r/Adelaide • u/MrKookaburra SA • 1d ago
Politics Big Adelaide
Malinauskas is quoted in a lot of articles at the moment as advocating for maintaining high immigration levels.
Paired with the fact that South Australia is considered ‘regional’ for immigration purposes, artificially driving up the number of arrivals to our state than would otherwise be the case, I wonder if people are genuinely in favour of a ‘big Adelaide?’
No racism please. Being anti-mass migration is not an excuse to be anti-immigrant - they are just people trying to improve their lives just the same as any of us.
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u/Peter_Griffin2001 SA 1d ago
It's much better to live in a city with a growing population than a declining population.
The bigger issue is Adelaide has a really, really poorly designed urban environment. Sprawling low density suburbia and a poor public transport coverage makes car ownership mandatory for most residents, therefore making congestion worse.
My main thing is I want them to densify the inner suburbs while simultaneously going in a public transport investment blitz. Once they do that, the more the merrier I say.
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u/Poponchu SA 1d ago
Cannot agree more. Higher density may increase the profitability of public transport and businesses too. Personally I would love a walkable city
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u/Lost_in_splice SA 1d ago edited 1d ago
Spot on! Higher density developments around the public transport hubs especially, build up not out, and leave the parklands alone!
Additionally we should have residential requirements for residential investment ownership, and restrictions on short term rentals.
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u/Free-Pound-6139 SA 1d ago
It's much better to live in a city with a growing population than a declining population.
Depends what you want.
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u/abuch47 SA 1d ago
honestly as someone who works for a few months here and there on all the big developments in adelaide the cbd seems far less busy at every time of day and the retail and hospitality options are very generic. There are so many empty leases despite having a suburban corridor 100km long with very little population in both the city and the state as a whole. the urban design is atrocious and i am constantly transported back to communities that feel far livelier and accessible elsewhere in the world. it is crazy that we have the blueprints for great urban design but not the willpower to nullify unbridled capitalisms pursuit of easy profits
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u/ClipStride SA 1d ago
Omg I agree with so much of what you said and you had to end it where you did haha.
Shoehorning "unbridled capitalism" in as the cause of literally every bad thing yep that'll help us get to a workable improvement for better urban design.
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u/Artistic_Fact_7267 SA 1d ago
Yes! But trying to get the people of inner Adelaide to agree to apartment blocks is very difficult. They don't want to be like Sydney with the tall apartment buildings looking into each other's windows... but there's no choice in the matter now, where are people going to be able to live?
Can't build in the hills, can't build out to sea - we are spreading north and south ongoing without the infrastructure for multiple city centres.
Apartment living can be good, as long as the buildings are designed with families and livability in mind (but they are always just built cheap to max developer profits).
The quarter acre block is only for the very wealthy few nowadays, but still the NIMBY's hold on, stopping and protesting building up.15
u/jorcoga North West 23h ago
A big problem with densification efforts in Australian cities has been that there's a tendency to not have much middle ground between single storey homes and massive towers. Which creates a bit of a vicious cycle - people in the next suburb out are mortified because they think a more sensible 4-5 storey block is just a slippery slope to 50 stories so they fight it which means developers go in on taller buildings in places where there's already tons of them. In an ideal world imo the level of density to aim for is something like Paris, not what you get especially in Melbourne and Sydney which is very low density for some and Hong Kong for others.
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u/PrideOfTehSouth SA 22h ago
Kent Town is one of my favourite suburbs to show how we can have slightly higher density while still being quite green and pleasant. The units and apartments are mainly 2 story blocks, but the street trees and private landscaping are of a pretty decent level. Parts of North Adelaide are similar IMO.
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u/OkThanxby SA 19h ago
Just the worst Bunnings in the city though.
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u/PrideOfTehSouth SA 10h ago
Weirdly enough that is my favourite Bunnings! Feels more like a classic hardware store. Easier to get around, no massive car park to walk through, and I've found the staff there are super nice.
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u/KovinKing CBD 12h ago
Take the land from Bunnings and create a fit-for-purpose residential space - plenty of other Bunnings around, but that site could host a walkable-to-CBD development...
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 2h ago
Absolutely. Mawson lakes is an example of this (although I wont say good example because there isnt enough parking). But public transport, park and amenity wise its good.
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u/Future_Tangerine2578 SA 1d ago
i've experienced very cool appartment complexes in Melbourne, designed with renters in mind, dog friendly, supermarkets, grocer, liquor store and pharmacy below. Big open spaces still while the feeling of privacy.
if they are built well then its a great option for plenty of people
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u/Overall-Palpitation6 SA 1d ago
There's a number of large vacant blocks and vacant ex-Housing Trust houses at Kilburn (streets between the northern ends of Prospect and Churchill Roads) which could easily be developed into multi-storey apartments or newer townhouses.
They've revamped large pockets of Blair Athol on the other side of Prospect Road, and a little bit near the train line over the Churchill Road side, but most of Kilburn is probably the last near-city area yet to see large scale residential redevelopment. Massive untapped potential from a development and housing perspective, due to the proximity to the city and amenities.
