Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many Australians are concerned about housing affordability in our nation. The government has suggested that the issue could be tackled by cracking down on foreign buyers of Australian homes. This is a theme that has been getting traction in the media in recent times. Indeed a recent article in the Herald Sun titled 'It's not racist to point out home truths' claimed Asian buyers were making property unaffordable in Australia. The article even made the extraordinary claim that:

… Australian-born children are outnumbered 10 to one by newly arrived Chinese students—

in some Australian schools. This is frankly nonsense. I challenge the author to name just one Australian school that fits this description. My electorate is one of the most diverse in Australia, and I do not know of a single one.

On the broader claims made in this article, the RBA has stated that 'Foreign residential purchases do not appear to have a major presence in the Australian property market' and that 'the degree of competition with foreign buyers is still likely to be fairly small'. Most disturbingly, this article frequently conflated foreign nationals and Asian-Australian citizens, drawing a distinction between 'Australian born children' and 'new residents' and the 'newly arrived'.

As we engage in a citizenship debate that has been kicked off by the Prime Minister, it is important that a country like Australia recognises that where someone is born is irrelevant to their Australian citizenship. We do our Asian Australian community a great disservice when we allow ourselves to buy into this kind of baseless scaremongering, and we distract ourselves from the very real issues in the Australian housing market.