JENI O’DOWD: Temporary reset on migration needed to ease pressure on housing and infrastructure

Tony Burke says migration is the solution. Try telling that to anyone paying rent, stuck in traffic or locked out of the housing market. If this is the answer, a growing number of Australians are starting to wonder what the problem actually looks like.

The Home Affairs Minister made the comment last week in an interview with the India Link podcast, in a statement that felt astonishingly tone-deaf to the reality many Australians are living.

In the interview, Burke also accused the Coalition of “singling out” Indian migrants, referencing Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s controversial comments last year, when she suggested Indian migrants were being brought into Australia because they voted Labor.

In doing so, he risked dragging the debate back into territory it doesn’t belong.

For most Australians, this has never been about where migrants come from. It’s about how many the country can realistically absorb.

Burke himself admitted as much.

“It’s not like you could have unlimited immigration without creating a problem with housing and infrastructure, so we need to make sure that it’s managed and it’s paced,” Burke said.

He’s right. But that’s exactly the problem as infrastructure and housing have not, and are not, keeping pace with migration running well ahead of both.

The Government’s own figures show just how far the numbers have shifted.

The last Budget forecast net overseas migration at 260,000. In reality, it is already running above 300,000, with next week’s update in Tuesday’s Budget expected to revise that figure higher.

In the 12 months to February 2026, net permanent and long-term arrivals were close to half a million people, at 478,910. Over the past decade, migration has added roughly two million people to Australia’s population.

That is an enormous increase in demand for housing, infrastructure and services. It’s two million more people needing, at the very least, somewhere to live, a school for their kids and a hospital for when they are sick.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the upcoming Budget would focus on restraint, rejecting concerns it could add to inflationary pressures.

“We intend to responsibly, carefully wind back spending in the Budget,” he told Sunrise.

But if the Government is serious about winding back spending, it cannot ignore one of the biggest drivers of the demand forcing spending.

Migration does support economic growth and the tax base. But that is only part of the story, and running record migration while promising restraint is a contradiction.

A temporary reset would ease pressure on housing and infrastructure, and reduce the need for rushed, expensive fixes.

The housing situation is so bad that AMP chief economist Shane Oliver has called for migration to be brought back to around 200,000 to allow housing supply to catch up with the estimated shortfall of up to 300,000 homes.

But in the podcast, Burke insisted migration was part of the solution, particularly when it comes to skilled workers and tradies.

“It is true that you need to make sure you are building enough houses … getting the right immigrants is actually part of the solution, not just, not necessarily, part of the problem,” he said.

However, ABS figures show only a small share of skilled migrants end up in construction. So how exactly is migration helping fix the nation’s chronic housing shortage?

This is where the Government’s argument unravels. It says migration must be “managed” and “paced”. But for those looking for a home, or a place to rent, where is that pacing?

Where is the housing pipeline to match these numbers? Where is the infrastructure plan that closes the gap?

Liberal leader Angus Taylor, in stark contrast, argues migration is simply too high, warning of “Labor’s out-of-control migration” and calling for a system that puts “Australian values first”.

“Since Labor came to power, Australia’s migration program has been in chaos. Numbers have been too high and standards have been too low,” he said.

Right now, the numbers continue to rise at frightening levels, while our capacity does not.

And until that changes, calling migration the solution feels less like a plan and more like denial.