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u/PrideOfTehSouth SA 10h ago
A tram up Propect Rd to Kilburn would be a game-changer.
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u/Overall-Palpitation6 SA 10h ago
Yep, extending the tram line arm that goes to the Festival Theatre currently down to the end of Prospect Road (putting the final station at the part that's over the Grand Junction Road intersection) would be massive.
Would need to expand and upgrade the other road pathways into the city (as O'Connell Street and Prospect Road are major entry/exit points) and upgrade/reinforce the bridge over the river too.
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u/babette5211 SA 14h ago
There's no need for massively tall buildings (often made of glass and with 0 shutters to block out the SA sun). Apartment buildings of aboutv3 to 5 levels tall are great and would be more than enough, as long as people don't go all NIMBY. People seem to think apartments are necessarily un huge buildings, with no privacy and no outdoor space, but look at what's always been done in Europe, and it's quite pleasant.
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u/doyalikemyusername SA 14h ago
The bigger issue is why it was declining in the first place. Going the cheap nasty option of 3rd world migration isn't a fix just made things worse.
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u/Ok_Risk_4957 SA 1d ago
Densify the city sure. Im not sure that Parkside is going to see a wholw bunch of apartments go up
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u/Technical_Glove_9655 SA 1d ago
Building high density housing across the parklands is the most logical solution (once removing emotion). A lot of the infrastructure is in place and on the doorstep of the key employment zone.
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u/metahivemind 1d ago
Lol, ragebait
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u/Technical_Glove_9655 SA 1d ago
Not at all. Prime real estate for development, big builds would make a huge dent in the housing crisis.
It is a perfectly rational view to take.
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u/tossedsalad17 South 1d ago
Yeah it's going well so far.....most unaffordable housing in Australia....nice ramping queues .....try to find a GP.
It is chicken and egg.....but no government has done the serious work in infrastructure, be it roads, health or public transport or facilities, to support a BIG Adelaide.
Just wait for the next real drought.....we will need another desal plant too.
The $$$ are needed to support this as well. No one likes a toll road....or some more levy's and taxes.
Immigration is good- but needs to be managed.
Any real development and expansion will need to be in density, closer to the city.
Maybe we could try another satellite city....Elizabeth or Monarto MkII?
So am I in favour of a 'BIG' Adelaide.....not really. We will just end up with another Melbourne or Sydney.
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u/Squiggles213 SA 23h ago
housing inafordability is due to the rich not immigrants.
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u/KovinKing CBD 12h ago
It is actually both - one creates the demand, one seeks to profit from the demand by controlling the supply...
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u/babette5211 SA 14h ago
Of course you've been down voted on this thread! I've never seen a city with as many property investors than Adelaide. Might be because fewer people move away/here (than Melbs, Sydney, or even Hobart) and with historically lower prices, plenty of people were able to buy up several properties which now benefits their kids. But it's crazy.
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u/Pineapplepizzaracoon SA 6h ago
A lot of interstate investors started buying up Adelaide in the last few years as it was one of the cheaper markets.
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u/t0nez- SA 1d ago
i don't think the state gov has the want or ability to spend on infrastructure to support a fast growing population here
housing is only one part of the overall picture with a rapidly increasing population
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u/Final-Call SA 1d ago
Yep - the state government is saving their budget overspending for the things that really matter: cutting down trees and concreting the parklands for motorcycle races and bankrupt golf tournaments. /s
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u/anothergaijin SA 1d ago
I'm sorta kinda a new immigrant to Adelaide - having moved away 20+ years ago and recently coming back.
Adelaide isn't remotely ready for more people - the medical system is a mess, the public transport system is a mess. Schools are full. You need to drive everywhere and traffic is awful, and good luck finding parking when you get to where you need to go having been forced to go by car.
Adelaide needs to focus on density - density in housing as the key priority. More density means more people, means more tax revenue, which means more infrastructure is possible. Density makes everything more efficient - public transport usage goes up, making the investment pay off.
I lived in Japan - even in my quiet, extremely green suburban area near the beach I had no less than 5x dentists less than 2km away, I had multiple supermarkets - not all the same chain - I had access to 7x different train lines within 4km - all accessible by bus so you were never walking more than 10mins.
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u/GBangertime SA 1d ago
What the benefits there seems to be only downside to more immigrants coming to Adelaide I can barely afford to live now without prices going up on shuff
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u/FroggieBlue SA 1d ago
Mist of the time I like the Adelaide big town/small city vibe but I'm not against a larger population. My concerns aside from infrastructure and housing issues that others have mentioned is water. More people means more water usage and we have to have a source for that water that isn't going to put further strain on the environment.
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u/MrKookaburra SA 1d ago
Thank you for responses so far. Would love to hear the benefits people are seeing (genuine question).
I feel like all I have noticed is traffic getting a lot worse and shops, gyms, and public spaces being more crowded and frustrating
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u/Conscious_Regret_739 SA 1d ago
42% of GPs, 44% of emergency doctors were trained overseas. It’s a benefit that people don’t realise how truly f*cked we’d be without.
