were more homes available for Australians. Now, who would have thought?
The truth is that some universities and private vocational education and training providers are completely abusing the system. A student visa is more often seen as a backdoor way to get working rights in Australia and eventually staying here forever. Hundreds of thousands of people on temporary student visas end up illegally working full-time hours and sending the money back to their home country. Personal remittance flows out of Australia almost perfectly correlate with the number of student visa holders in the country. On the latest figures in 2023, the transfer of money out of Australia hit a record $11 billion—out of the country. We can only assume that it has increased since then.
A particular lie is being peddled in this debate. That lie is that international students are one of Australia’s largest exports, at $40 billion a year. That figure assumes an international student arrives here on day one with all their money for course fees, rent, food and transport bills, and other spending already saved in their bank account. In reality most students end up working here for the money to support themselves and sending the remainder back home. The claim that international students are one of our biggest exports is simply not true because it is does not align with reality. Until housing and infrastructure catch up, One Nation will drop net immigration to zero.
While I’ve covered much of this material in my Senate speeches, Matt masterfully brings it all together in just 1 hour and 18 minutes. He also makes a powerful point about NSW Labor’s attempts to alter voting patterns to entrench their hold on power. Sly move!
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-29-205224.png?fit=624%2C349&ssl=1349624Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-12-29 20:55:272024-12-29 20:55:31Matt Barrie’s Keynote Speech at the Northern Beaches Liberal Party Event
Australia is in a housing crisis. Tent cities are appearing across the country, from parks and bridges to family cars, as rents soar and home ownership becomes unattainable. I’ve seen these conditions firsthand, and it’s heartbreaking. Since 2020, rents have increased by 40%, and the average house price has jumped to nearly 10 times the average income.
A major driver of this crisis is our turbocharged immigration program. While I value the contributions of migrants—being one myself—the current intake is unsustainable. In 2023 alone, over half a million net migrants arrived in Australia. This relentless surge is straining our housing market, health services, infrastructure, and economy.
The math is simple. With 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, about one million homes are occupied by these individuals. Yet, we’re building far fewer homes than we need, leaving more Australians homeless and without hope. This unprecedented immigration inflates demand, driving up costs in housing, infrastructure, and everyday essentials. High inflation, soaring interest rates, and gridlocked roads are the direct results of this unsustainable growth. Meanwhile, our health system is overwhelmed, and working families are left to fend for themselves.
The government’s solution? More immigration. It’s time to prioritise Australians—our families, our communities, and our future. Let’s address the housing crisis with meaningful reforms, not empty promises.
Transcript
Australia is in a housing crisis—a housing catastrophe. Tent cities are appearing across the country in the way many people have never seen before. I have been to them. It’s disgraceful. In almost every major city in Queensland I’ve been to, the tents are there. People are sleeping under bridges, in caravans, in parks or in their family car. In August 2020, the national average rent was $437 a week. It’s now $627 a week. That’s an increase of 40 per cent over just a few years. In 1987, the average house price was 2.8 times the average income. Today the house price is 9.7 times the income. That’s nearly 10 times. What hope have our children got?
A major driver of the housing crisis is Australia’s turbocharged immigration program. Listen to the facts that I’ll come up with soon, and remember that I’m not against migration. I was born in India; I’m half migrant. Australia has a very proud history of migrants building this country, but at the moment we have too many. Let me give you those figures. Australia’s net overseas migration used to average a bit over 80,000 a year. For the 2023 year, our net intake was an astonishing 547,000 new people. That’s more than half a million new people net. In the nine months to September 2024, 394,000 immigrants were added to the population. That puts us well on track for yet another year of more than half a million arrivals into the country. That’s net. That’s after the people who’ve left have been removed from the count.
Soon after setting Australia’s immigration record last year, Prime Minister Albanese promised he would cut immigration rates. Instead he increased immigration rates and is on track for a second new record in a row. Before 2020 and excluding tourists and short-stay crew, there were around 1.8 million temporary visa holders in the country. Today that number is 2.45 million temporary visa holders in the country, an increase of a third. Using Australia’s average household size of about 2½ people per dwelling, that means temporary visa holders are taking up one million homes. One million homes are unavailable because of this immigration program.
