During this post-pandemic era, Australia has received an all-time record intake of overseas migration, created an impressive number of new jobs, and our governments have collected a mountain more revenue than ever before.
With that powerful arsenal at our government’s disposal and the so-called timesaving wonders of technology, Australia should now be flush with jubilation and streaking ahead in all the important metrics.
But everything we need now seems harder and takes longer, the national infrastructure pipeline keeps getting cut, and regulators continue to allow far too many of the wrong type of property to be built.
Statistical evidence summarised in this short report reveals the spectacular headlines are an optical illusion.
The books are being cooked!
Not at all by accident, the wrong type of jobs have been created.
Consequently, the Australian public is experiencing declining service standards and longer delays for most essential and discretionary items.
50 percent of what each household earns is now lost to a variety of taxes. That sucks!
They do it through a combination of directly from our salaries, via the goods and services that we buy and the returns on investments we make with our hard-earned money.
Australia has fast become a country wherein the people are servants to the politicians.
Overseas migration
Personally, I could not care less whether Australia’s annual overseas migration intake was zero (0) or the record high of 540,000 achieved in 2022/23.
Over the 4-years since the international border re-opened, Australia’s overseas migration intake was a whopping 1,698,700 (net).
For perspective, it took 200 years for two entire capital cities, Adelaide and Hobart, to accumulate the same combined population as Australia’s net overseas migration in just 4-years.
Surely, the non-negotiable policy framework for recruiting new Australian residents must be that each migrant’s skills compliment our occupation shortfalls, they are of sound character, and they possess an aspirational attitude [just like this wonderful example].
The actual migration volume is irrelevant. If they qualify for the framework, everything else will take care of itself.
Skilled labour
We all heard it… Every day…
The constant government narrative to justify the record-breaking migration intake was Australia’s “…dire need for skilled labour…. we must recruit more construction workers, doctors, nurses, police officers…”
Australia should now have an *abundance* of skilled workers.
With an intake of 1.7 million people, former bottlenecks and delays in every sector should be long gone. And the cost to consumers should have declined (or at least stabilised).
Alas, the public can attest from their own experiences that the opposite is true.
To understand why, I dug up source information, reviewed the official workforce data and compared national employment volumes from 7-years ago (directly prior to the international border closure) to now.
To give you all some clarity, here is a summary of the last 7-years:
- 1,782,000 increase in total jobs (a very similar number to the migration intake)
- 4 industries now have fewer jobs than 7-years ago (manufacturing, wholesale trade, agriculture and media)
- There was a handsome increase in job volumes in ‘Professional Services’ and ‘Finance & Insurance’ sectors
- 67,000 increase in total construction sector jobs (from 1.15m to 1.22m)
- 45,000 increase in total doctors and nurses (from 515,000 to 560,000)
- 37,000 increase in total FTE teachers (from 288,000 to 325,000)
- 7,000 increase in total sworn-in police officers
Hmm…
1,698,770 migrants and 1,782,000 extra jobs, but very few of them are employed in the roles which any responsible migration policy would prioritise.
Oh, wait…
There are 650,000 extra people employed in government jobs (from 2m to 2.65m over the 7-year period).
Any intelligent person would agree that governments are inefficient corporations at the best of times. In this tech age more than ever, public administration job volumes should be declining, not ballooning.
They cooked the books and created an illusional of a ‘healthy economy’ by concocting jobs for absolutely no responsible purpose.
They would have hoped that no one would ever realise the true state of play, including that two of Australia’s 8 capital cities, Canberra and Darwin, now have less jobs in the private sector than 7-years.
Houston, we have a problem!
Plonkers in power are wasting copious amounts of taxpayer’s money on paying for more clusters of humans to sit around creating extra layers of regulations, legislation, compliance and red tape.
Consequently, everything from construction, to manufacturing and all sorts of professional services costs more to produce and takes longer to complete.
Who says: ‘technology improves everything’?
Both businesses and consumers are out of pocket and more frustrated.
Over the last 7-years, the national wage bill for the 3-levels of government boomed from $167 billion to $267 billion.
That’s a 60 percent increase. WTF!
To pay for those extra 650,000 ‘Efficiency Destroyers’, the household budgets of hard-working Australians were, collectively, $100 billion lighter than it should have been last year.
About housing
We have an abundance of land – Sydney is just one small dot on the map of the 6th largest country on the planet.
We also have centuries of home building experience to draw upon.
Related article: Best and worst property markets
There are no excuses (ever) for failing to build the right type and the right number of new homes.
Yet both metrics are embarrassingly bad.