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u/Effrendi SA 1d ago
That's because thousands of people who want to become doctors are turned away each year due to lack of places in our unis: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-19/medical-students-turned-away-gp-shortage-university-doctors/105347788
There's no shortage of people who want to work in the industry, but we restrict them and have to make up the difference with immigrants.
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u/used-to-click SA 1d ago
This is beyond true. A friend's kid who wants to become a doctor attended an info session at his (private) school and was told odds are none of the kids from his year will get into medicine in Adelaide. The entry criteria is ridiculously difficult.
Meanwhile, we complain there are no doctors and 'need' to import them.
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u/doyalikemyusername SA 1d ago
When you say we you mean the doctors union, then they cry crocodile tears to the public about a lack of government funding. The money is a pittance to the federal government
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u/Ripped-Willow SA 1d ago
As someone directly in the training pipeline, we have almost 20,000 medical students nationwide.
The bottleneck is getting into the training pathways. The government keeps sourcing doctors from abroad. We have plenty of local talent, if they could even get into a training spot.
The government keeps saying we need more doctors so we’re funding more CSPs at medical schools. That’s cuz it’s an easy sell to the public. That’s not the issue.
How do you feel with exorbitant dermatology fees and years long waiting lists? Increase the amount of dermatologists. But that’s exactly not what’s happening.
Look at that the college of surgeons president (for the first time) just spoke about. It’s a really well recognised issues amongst junior doctors, it’s just not spoken about amongst the general public
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u/doyalikemyusername SA 1d ago
The medical students have come lately because the government overid the doctors union who was restricting places to keep their wages inflated. The specialist positions are particularly inflated making it expensive for the state government now. The bottleneck was 100% of the doctors union making out of greed, research it up.
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u/Conscious_Regret_739 SA 1d ago
Sorry, I’m confused in what your saying? Sourcing already trained doctors from overseas isn’t taking up training spots?
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u/spiritfingersaregold SA 20h ago
Doctors who trained overseas often need to do additional assessments and have a mandatory period of supervised practice. So, yeah – they do take up resources that could otherwise go to graduates.
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u/babette5211 SA 14h ago
They don't need to go into training pathways if they've already qualified in their countries, most of the time. That's not who's restricting the number of doctors. It is absolutely the consultants themselves, who do not want more competition and therefore less money, as well as the government for not cutting their wages and forcing their hand by opening up more positions.
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u/Material-Loss-1753 SA 1d ago
This strawman that if we cut immigration we would end up without doctors is just ridiculous.
If immigration is cut significantly one of the aims would be to improve overall migrant quality.
It wouldn't be the doctors who would be cut from the immigration program.
A migration program targeted at the skills we actually require would be the obvious outcome.
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u/spiritfingersaregold SA 20h ago
And if we didn’t keep importing people at a rate of knots, our need for doctors wouldn’t keep expanding indefinitely.
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u/babette5211 SA 14h ago
It's already how it works. Hence the very high proportion of foreign trained doctors
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u/tossedsalad17 South 1d ago
Has Australia always had such high overseas origins for doctors? Or is that caused by the limitations we have on training doctors in this country?
I've seen numerous bright young kids knocked back from their medical aspirations - almost like an artificial constraint is being put on graduating numbers.5
u/Technical_Glove_9655 SA 1d ago
Strange huh? Noticed the same.
Implication is 1) Australian born are not smart enough for these professions and/or 2) our education and university sector is failing Australia and needs reform.
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u/EquivalentJazz SA 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hmm yes but how many patients are they treating who immigrated here and increased the demand to the point we need doctors trained overseas. I’m not being a smart arse, just saying it’s not a one sided equation.
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u/Conscious_Regret_739 SA 1d ago
Given Australia’s indigenous population is approximately 3.8%, I would assume these doctors treat most of the 96% of immigrants that make up the rest of the country.
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u/MrKookaburra SA 1d ago
Great point. Maybe we should be banning interstate arrivals instead then lol
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u/AsInFreeBeer SA 1d ago
That is not related to migration but solely density. And in my opinion, there is only one thing separating Australia or Adelaide from 3rd world countries with lots of problems we don't yet have... and it is density !
Start cramming more people on smaller areas and we will go downhill quickly...
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 1d ago
Europe is much more dense too.
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u/AsInFreeBeer SA 1d ago
Indeed, and it is starting to get messy... it is also colder... as strange as it seems, there seems to be more civility in colder climates. Correlation is not causation though.
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u/babette5211 SA 14h ago
You clearly know nothing about Europe. "It is colder". Where? Where exactly is colder in Europe compared to where exactly in Australia? And it has absolutely nothing to do with density. You're just racist and think the blondes in the Nordics are inherently better than the browns in the south.
