Liberal senator Dave Sharma calls for immigration to be slashed until housing crisis solved

A new Liberal Party senator has called for Australia’s immigration level to be slashed until housing supply can keep pace with rapid population growth.

A record 518,000 migrants moved to Australia during the last financial year and updated figures due out on Thursday are expected to show even bigger influx for 2022-23.

Dave Sharma, the former MP for the Sydney seat of Wentworth who has revived his political career as a Liberal senator for New South Wales, says immigration needed to be cut until Australia could supply sufficient housing. 

‘The shortage of housing is being exacerbated by high immigration, which is fuelling demand for already limited supply,’ he said in his maiden speech to the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.

‘Until we are able to accelerate the pace of our home building, we need to reduce our immigration intake or else we will simply place further pressure on our housing market.’

Australia’s population growth pace of 2.4 per cent is the highest since the early 1950s.

Sydney’s median house price of $1.396million would require someone to earn more than $200,000 a year to even qualify for a home loan, CoreLogic data showed.

An average-income worker on $98,218 can only afford a house worth up to $639,000, which wouldn’t buy the median-priced capital city house valued at $949,410.

Senator Sharma said unaffordable housing risked causing major social problems. 

‘Today’s younger Australians have done all that we have asked of them,’ he said.

‘They finished school, got a qualification, found a job, are paying taxes yet they find no matter how much they earn or how hard they save, home ownership is beyond their grasp. 

‘This is a breach of our social compact and, if left unaddressed, we are storing up massive problems for the future. 

‘We will undermine social mobility in Australia and entrench inequality.’

With Sydney home to a larger share of new migrants, Senator Sharma said the undersupply of housing was particularly prevalent in NSW. 

‘The failure here is overwhelmingly one of supply,’ he said.

‘Consistently, over two decades, we have simply failed to build enough new homes to meet the demands of Australia’s population, and this problem is especially acute in my home state of New South Wales.’

A record 518,000 migrants moved to Australia during the last financial year and updated figures due out on Thursday are expected to show even bigger influx for 2022-23 (pictured is Sydney’s Wynyard train station)

In the year to September, Australia built 109,322 houses and 60,813 units, Australian Bureau of Statistics building activity data showed.

The 170,215 newly-completed homes would house 425,538, based on an average household size of 2.5 people per dwelling in the last Census. 

The supply of new housing would leave a shortfall of 92,462, based on new migrants.

Senator Sharma pointed out NSW is building just 32,000 homes a year, which is well below the 40,000 level after War World II when Australia was home to 7.4million people, instead of 26.6million people now.

He last year replaced former foreign minister Marise Payne as a Liberal senator for NSW and was previously the Liberal member for Wentworth in Sydney’s east, until he was beaten by teal independent Allegra Spender at the last election in 2022.

Australia’s former ambassador to Israel warned anti-Semitism was a major threat, following the Hamas terrorists attacks on October 7.

‘What we have seen in recent months has clearly crossed the Rubicon and resulted in one community and one community alone — the Australian Jewish community —being made to feel unwelcome in their own country, fearful in their own neighbourhoods and anxious about the future they face here,’ he said.

‘This is utterly unacceptable. It is also incredibly dangerous.’

Senator Sharma said unaffordable housing risked causing major social problems (pictured are houses under construction at Oran Park in Sydney’s south-west)