The Master Builders Association’s October housing review shows that, in the 12 months to 30 June this year, only 158,000 homes were completed. So much for your housing policy. That’s less than we needed to cover new arrivals let alone the homeless and those sharing who want their own place. Every year that this Labor government is in power is yet another year Australia’s housing crisis becomes worse. That is why it’s beyond a crisis; it’s a catastrophe. The ALP and the Greens can promise more houses all they like. Houses aren’t built out of rhetoric. When Australians are sleeping on the street we have to stop the flow of more people into the country.
Some of these temporary visa holders have to leave. Let’s start with the 400,000 overseas students who have completed or discontinued their study and have failed the 100-point test necessary for permanent residency. These students are in a limbo which is best solved by returning home and developing their own countries with the skills learnt here. Then there are hundreds of thousands of long-stay visa holders who have failed to learn English and failed to get a job but who nonetheless avail themselves of social security. I’ll say that again: they failed to learn English, failed to get a job and are on social security that the Australian taxpayers are paying for. If someone has been in this country for five years and has failed to earn their own way then their visa must be critically reviewed to determine if Australia is the right place for them. It’s time to put the temporary back into temporary visa holder. Our country is bleeding; stop twisting the knife.
The unprecedented level of immigration isn’t just leading to the housing crisis; 2.45 million extra people add to inflation. Inflation is caused when too much demand is chasing too few goods. It’s really simple, and 2.45 million new arrivals is a lot of new demand. It’s a hell of a lot. The government’s net zero energy policy has driven up power prices—we can all see that— and reduced the capacity of agriculture and manufacturing to meet this demand, leading to demand inflation. It’s a double whammy on inflation. The Reserve Bank has refused to lower interest rates because, as they have publicly stated, this unprecedented rate of immigration is creating so much excess demand, and they have said that reducing interest rates now would cause inflation to worsen. House prices are at highs. Now we’ve got interest rates high. This is a huge catastrophe.
Why is the government doing this? As Senator Hanson said, we’ve been in a per capita recession now for six quarters. We should be in a recession, according to the performance of our economy. The only reason we’re not in a recession is that they’re flooding the joint with migrants to bump up the gross domestic product. You see, a recession is defined as two quarters of negative gross domestic product. So the only thing saving the recession tag from being hung around Prime Minister Albanese’s neck and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s neck is the record immigration coming in to take us over zero so we’re just barely hanging in there. They don’t want to be tagged, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who are in office, when the recession hits. Instead they will let hundreds of thousands of people go without what they need, facing inflation and tens of thousands of people without a home.
Immigration is also affecting our health response. Ambulance ramping is at an all-time high in most states, including in my state of Queensland. It takes time to train paramedics, expand emergency departments and buy new ambulances. The pace of the government’s increase in new arrivals has placed demand on our health system and it simply can’t keep up. Lives are at stake, people are dying, and Labor does not care. It doesn’t care about working families. It doesn’t care about mums and dads working then coming home at night to their family car in a park to see if their kids are still there. That is what this government is doing.
One of the largest budget costs is more infrastructure, especially on roads and transport. These projects are collectively costing hundreds of billions of dollars. The huge demand for infrastructure materials and qualified people is driving up the cost of infrastructure, adding to inflation. Many of these projects wouldn’t be necessary if we didn’t have an extra 2.45 million people in the country. The people coming to work from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, coming to work from the Sunshine Coast, even Caboolture, Burpengary, Morayfield, every day to work in the city of Brisbane are tied up in a car park or are in stationary traffic for hours—their lives just slipping away.
We have people sleeping under bridges. As I said a minute ago, we have a mother and father returning after work to see if the children are still in the car in the park in which they live, or a showground or maybe a tent under a bridge. Australia has the world’s richest reserves of minerals, bar none, and we have people sleeping in tents because the Labor government does not care.
It’s a vicious cycle where the government claims that we can fix the immigration problem with more immigration and that we can fix the housing catastrophe by adding bureaucrats and more immigration—fix housing, the catastrophe, with more immigration.
