Forty housing and homelessness organisations have warned Australian leaders not to blame overseas migrants for government problems.
Major community services groups across Australia have signed a petition to the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader conveying their concern that new migrants are being inaccurately painted as the driving cause of the housing affordability crisis.
A total of 40 organisations, including National Shelter, the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia (FECCA), wrote the letter in response to “disturbing rhetoric” linking the housing crisis to migration levels.
Maiy Azize, spokesperson for Everybody’s Home and coordinator of the letter, said that it is “nonsense to blame overseas migration as a primary driver of a housing crisis that has been decades in the making”.