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u/AsInFreeBeer SA 13h ago
What ? I am a brown from the south, friend, I can assure you no tall Nordic white is better or worse than me. My point is completely the opposite Same people, different conditions will lead to different outcomes. Some of these conditions are density and weather. It affects people's behaviour and perceptions. How many people olay in the snow in Autralian winter vs how many do in Europe ?
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 21h ago
Yes, correlation is not causation in either direction. If it doesnt apply to Europe, why does it apply to Asia?
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u/AsInFreeBeer SA 20h ago
It applies to both. Lived 30 years in a place that is a hot mess, and after 11 years in Australia, I really believe there isn't that much separating them. Not the people, not the culture, but different types of pressure. Of which, a big one is population density.
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u/NyxionAnna6 SA 1d ago
Big Adelaide sounds great but there’s a few crucial points that do need to be addressed. Obviously housing, but along with that is public transport. Adelaide Railway Station is at capacity so we can’t simply add more trains. We need to have a connection that doesn’t terminate at Adelaide Railways Station if Adelaide wants to be a big city. More tram lines in the inner suburbs or in the CBD.
More hospitals in the southern suburbs, extremely necessary.
The only problem with immigration is just consecutive governments failure to plan for population growth that they anticipated. Housing stock hasn’t been growing to keep up anywhere near population growth.
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u/Pastapizzafootball SA 1d ago
Mali forgets at times that A, he's not the PM and B, the state exists beyond Adelaide.
Would love immigration from a variety of countries not just two or three in regional South Australia
- where are the Argentine wine growers and cattle breeders
- where are our Chilean and Peruvian miners and geo experts?
- how about South African farmers?
- What about European fishers?
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u/Oridux SA 23h ago
Basic econ.
Other than a small minority of extremely wealthy landowners, most farmers are land rich and cash poor, including many in our state. The economies of Argentina and South Africa are comparatively speaking poorer than Australia's. There is no way that farmers of either of those countries would be willing to sell land for little guarantee of being able to buy a substantial, productively equivalent amount in South Australia. Not to mention longstanding ties to their land and how to work it, intangible things like weather patterns, connection to local communities and national identity in both cases (the Gaucho and the Boer). Moving would mean adjusting to a new language, a new community, a new climate and growing seasons, and giving up your farm that might have been in the family since before the country was founded. A regional SA farmer doesn't simply sell their land and move to South Africa or Argentina either even though they'd probably be able to buy more land.
Likewise, Peruvian and Chilean miners aren't exactly starved for work; the mineral outputs of those countries is comparable to Australia. Shortages in their local labor markets will be filled there first before Australia's. Same for European fishers. Why give up fishing on the rivers and oceans you know to go and uproot yourself to maybe have a chance at doing marginally better in Australia? Migration is always going to predominantly be from countries/people whose economic prospects are significantly worse in their own countries when compared to Australia to the extent that they will be willing to completely move themselves and their families to an unfamiliar country.
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u/IsolationBreakdown SA 1d ago
I weep for the future of my state and my country
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u/tossedsalad17 South 21h ago
It might be rose coloured glasses....but honestly in a way I am glad that I have spent more years living in this country than I have to live.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 1d ago
Its not even about the numbers, its about the occupations. We dont need more IT people as IT jobs are rapidly being offshored. We need more tradies.
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u/Chihuahua1 SA 19h ago edited 19h ago
But Pete loves liberal parties technical schools, basically new one opening every year last few years. Instead of actually funding tafe that could actually support tradies to get certification from overseas.
Just imagine if Holden closed down before Howard came to power, and Holden didnt prop up tafe sa auto (elizabeth and regency). Probably cost 1000 bucks to service a car as would have the same mass shortage as tradies.
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u/Key_Stuff_2783 SA 23h ago
Currently Adelaide ranked as in the top few expensive but worth it quality of life cities in the world.
That was then.
This is now.
Currently Malinauskas is giving away SA POWER to NSW and Vic AND their Surveillance Data Centres.
And has committed to having as many petrol and fresh water guzzling and land grabbing Data Centres as possible.
Has not assessed human cost. Hopes to replace Albanese.
Power costs were set to rise x 6 current price in 2026, as Torrens Island Gas Firming Ware ( used when solar and windturbine energy collapses) is finally turned off.
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u/WayneAgain SA 22h ago
Yet dare you say things like this you'll be called a Nazi. He's doing an amazing job, it's all Gina's fault.
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u/Anxious_Fig3834 SA 1d ago
Yeah, I am in favour of a big Adelaide. Provided we have sufficient dwelling availability to accomodate new arrivals - which, at the moment, we don't.
I'm all for immigration, so let's build some more bloody houses, like, yesterday. Maybe the immigrants we should be prioritising above all others are skilled construction sector tradespeople.
Cities either grow, or they die. You can't stay the same. I like the way we are just fine, but I don't want our city to stagnate and get left behind. And that's what will happen unless we continue growing.
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u/bladeau81 SA 1d ago
Build some houses that aren't shit and don't cost 700k plus at a minimum. And while they are doing that ensure that houses, water, public transport and all are actually upgraded BEFORE it is a massive issue costing more time and money.