Australians are sleeping on the street because they can’t afford rent or their mortgage. Meanwhile, a record 2.4 million “temporary” visa holders are in the country, competing with Australians for housing.
Transcript
Chris Smith: I think it’s fair to say to Malcolm that Australia’s immigration program is now officially out of control, and the worst it has ever been.
Senator ROBERTS: Without a doubt. Completely agree with you. We have more than 2.4 million residents, excluding tourist, residents who are not citizens. Excluding tourists. Rent is up 52% in five years. Now, just remember that the Albanese promised, after the last financial year where we got 518,000 net immigrants, by far the largest ever, almost double the previous record, Albanese commented – yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll cut it. Well the rate Immigration is coming in this year is higher than the record from last year. Higher. These people are just telling lies after lies. Lies. And the thing is they’re hiding over a per person per capita recession. They don’t want to be the government that was in place when the recession occurred. They would rather see people sleeping under bridges, in tents, in cars. I mean, working families Chris are going home at night to their kids and sleeping in cars. Where do they shower? Where do they toilet? I mean, we got the richest state in the world, potentially in Queensland, and we got people living under bridges, families, working families. Because the government just wants to look good by lifting up GDP to make sure we don’t have a recession. We would be in a recession now without large scale immigration fudging the numbers.
Chris Smith: Fudging the numbers, that’s exactly what large scale immigration does. It’s terrific to have you on the program. Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you for your time.
Australians are sleeping on the street and the Government doesn’t care.
Hundreds of thousands of arrivals are flowing into the country while we don’t have houses for the Australians that are here.
Rent prices are up 40% and house prices are 10x the average income, completely out of reach for most of Australians. We need to cut immigration, ban foreign ownership, give Australians more savings, introduce some competition to the banking cartel and open up construction as well.
Australians deserve their own home, One Nation will make sure they get one.
Transcript
The housing and rent crisis is a national tragedy. In Australia, one of the richest countries in the world for resources, we have working families homeless, sleeping in their cars or under bridges. In August 2020, the national average rent was $437 a week. It’s now $627, an increase of 40 per cent in just a few years. The national rental vacancy rate is just one per cent—actually slightly under that—far below the three per cent rate that’s considered a healthy market. House prices are out of control. In 1987, the average house cost 2.8 times the average income.
Today, a house costs 9.7 times the average income. This is why there are hardworking Australians sleeping on the street—families on the street. People under 30 have given up hope of ever owning a home, yet we oldies are meant to hand our young people a better life than we had.
One Nation promises to fix this housing crisis for all Australians. We will make the tough decisions that the Liberal and Labor uniparty won’t. Two point eight million temporary visa holders are in the country today, up from 2.3 million pre COVID. That’s an additional 200,000 homes needed for these new arrivals. While Australians can’t afford roofs over their heads, we need some of these people on visas to leave. An Australian can’t buy a house in China, yet foreign investors can buy both new and existing houses here.
One Nation would ban all foreign ownership of residential housing. Australians must come first. We would allow people to use some superannuation to invest in their homes. After all, it’s your money. We will ditch Labor’s facade, its pathetic, bureaucratic Housing Australia programs. Instead, we’ll use the same funds to create cheap 30-year mortgages fixed at five per cent interest to get Australians into homes.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/P3x0fzcDcxM/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-13 13:05:572024-08-13 13:06:02Australians Deserve Their Own Home
Senate Estimates: I asked Senator Watt what was being done to reduce net immigration.
The government’s planned reduction is insufficient. Cutting immigration is not enough. Temporary visa holders need to leave now.It’s time to put Australians first.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: My questions are concise and straightforward, and hopefully the answers will be the same—so that the chair is not disappointed! In the context of the mass release from immigration detention of approximately 150 noncitizens awaiting deportation, how many of these detainees were in fact released as a result of the decision in NZYQ?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I’m very, very sorry: you asked me whether we were talking about migration in outcome 2, and we are, but the matters you’re raising with those questions are relevant to outcome 3, and we’ll be dealing with that tomorrow.