The 1.29 million new homes approved for construction over the last 7-years ending 2025 accommodated a national population increase of 2.62 million.
If we compare that to 2-decades earlier, there were 1.14 million new homes (a similar volume to the current era) but for a much milder population increase of 1.6 million for the 7-years ending 2005.
They housing system is littered with grit [summarised here]!
Research insights: SUBSCRIBE HERE
Meanwhile, Australia’s rental pool began the 7-year period with 76,000 advertised properties for tenants.
The national population subsequently increased by 2.7 million people, yet tenants are now competing for just 41,000 advertised properties.
For buyers and renters, our housing needs will take care of themselves ‘if’ Australia has sufficient skilled labour, an efficient regulatory process and minimal property taxes.
The last new city built in Australia was Canberra. That was 110 years ago, when the total national population was just 5 million.
The most overlooked housing faux pas of all is the multi-layer government failure to protect community-building policies that have been a key pillar underpinning Australia’s global success in the post-war era.
Over the last quarter of century, government obsession with high-density living has become so out of control that circa 50 percent of all new homes built in many of our bigger cities are ‘attached dwellings’.
Truth be known, for 85 percent of existing and wannabe owner-occupiers, a proper home is more than a roof and four walls. It is a detached dwelling with oodles of living and storage space, is situated on one’s own patch of terra firma of 600m2 or more and has a direct connection with natural elements.
The indisputable evidence of ABS data proves that bugger all owner-occupiers buy apartments and townhouses.
Regardless of the affordability benefits of apartments compared to houses, the most densely populated communities in Australia have pathetic homeownership rates of between 20 and 60 percent.
My research of demographic data proves those communities are littered with poorly performed apartment assets owned by ill-informed property investors and predominantly occupied by overseas migrants.
You earn it, they take it and waste it
The plonkers take more taxpayer’s hard-earned money than is required to fund all essential services and the infrastructure that should be expected of a global leading nation.
According to the latest data, government revenues increased by a whopping $37.4 billion in 2024/25.
That money came from our pockets!
Of the record $840 billion tax revenue in 2024/25, $675 billion (or 80 percent) was collected by the Feds and $165 billion by state and local governments.
Within that, $150 billion came from property taxes to the 3-levels of government.
And they most definitely are not using that money build homes. 98 percent of new properties built each year are funded by the private sector, not governments.
Invest with the best: CONTACT US
There is no doubt that government’s Number 1 priority for housing is raising revenue to feed their spending addiction.
Just imagine how much better off every household would be if the money wasted on 650,000 jobs for ‘Efficiency Destroyers’ was retained in household pockets.
I’ve done the math for you: $100 billion spread evenly to 11.5 million households equates to $8,700 – each year!
The plonkers keep wasting countless more billions on ‘consultants’, conferences and political junkets.
Also, the public would be horrified if they saw an itemisation of last years’ $50 billion NDIS expenditure.
Ditto for countless major projects across Australia which ‘conveniently’ get awarded to union-controlled developers.
The jobs and revenue stream for those major projects and NDIS follow much the same model as the aforementioned public sector workforce blowout.
With loot worth $840 billion last year alone, there should be no reason to postpone nation-building infrastructure projects like the Inland Rail Project and countless highway and hospital upgrades.
Visionary leadership and responsible use of taxpayer money should see exciting investments in more world class stadiums and in developing new cities with plenty of the proper homes that Australia first became famous for.
Now what?
Is it just me who believes life in Australia today is unrecognisably different to what made us great?
Australia has fast become a country wherein the people are servants to the politicians.
For those who aspire it, Communism and Socialism is found in other parts of the world.
The best country in the world is one with a free economy. And where governments support and serve the public, not the other way around.
Once upon a time, Australia continually advanced as a nation by encouraging society to adopt an aspirational attitude.
The great ‘Land Down Under’ once stood for rewarding effort and supporting those who had a preparedness to take educated risks [turn the clock back to here].
There was a time when small businesses were supported, as opposed to burying them in bureaucracy and taxes.
Support and encouragement enabled them to grow their workforce, to develop more services, to improve delivery times and to innovate new products.
Now, many who might have had ambition to accomplish anything has no confidence to make a start.
Those that do get taxed to the max and treated like villains.
Australia is now in a self-inflicted downward spiral.
I find this… disturbing, infuriating, dream-destroying, bewildering, sad.
Propertyology are national buyer’s agents and Australia’s premier property market analyst. Every capital city and every non-capital city, Propertyology analyse fundamentals in every market, every day. We use this valuable research to help everyday Aussies to invest in strategically-chosen locations (literally) all over Australia. Like to know more? Contact us here.