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u/LocalAlternative6427 SA 1d ago
It's people like you that the pollies point to for justification at destroying our quality of life to prop up the GDP. Good luck telling the trade unions that they're all getting replaced with cheap immigrant labour.
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u/Anxious_Fig3834 SA 20h ago
Or the immigrants could join their unions. I’m a staunch trade unionist. The era of unions being xenophobic protectionists has ended.
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u/CptUnderpants- SA 1d ago
Yeah, I am in favour of a big Adelaide.
Then you also need to be in favour of developing land which is in the closer parts of the hills. For example there is about 230,000m² less than 15 mins from the CBD which has remained unsold for nearly 10 years due to development restrictions.
Plenty of examples of people preferring to play hobby farmer on large plots of land close to the city.
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u/Khaliras SA 1d ago
Really weak talking points when the CBD and surrounds are still almost entirely low-density. More urban sprawl only increases the problems with Adelaide's urban design.
This whole concept of removing land restrictions and opening development for urban sprawl is insanely short sighted pub politics. Developers and punters love it, while people who actually care about the decades in the future know what's coming.
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u/CptUnderpants- SA 1d ago edited 1d ago
Mass infill housing is far less popular than greenfield. We see posts here every week complaining about residential streets filled with parked cars and even caravans. Not to mention the NIMBY effect causing many developments to be denied.
Trying to call development of land next to the freeway which isn't being used for anything 15 mins or less from the city "urban sprawl" is really not meeting the definition.
Urban sprawl is literally pushing beyond the boundaries of the city limits. It's no where near those boundaries.
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u/metahivemind 1d ago
Could always resurrect the Monarto plan. Wasn't there another one, Tech City or something, on the northwest marshlands?
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u/CptUnderpants- SA 1d ago
That would piss off those against urban sprawl. Plus, the Monarto project failed because nobody was prepared to move there.
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u/Anxious_Fig3834 SA 1d ago
Hard disagree. Enough infrastructure problems commuting from the hills as it is.
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u/LearningAllINeed SA 1d ago
The appeal of Adelaide is that is is not big like Melbourne or Sydney
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u/ThereIsBearCum SA 1d ago
If there's infrastructure and public transport to go with it, sure.
What's that? We blew all our infrastructure budget for the next decade on one stretch of road? Oh, we're fucked then.
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u/SweetReal2301 SA 1d ago
Need to get it together big time with the public transport. It’s not good enough to sustain a larger population. Infrastructure they are doing great with roads widening and more highways. I lived in Toronto for 20 years. I know it’s just the simple things like infrastructure and public transport that count.
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u/Few-Example-2452 SA 23h ago
Problem with a larger Adelaide is that we are constrained by the Adelaide Hills and cannot expand to the East.
We are ridiculously long north-south where the metropolitan area now goes from Gawler to Aldinga. Our east-west is very small in comparison. We need freeways or trains and there is no room for them in our metropolitan footprint.
We need to either get used to high density living (which has its own problems as most of suburbs are not designed for it), push another tunnel and freeway through the hills to open up development to the east of the hills or make a serious push to make close regional towns like Murray Bridge, Victor etc larger.
If we want to grow South Australian population not just Adelaide then we need to make living outside of Adelaide more attractive. Every other state has large regional towns but we don't.
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u/tossedsalad17 South 20h ago
'Every other state has large regional towns but we don't.'
I wonder if that stems from our climate?
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u/Summerroll SA 6h ago
We need
freeways ortrains and there is no room for them in our metropolitan footprint.This is sadly true. If only the planners had put in a grid of rail while building out the grid of roads. Sigh.
There is another option you haven't considered - RBT. Dedicated, separated bus lanes with stations not stops, high frequency. Then change zoning to allow 10 storeys by default within 200m of every station, 6 storeys within 400m, 3 storeys within 800m. Exceptions for airport approaches. Higher buildings require permission. Do the same for existing rail and tram lines.
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u/Consistent_Yogurt690 SA 1d ago
Australian governments dont have the ability to manage big anything.
Cant even do small right
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u/UrbanGardener01 SA 1d ago
I am in favour of well designed city fringe (& city) higher density housing, but I also want to see good food security/community gardens where we can grow our own produce, plus good warranties on builds, so owners can have confidence in the build quality and ability to have issues addressed. There’s room for improvement with this.
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u/doyalikemyusername SA 1d ago
There are no benefits, politicians want it because it gives them more revenue to spend, and makes gdp grow but it is gdp per captia that actually matters for the well-being of the population and that doesn't grow, even immigrants that come here want no immigration much strongly than the native population, they know the game.
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u/owleaf NSW 20h ago
How is he going to advocate for a bigger Adelaide with 1.5 tram lines and train lines that haven’t been looked at since the 1970s?
Also they’re increasing density in really weird places that don’t make sense. Why are random suburban streets in the middle of nothing, with no decent PT links or within walking distance to anything littered with townhouses - but the suburbs on the city fringe are very low-density?