Senator ROBERTS: There you go; you got an early night!
CHAIR: Do you have other questions? I thought there were more general questions about migration numbers. I apologise.
Senator ROBERTS: No.
CHAIR: I’ve listened to so many of your Senate speeches, Senator Roberts. I thought I was pre-empting your questions. But we will be here tomorrow to ask questions of Border Force particularly around those issues.
Senator ROBERTS: And also Immigration, I hope—Home Affairs?
CHAIR: There are other questions that might be relevant to outcome 2. If you want to put them, they might have the officials here for you.
Senator ROBERTS: No, these are to do with the legality of immigration.
Ms Foster: If I can help: because the questions relating to the High Court cover both outcome 2 and outcome 3, we typically try to cover them as a group together so we’re not saying, ‘We can answer a little bit of that and not the rest of it.’ But if there are more general questions on the migration program then we should be able to answer them for you tonight.
Senator ROBERTS: These are more to do with the legalities and what is happening about removing people.
CHAIR: They are related to the same cohort of questions—is that right?
Senator ROBERTS: I think they are.
CHAIR: They are related to the same issues.
Ms Foster: If they are related to the same cohort, it is probably sensible to do them tomorrow as a batch.
Senator ROBERTS: The same cohort and a similar cohort.
CHAIR: It sounds like we will be able to deal with them tomorrow.
Senator Watt: I predict there will be many questions around this issue in the morning. So you will be in good company.
Senator ROBERTS: Perhaps one might be covered off now—the last one I had. For visas requiring accommodation in 2019 it was 1.9 million people; in 2024, at the start of the year, it was 2.3 million plus students at over half a million, plus a higher percentage of non-productive people. Housing demand has been driven through the roof and prices and rents are skyrocketing. We are in a per capita recession and have been for three quarters. Minister, it appears to a lot of Australians that the government does not want to be tagged as the government who took us into recession so it is flooding the country with migrants to avoid a technical recession. Having said correctly that we’ve had three-quarters of a per capita recession, the government, to me, seems to be uncaring about the plight of Australians. In our state’s capital city there are people living under bridges, in cars and in caravans—and I’m talking about working families coming home with their two kids to sleep in a car. I don’t know where they go to the toilet and where they shower. We’ve got it right up the coast—not just in our capital city but right up the coast. The Labor government must remove visa holders. When will Labor resolve the housing crisis and stop the out-of-control and unsustainable growth of Australia’s population? We had 750,000 come in last year.
Senator Watt: I’m not sure that that 750,000 figure is correct, Senator Roberts. But the point really is that the government does believe that migration levels have been unsustainably high. We believe that that is a direct result of the failures of Mr Dutton and other coalition ministers to manage the migration program correctly. That is exactly why we have dramatically reduced the grants of international student visas and that is why we are on track to halve what is known as the net overseas migration figure by next financial year. If you look at the numbers, where they were when we came into office and post-COVID, we are on track to halve that figure by next financial year. I do not think the 750,000 figure is correct, Senator Roberts. What is known as the net overseas migration—
Senator ROBERTS: I wasn’t implying that was net; that was incoming.
Senator Watt: You also have to look at the number of people going out.
Senator ROBERTS: Correct; but 750,000 people coming in is a heck of a lot of people.
Senator Watt: Sure; I agree.
Senator ROBERTS: It is way above the previous record.
Senator Watt: Agreed. As I said, our government believes that migration has been too high. That’s why we’ve taken a range of steps to reduce it, and we are on track to achieve that target. On the point about housing—which is obviously a matter for a different committee—as I pointed out to you before, Senator Roberts, it would really help if we could get your vote in the Senate when we try to spend more money on housing. Unfortunately, so far, you haven’t—
Senator ROBERTS: How many houses have you built, Minister? Zero.
Senator Watt: We have committed about $32 billion worth of funding.
Senator ROBERTS: You have committed how much to housing? You have committed $20 billion to a housing future fund.
