Tony Burke, the minister for Home Affairs, Immigration, Cyber, and the Arts, during Question Time in Canberra, Australia on Oct. 9, 2025. Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images
A change of just 0.1 people per household can mean Australia needs another 450,000 homes.
That is the striking figure Immigration Minister Tony Burke used to explain Australia’s housing crisis even after building homes faster than its population has grown.
Burke’s address outline the Labor government’s sweeping changes to Australia’s migration policy, which includes big cuts to backpacker numbers, the families of international students, and tighter restrictions to stop study- and visa-hopping.
The minister made the point that migration policy was only part of the solution, and said the Australian population since the Hawke Labor government had increased 75 percent, while the number of homes was up 100 percent.
“How on earth did we end up with a housing problem if they’re the stats?” Burke said.
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“And the answer is really simple. Back then … the number of people per household was 2.9. It’s now 2.5.
“Every time we get a 0.1 change—a 0.1 change in the number of people per household, we have to find an additional 450,000 homes.”
Yet analysts say there were issues relying on a “person per household” stat.
Graham Young, executive director at the Australian Institute for Progress said the country’s ageing population and low fertility rate, meaning less children per household, contributed to the stat.
“If he’s serious, what does he propose to do to increase the number of people per household?” Young told The Epoch Times.
“The fact is that the building industry is geared to meet the need as it is defined and exists in the present, not the past.”
Young said there was little government could do about ageing or birth rates, but controlling migration was a major lever.
It’s a point shared by finance expert Shane Shmuel.
“How can [the minister] say the housing shortage ‘is not caused by immigration,’ and then says immigration needs to ’soften enough that housing has a chance to catch up,’” he told The Epoch Times.
“If migration levels needs to reduce to give housing supply a chance to catch up, then migration levels do affect housing. It is basic supply and demand economics.”
Independent economist Saul Eslake said Burke’s statement made sense, but it was a “little bit more complicated than he laid out.”
Eslake said during the Hawke era, a larger portion of population growth was driven by births compared to migration, which means there’s a tendency for more people to live in a household due to children.
In recent years, net overseas migration has accounted for around two-thirds of total population growth.
Meanwhile, he said recent population growth was driven largely by international students, temporary migrants and backpackers, who tended not to be here alone.
“That’s one of the things driving the decline in the average number of people per household that the minister referred to—although it is not the only factor,” he said.
Eslake also said issues like increased divorce rates and older people living alone after the death of a spouse were factors.
