Australia’s cost-of-living crisis isn’t caused by migrants. It’s the result of inequality-driven policy — and scapegoating is making it worse. Carl Rhodes reports.
AUSTRALIA ENTERS 2026 in deep economic unease. Prices remain high, wages have barely moved, and the housing crisis shows no sign of easing. Against this backdrop of frustration and uncertainty, immigration has emerged as a political pressure valve.
A new chapter of racial politics is unfolding, in which immigration serves as an outlet for public anger and where long‑standing racial anxieties are resurfacing. Central to this shift is the populist political manoeuvre of blaming migrants and migration for the economic problems facing Australians.
It was into this climate that Treasurer Jim Chalmers released Australia’s 2025 Population Statement, emphasising that net migration had come in below forecast. His announcement landed in a country where immigration has become a lightning rod for broader fears, and where racialised politics is increasingly, and dangerously, shaping public debate.
As Joseph Stiglitz has argued, inequality is not an accident of the market but a policy choice. Yet instead of confronting the policies that have widened the gap between wealthy Australians and everyone else, political energy is being directed at scapegoating newcomers. That diversion is a fatal distraction from the real crisis: the lack of political will to tackle entrenched inequality.
When extremism enters the public square
Tensions around immigration built through 2025. Nationwide anti-immigration rallies became a flashpoint, with migrants blamed for everything from the cost‑of‑living crisis to the supposed erosion of Australian culture.
The language used at these events, and in much commentary, drew heavily on old racist tropes: foreigners taking ‘our’ jobs, threatening ‘our’ values, and putting strain on services. Some went further, calling for a ‘remigration’ program to deport legal migrants. Economic frustration was transformed into cultural fear in a manner that was divisive and manipulative.
At one rally, neo‑Nazi activist Thomas Sewell was invited to speak on the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House. Cheered by the crowd, he urged Australians to unite in a ‘fight with people that hate this country’, warning that ‘if we do not stop immigration, our death is certain’. It was a stark example of how extremist rhetoric is being given space in today’s public square.
Meanwhile, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation continued to rise in mainstream popularity, casting population growth as a strain on housing, infrastructure and services, while portraying migrants as the source of stagnating wages and slipping homeownership. This is no longer fringe politics. When the Australian Financial Review asked voters which party was best placed to handle key issues, One Nation topped the list.
The real crisis isn’t migration, it’s inequality
The cost-of-living crisis is undeniably real. Ordinary Australians face stagnating wages, rising prices, and runaway housing costs. Research released by The Smith Family shows that four out of five families are worried about affording basic school supplies. For the second year in a row, cost of living is the leading concern among young Australians.
But these pressures do not justify turning migrants into convenient villains. Blaming them for structural problems is a familiar pattern in Australian history and a destructive hallmark of modern populism. The crisis is economic, but the politics surrounding it are increasingly racialised and racist.
The populist attack on migration also refuses to acknowledge migration’s vital role in sustaining the economy. As Chalmers noted, a key force shaping Australia is a rapidly ageing population. More Australians are entering retirement while birth rates fall. Without working migrants, the burden of funding services for an ageing population would fall on a shrinking workforce of existing Australians.
Migration has preserved, not threatened, the Australian way of life.
Policy, not prejudice
If inequality fuels reactionary populism, the remedy is not racially motivated politicking but the kind bold policy reform. The cost of living crisis is not the result of migration, it is the result of decades of bipartisan support for neoliberal economic policy that has led to the massive accumulation of wealth by the very rich at the expense of everyone else.
The biggest culprits are negative gearing that enables high‑income earners to more easily buy multiple properties; capital gains tax discounts that reward asset income over wages; an inadequately progressive income tax that limits the spending power of working people; superannuation tax concessions skewed to the wealthy; weak wealth taxation; and the absence of inheritance tax.
On top of that, de-unionisation has weakened workers’ bargaining power, public housing has been neglected, and less wealthy Australians have poorer access to education and childcare.
Changing these settings by reforming tax concessions, rebuilding public housing, strengthening collective bargaining and investing in equal access to education would reduce inequality and ease the pressures that feed xenophobic politics. Reducing immigration will only make it worse.
Australia is a wealthy country. That so many people are struggling is not inevitable. It is the result of political choices that have favoured asset‑owners over wage‑earners and protected wealth instead of opportunity.
Inequality is a policy outcome, not a natural condition. Until Australia finds the courage to confront those choices, the economic strain felt by millions will continue, no matter how loudly migrants are blamed for problems they did not create.
Carl Rhodes is Professor of Business and Society at the University of Technology, Sydney. He has written several books on the relationship between liberal democracy and contemporary capitalism. You can follow him on X/Twitter @ProfCarlRhodes.
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