Senator Watt: Of the $32 billion that we have committed for housing, $10 billion was for the Housing Australia Future Fund, and unfortunately both you and Senator Hanson voted against that with the coalition.
Senator ROBERTS: We don’t want more bureaucracy; we want tradies to be set loose. That is why we did it.
Senator Watt: But the vote was about creating a housing fund and you voted against it. You voted for less spending on housing.
CHAIR: Senators, I don’t think the question is relevant to—
Senator ROBERTS: How many houses have been built in the last two years?
Senator Watt: You would probably need to go—
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, your question—
Senator ROBERTS: Okay; let’s come back to my question, as the chair is reminding us.
CHAIR: Minister, could you assist me in not speaking over me while I give Senator Roberts some direction. The question you have ultimately ended up asking is not relevant to this committee. That is probably why you have received a response of the kind Minister Watt has given you. If you have more questions in relation to migration, this is the outcome to put them. Otherwise, we will back tomorrow with outcome 3.
Senator ROBERTS: With due respect, Chair, this is calling out Senator Watt because he has not answered my question.
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, you say ‘with all due respect’ and then continue to talk over me when I have given you a direction as the chair to ask a relevant question, or I can give the call to someone else who has relevant questions.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. The question for the minister is the same: when will the Labor government remove visa holders to ease the pressure on housing in this country?
Senator Watt: Sorry; are you saying that we should have zero migration to Australia?
Senator ROBERTS: We should have negative, until we get the housing pressure and the infrastructure to catch up.
Senator Watt: What do you mean by negative migration? Do you mean forcing people to leave?
Senator ROBERTS: More people who leave than come.
Senator Watt: The government’s policy is to halve the net increase in migration or net migration numbers by next financial year, and we are well on track to do that. We agree that we have a housing shortage in Australia. That’s why we’ve devoted so much money towards that project. We also recognise that we have a range of jobs and there are not enough people to fill them. If you speak to any building firm in Queensland, they will tell you they need more people. We are funding a lot of training of locals, but the reality is that we need some level of migration to fill those jobs. If you go to any aged-care facility in Queensland or anywhere in Australia—and I go to one pretty regularly to visit a family member—you will see lots of migrant workers there. Our aged-care system would collapse if we did what you suggested, which is stop migration. So it’s a balancing act to make sure that we don’t have too much migration in this country—as was occurring under the policy settings we inherited from the former government—while still making sure that we can deliver the workforce that we need.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, isn’t it true that, under John Howard’s prime ministership, immigration was dramatically increased and it has stayed high since then under both parties—both Labor and Liberal and National party governments?
Senator Watt: My recollection is that the major change under the Howard government was a big shift towards temporary migration. I don’t know what the overall figures were under the Howard government.
Senator ROBERTS: I think it went from 80,000 to over 130,000. Then it went up under the Rudd-Gillard, and the subsequent LNP governments to over 230,000 net. What are you proposing for next year?
Senator Watt: We are proposing that net overseas migration next financial year would in the order of 260,000.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s still very, very high.
Senator Watt: It’s about half of what it was a year or so ago.
Senator PATERSON: This year?
Ms Foster: In 2022-23.
Senator ROBERTS: Senator Watt, I could say that you are much taller than me. That’s not saying much!
Senator Watt: A competition of the shortest men in parliament! Let’s put Senator Farrell in there as well. Senator Ghosh, do you qualify?
Senator ROBERTS: My point is that 250,000 is still a lot.
Senator Watt: But we’re big in heart, Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: But 250,000 is a lot. It may be half, but it is still very, very high and it is putting a lot of pressure on housing.
Senator Watt: I agree; which, again, is why we—
Senator ROBERTS: Do we agree?
Senator Watt: I agree that migration has been too high and it is putting pressure on housing, which is why we would have really liked your vote for the Housing Australia Future Fund—which is another committee.
Senator ROBERTS: I want to stay on immigration.
CHAIR: Me too.
Senator Watt: There are two parts of the equation. It is about immigration and—
Senator ROBERTS: That’s right: you’re driving up the demand for housing.