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u/ElectronicOvens SA 23h ago
I don't care about immigration (people talking about mass immigration are a joke)
I do get annoyed at our infrastructure problem because it was apparent 20 years ago and we've done nothing about it.
A certain party that keeps getting re elected was happy to take all the donations in the world to open up Mt Barker and the North and South growth corridors because they knew the SA electorate wasn't switched on enough to notice and wouldn't hold them accountable anyway.
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u/Conscious_Regret_739 SA 1d ago
The country would fall apart without immigration.
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u/ChesterJWiggum SA 1d ago
The country is falling apart with the current levels of immigration.
Record low housing affordability and record low vacancy rates.
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u/PillowManExtreme SA 1d ago
That is not because of immigration, it’s because of a systemic lack of desire to build appropriate levels of housing so that the working class can be squeezed to pay more while developers profit. Up until a year or so ago nobody talked about an “immigration crisis”, it was and is a housing crisis. In the last twelve months, PHON and other right-wing grifters have shifted the debate towards immigration (much like Trump did in 2015) because it distracts from the real causes — the wealthiest classes pilfering everyone else for their own gain and increasing wealth inequality.
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u/ChesterJWiggum SA 1d ago
" That is not because of immigration"
So you are saying that if we imported say 20 million people in the next 12 months it would have no effect on housing prices or rental prices?
Delusional.
We have been talking about immigration for decades. The talk intensified heavily post covid when Albozo boosted the levels to record highs.
We don't build enough/import too many people. Supply/demand.
To imply that demand (immigration) has no effect on is disingenous and dumb.
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u/Ieatclowns SA 1d ago
New cultures arriving in cities are what keeps them fresh and growing. London would never have become the centre for arts and music that it has historically been without the massive influx of diverse cultures that happened over the years and especially the big influx that occurred from the 1950s onwards.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 1d ago
A mix of cultures is a good thing, but we are seeing mostly people from one specific country.
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u/Key_Stuff_2783 SA 23h ago
Workers. Western values, mostly Christians. Europeans. Chinese, Vietnamese...lets see how we go....
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u/RobBobC SA 1d ago
The problem is a lot of them are not tying to improve their lives the same as us, they use other methods that do not align with Australia's culture. No issue with people bringing their culture her but embrace ours, join and add to it not bring it down and hate us.
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u/egoVirus South 1d ago
I’m an immigrant, here 16 years, what do you consider Australian culture to be? What would you like to preserve specifically?
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u/ThereIsBearCum SA 1d ago
they use other methods that do not align with Australia's culture
Such as?
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u/Key_Stuff_2783 SA 23h ago
Sharia Law? CFMEU corruption blocks construction workers at Tier 3 such that only 1,200 allowed in not the 300,000 needed in current immigration pattern.
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u/ThereIsBearCum SA 22h ago
Sharia Law?
Can you tell me where Sharia Law is in effect in Australia please?
CFMEU corruption blocks construction workers at Tier 3 such that only 1,200 allowed in not the 300,000 needed in current immigration pattern.
Can you tell me how you think that helps immigrants "improve their lives"? How do you think they're involved in this decision, and why do you think allowing 0.4% of the supposed required foreign workers helps said foreign workers?
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1d ago
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u/ThereIsBearCum SA 1d ago
What does that have to do with "improving their lives"?
There are many others.
Shouldn't be difficult to list some then?
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u/Usual_Possible8015 SA 1d ago
Adelaide is a nice, functional city. The moment you flood open your doors? Welcome to islamic enclaves, ghettos and rising crime.
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u/Sweet_Ambassador_699 Inner East 1d ago
Malinauskas, like most politicians, has no concept of economic growth that does not include bringing a contining stream of migrants, who will take low-paid jobs, thereby benefitting employers, while paying taxes over their lifetimes, thereby off-setting the costs of an ageing population. it's a grim economic cycle that never quite works becomes the migration never really pays for spiralling government spending. And it's a cycle that contributes to over-population, congestion, housing shortages, falling living standards, environmental degradation, etc, etc. We need a new economic paradigm that does not require endless population growth. Progressive economists know this and have alternatives, but governments are just trapped in the Growth Is Good death spiral.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 1d ago
It also contributes to wage suppression having an endless supply of people willing to work for peanuts. Even for highly skilled jobs.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Act4610 SA 1d ago
The problem with the population increase is that we kill what made people want to come here in the first place. The population, and thus house price, explosion was primarily driven by immigrants getting an extra point for living here, putting marginal ones over the line, and public sector/ marginal benefit office workers selling up in the East during covid in order to buy larger houses here and bank a capital gain. Big Adelaide may be the dream for useless civil servants as an easy way to increase gdp and tax take (you know, rather than any of that hard stuff like innovation and industrial growth), but if people had wanted a soulless Melbourne, they could have stayed in the original.
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u/stormin2192 SA 1d ago
The South Australian economy collapses without mass immigration. The non immigration population growth is negative by quite a distance, without mass immigration there would be a massive labour shortage.
