Analysts have broken down why the soaring cost of living isn’t the only major change Australia will see after the unprecedented immigration boom.
Australia’s rapid immigration rates could have a significant impact on politics Down Under in the coming years, with new research heralding a hard slog for the Liberal Party.
Australia has just experienced a record influx of overseas immigrants that has both boosted the economy and made it harder on first homebuyers, mainly in the capital cities, boosting the population by 2.4 per cent almost overnight.
Separate annual data released by the ABS for the 2022-23 financial year showed that Australia’s capital cities grew by an unprecedented 517,000 in the year to 30 June 2023.
Melbourne (167,500) led the nation’s population growth last year, followed by Sydney (146,700).
The economic reality of half a million new residents has now set in, and pundits on both sides of the fence are calling for a solution as Australia’s next generation faces a roadblock amid crippling rent rises.
Economists have been sounding the alarm about Australia’s world-beating immigration levels for months now, with population numbers “soaring out of control” at the same time the housing construction industry faces a crisis.
But Kos Samaras, Director at Red Bridge Group Australia, says the impact is more complex than solely the cost of living.
“They’re having quite a profound impact on the way this country is going to be shaped over the next 10 years,” Mr Samaras, who previously worked as Labor’s Victorian Deputy Campaign Director, told 3AW today.
“We have already got, in Melbourne alone, over 60 per cent of the population have a parent who was born overseas.”
Mr Samaras said the lion’s share of new arrivals in Australia are coming from China, India and the Asia-Pacific. The recent spike in permanent residents has now seen that group make up one seventh of the Aussie population.
Citing research conducted by RedBridge, Mr Samaras said 80 per cent of the Indian diaspora in Victoria were more likely to vote Labor.
“That could change over time, as we saw with the post second World War European migrants,” he said.
“Their parents were very, very clear Labor voters. I would argue their offspring are now, very much like every other Australian, largely swinging voters, but most of them actually vote Liberal.”
Source: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/profound-impact-how-australias-immigration-boom-could-reshape-how-the-nation-votes/news-story/0c6c2c3d556d433f6db18ffecff66cb2