Senator Watt: If we had more homes we mightn’t have such an issue with migration numbers. But we don’t have the homes and that’s what we’re trying to fix. But we are halving migration numbers. International student grants in April were down 38 per cent on last year’s levels. We’ve taken a whole range of other actions to crack down on some of the rorts in the migration system that were left behind by Mr Dutton and his colleagues. But, equally, as I say, if you want to have people look after your family members in aged care, they are not all going to come locally. If you want people to build the homes, they are not all going to come locally. If you want people to work in hospitals, they are not all going to come locally. If we actually said, ‘Close the door entirely to migration,’ you will have a lot of people waiting to get into emergency departments and into aged-care homes et cetera.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s the state our country is in right now. Are you going to build 250,000 new homes next year to accommodate the 250,000 new people coming in?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I have given you direction about whether those questions are relevant to this committee.
Senator ROBERTS: How is 250,000 new net migrants a low number simply because it is half of what the previous one was? It’s not; it is a very high number.
Senator Watt: The departmental officials could probably take you through the work that was undertaken to determine that figure. I would be confident that, in developing that figure, they took into account the need to reduce migration and the pressure on the housing system, but also the workforce needs of hospitals, aged-care facilities, construction firms, et cetera. It would be interesting to know what the opposition did to arrive at the various different figures we’ve heard from them. I don’t know if anyone from the opposition here can tell us what their policy actually is.
CHAIR: They’re not here to give evidence, Minister Watt. They are here to ask questions.
Senator Watt: But a lot of work has gone in from the government’s side to come up with the right figure.
CHAIR: Is that the end of your questions, Senator Roberts?
There are 500,000 more temporary visa holders (migrants) in the country than before COVID. That’s an extra 200,000 homes needed just to cater for those arrivals.
Whenever I ask government about their flood of immigration, they claim we’re “just catching up” after the COVID lull. The reality is, temporary visa holders in the country has gone from 2.3 million to 2.8 million.
That’s not a catch up – that’s a new record. While the Treasury Secretary claims they got immigration forecasts wrong by 24%, I cover in a separate video that they actually got it wrong by 120%.
Cutting immigration isn’t enough. We need to start telling temporary visa holders to leave. We won’t get cheaper rent and cheaper houses until this is done.
Only One Nation has the guts to do it and put Australians first.
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator ROBERTS
Senator ROBERTS: My questions are to do with immigration numbers. I want to know whether Treasury got it wrong or if the government isn’t telling us the truth, basically. I’m not going to ask you to decide! Right up and down our coast—and we’ve got a very long coastline in Queensland—we’ve got thousands of people without houses. We’ve got working families going home to their car to sleep. And we’re a wealthy state. There is a statement that has often been made by the government in relation to its high immigration—that we’re just catching up. Pre-COVID, the number of temporary visa holders in the country was roughly 2.3 million. It’s now at 2.8 million. That is 500,000 more people in the country. A lot of them will need a house. We haven’t just caught up; there is a record number of temporary visa holders in the country, isn’t there?
Dr Kennedy: I did some numbers in my opening statement. They’re a little different to yours, but, certainly, the current number was similar. The earlier number that you cited was a bit lower. I’ll find it in a moment. But it has been the case that Treasury significantly underestimated the recovery in temporary visa holders—I pointed that out in my opening statement—in the order of nearly 25 per cent. That is, frankly, poor performance on our behalf. We simply underestimated how many students would flow back into our universities and our higher education sector more broadly, and students were the most significant part of that increase. I just want to add that it’s an incredibly important sector, generating—I possibly won’t have the number quite right—over $8 billion, from memory, in export services. I’ll confirm that number for you. On the question ‘did Treasury get the numbers wrong?’ yes. Temporary migration recovered from the pandemic much more rapidly than we anticipated. It was predominately driven by students. The other thing that’s happened is that they came for the first year of their course and now will stay for three years. Normally we’d have a pattern of the first years coming and the fourth years leaving. We haven’t got that at the moment because they left during COVID. So we’ve got this quite substantial inflow. And, overall, the numbers as you described have comfortably recovered the levels that we were at pre the pandemic.