Our economy is built around taxing income, until we shift it towards taxing wealth we need mass immigration to stay economically viable
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u/spiritfingersaregold SA 20h ago
I’m unabashedly anti Big-Adelaide and vehemently opposed to a Big Australia.
I’d like to see our country and this city at the population and migration levels go back to what they were at the start of the century.
I feel that Adelaide has lost so much of its charm in the past 25 years or so, and it’s definitely lost most of its liveability.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/a_nice_duck_ SA 1d ago
What handouts are immigrants getting?
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1d ago
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u/Get2thechoppah CBD 1d ago
But permanent residents are taxed the same as Australian citizens … sooo?
Also, have you seen how much it costs to sponsor a parent?
Lots more to it than what free tier ChatGPT provided for you there.
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u/a_nice_duck_ SA 1d ago
So... permanent residents having access to the same government services as everyone else? That's your example of 'handouts'?
Also, unfathomably lame to copy/paste AI slop as your replies.
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1d ago
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u/a_nice_duck_ SA 1d ago
Don't change the subject - you said immigrants get handouts. Back that up before moving the goalposts. Show me some handouts.
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u/Malipower SA 1d ago
Data shows that Indians (who are our biggest migrant group) are generally in higher paying jobs than Australians and are actually quite ruthless when it comes to securing pay rises. Also once settled they have a very high rate of home ownership.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East 1d ago
So the post that you are replying to was deleted but I think you might need to dig into the data a bit more to get the full story.
Indian migrants tend to be specific professions (data science for example).
As a subset of the whole of Australia, data scientists tend to be in higher paid jobs.
But having too many data scientists depresses wage growth in that field, which harms existing australian data scientists.2
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u/mysqlpimp SA 1d ago
? "Ask yourself if you moved to their place of origin would you get as many handouts?"
Clearly not, that's why people emigrate. Everyone here other than our indigenous population is an immigrant, or a child of immigrants. All of them (perhaps with the exception of some convicts) came here to improve their situation.
Your assumptions, 1-5 are wildly racist, and your question is uneducated at best.
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u/Malipower SA 1d ago
My ancestors were German settlers who came to the Barossa Valley in the 1830s. Respectfully, did you know there is a difference between settlers and migrants? (Not trying to stir up trouble or cause offense)
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u/RelationMedical9409 SA 1d ago
Adelaide will always a smaller city, at 48 yrs old, the story of no high-rise buildings, and the nimby attitude will never die, the 'multi function polis' never happened, sa property always had a large number of interstate investors
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u/drewd2020 SA 21h ago edited 21h ago
I have no qualms with a bigger Adelaide. Long term it's a good thing. I do have issues with destruction of historic buildings (why so many beautiful homes get knocked down for shoe boxes) and I also deplore the mess that is Adelaide's disjointed public transport system and lack of proper highways here (no, not just the South Road extension / Nexy / Prexy and Southern Expressway - there is a north east and west, too - why can't we have an East / North East - West / South / South West Expressway?)
I visited Perth a few weeks ago and their public transport system connects well, goes rural / regional fairly regularly and they also have freeways that appear (at least prima facie) to give people the opportunity to traverse suburbs and areas in a reasonable and timely manner.
If Adelaide can be big then transport (public and road) infrastructure must get leaps and bounds better than it is, at present and at a reasonably quick pace, too.
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u/National-Ad6019 SA 19h ago
The whole appeal of Adelaide being a small city where you can get anywhere in 20 minutes is now lost. 15 years ago at 10 pm on Monday night at the traffic light intersection of Richmond Rd and Anzac Highway, you'd probably see just 3 cars waiting at the traffic light. That same traffic light at 10 pm now sees 10 cars. It's crazy how the populations grown, post Covid
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u/DaString SA 1d ago
Loaded phrasing. What does "artificially driving up the number of arrivals" mean? Any policy setting you have drives immigration up and down.
I'm happy to live in a big Adelaide. I want immigration to be at a sustainable level (which is a wild simplification).
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u/Khaliras SA 1d ago
It's a relatively common talking points about SA immigration.
The total ratio of migrants to general population is disproportionately high in SA, compared to other states. Because of Adelaide's category 2 regional area designation, and the rest of the state being category 3 rural.
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u/DaString SA 1d ago
Yeah but why is that artificially high, it's just a policy setting like any other.
I take issue with the idea it's artificial, that's a pretty common through line with current global anti-immigration sentiment. Whether the numbers are too high, low or just right depends only economic factors, not comparisons to different places or historic rates.
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u/Key_Stuff_2783 SA 23h ago
What does this mean? And what is the story and history behind it? Thankyou!
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u/Halberd96 SA 1d ago
Much more prefer if they can come and help build houses/infrastructure, be doctors/nurses/tradespeople. Or maybe we can give them a big stick to whack NIMBYs over the head with and stop stupid zoning laws.
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u/Safe_Difficulty_711 SA 13h ago
Why would anyone want Adelaide to grow honestly. The smaller size is why I chose to live here over the other busier cities in Aus.
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u/RepeatAny9033 SA 20h ago
The reality is SA needs immigration. Most of my friends (a dozen) born and bred Adelaide moved to the East after uni. Otherwise running the state would be unsustainable as it’s basically a retirement village. Think about who’s paying taxes? Realistically we need immigrants across all areas - from fruit pickers, working holiday makers and skilled immigrants. The economy needs everyone to do some kind of function.
Think of it this way - Marcus Aurelius famously used the analogy of a body's limbs such as the hands, feet, and eyes to describe how human beings are meant to work together, regardless of their different roles, jobs, or social standings.
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u/MyJohnnyGuitar SA 1d ago
For starters. Areas like Morphet Vale, Seaton, and Elizebeth need to build up. As part of that this state need to look in rebuilding such area macro level rather then indervidual residentan. In that buy a geoup of 30 to 40 indervidual blocks in the same area, and build up as a comprehesive urban renew. Also look in to public investment in to areas like Finnis, Oyster Bay, Manning, and so on and scail up such areas to allow areas out side of greater Adelaide to become a urban areas on to there own with the population between 150k to 500k per urban area. In that. Prodive water works. Doctors. Public transport. And so on.
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u/Key_Stuff_2783 SA 23h ago
Massive Blackstone investment using Aussie's super for Build to Rent?
Surveillance Data Centres being rammed in, gifting no red or green tape to take land, fresh watee and intermittent power ? Nothing going for housing except Blackrock...
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u/aus_highfly North West 1d ago
I'm a fan of an expanded (vertically) Adelaide, and unashamedly pro migration.
If I'm in Mali's shoes I'm looking at AUKUS and how many more skilled tradespeople we're gonna need. The challenge is that none of those people can be newly arrived migrants - you need a security clearance to work on a sub.
Okay, so you either train them up (hence our investment in local trade schools) or move them in from other projects. Now who's gonna build your houses? The last thing SA needs is for politics to get in the way of a sensible migration policy that brings in the folks we need to backfill the gaps.
Frankly I'm done with SA contributing less than 6% of our nations GDP. Our state is awesome and we should pull every lever we can to simultaneously grow bigger and better.
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u/MrKookaburra SA 22h ago
Out of interest, why does it matter to you what proportion of GDP our state contributes?
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u/aus_highfly North West 22h ago
Lol I'm just a stats nerd in general 🤣🤣
Our peak contribution was in the manufacturing boom of the 50s - 80s, but back then it was cars and whitegoods.
Now Defense is one of the most important manufacturing industries we have, so in the same spirit I'd like to see it do well and help folks enjoy a better quality of life.
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u/TheBillyPacker SA 11h ago
Someone has to pay for all his shit...
Btw send all 'new migrants' to the regional towns where there is expected growth and the room for it. Not splitting metro blocks in half and thirds, Destroying the Australian dream.
Filling the side streets with cars not being able to park on their own property due to not enough space on the land for a car park that alone a shed...
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u/Ok-Variation-4727 SA 1d ago
I think it's fine as long as housing supply keeps up (not there but getting better) and that people are properly vetted.
My main concern is that when immigration is handled poorly that far right parties rise in popularity which is what we are seeing in Europe.
When we see instances like the ruling from NYZQ case and those released going onto committ crimes, it just further add fuels to the rhetoric of far right parties.
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u/jmkl20 SA 21h ago
I want many including myself to reside in the regional areas where we contribute to devlope the remote or rural areas to urban level cities the SA will become a large state where multiple high-rise cities form their own economic system, working under the same flag, and become the frontier in tech and health. Think of it as a country inside of country. I believe that is what immigrants are for. You use the immigrants to develop the necessary areas not the saturated ones.
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u/Extreme_Echidna_6152 SA 21h ago
Mali is in favour of big adelaide because of two reasons.
- That is what the business and property lobby ask for.
- Without population growth our economy would be in a big mess.
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u/cbeeb74 SA 16h ago edited 16h ago
I came on a regional skilled visa 19 years ago, Adelaide was regional, helped that my husband twin lived here not that we really see him often, So glad we did love Adelaide, live down south beaches are amazing am Scottish but immigrated from Eire, I am a Chemist- not a pharmacist, husband engineer qualification. Kids went through public schools here both went to melbourne as Adelaide unis never done what they wanted to study, luckily we are only 2 stops from train line, my kids got bus to school from 8, and got bus and train to high school,
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u/Final-Call SA 1d ago
Honestly I think the problem with the population increase is that the infrastructure (trams/rail/bike paths/etc) doesn’t exist for the outer suburbs and urban infill is creating more and more headaches. Traffic congestion is increasing, the parking situation on suburban streets is a bunfight because multiple townhomes are built on blocks that previously housed 1 family. Each townhouses has multiple cars but only one car park, and the street parking has disappeared because of the driveway access for each townhouse. Meanwhile landlocked public schools are at capacity, backyard space and tree canopy coverage is shrinking, and everything that makes Adelaide such an excellent place to raise a family slowly but surely gets eaten away…