Tucker Carlson has blamed booming immigration as the reason for Australia’s housing crisis as he questioned how anyone is able to afford to live in the nation.
The comments came while the conservative commentator was on a speaking tour in the country as a guest of billionaire Clive Palmer.
Making a jibe at Australia’s housing crisis, the former Fox News host told Melbourne audience this week prices were “much more” than even he could afford and questioned how anyone could live in the country.
It comes after the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures last month showed a record 547,300 migrants arrived in 2023, meaning 218,920 houses would need to be built according to the 2.5 people per household modelling.
“How does the average Australian making average wage … how do you live here?” Mr Carlson told the crowd at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
He spoke of his shock when he was told by a Sydney local many residents needed to leave the city or wound up homeless.
“I said, ‘that sounds like a crisis’,” he said.
“Why is it happening? Immigration. There’s only one reason and that’s the reason.
“But nobody wants to say it like that because it sounds like an attack on immigrants. And that’s how they get you to shut up. They say: ‘shut up, racist’.”
Mr Tucker argued the “most obvious principle in nature, and real estate” is that the more people there are, the more housing prices rise.
“That is purely a matter of population. If you have more people than you have houses, guess what happens to housing prices? They rise. This is the most obvious principle in nature, and real estate,” he said.
He said one of his “top concerns” if he were to run a country would be making sure young people in their late 20s and early 30s could afford a house.
“So if it becomes too difficult, too expensive for your children to buy a house in the country they were born in, you’re erased — that’s it, your line ends,” he said.
“And that’s what’s happened, you see it in the birth rates. This is true in my country too, and in Canada it’s completely out of control. So why is it happening? Immigration. There’s only one reason. That’s the reason. And nobody wants to say that because it sounds like an attack on immigrants.”
The federal government is aiming to build 1.2 million homes in five years, meaning Australia would need to build 240,000 homes each year until 2029.
The government has been brutally critcised as it appears to be failing to meet its targets, with Education Minister Jason Clare put on the spot on Sunrise last week when Nat Barr commented Labor was “well behind” on its goal.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced in the May budget he was pledging $1 billion in funding to states and territories in a bid to boost housing supply.
The South Australian government has been allocated $67.4 million, and Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT have received $25 million each.
Mr Carlson’s comments on Monday came after he clashed with AAP journalist Kat Wong in Canberra following a question about his views on the “Great Replacement Theory’” in relation to immigration.
He called Ms Wong “stupid” after she claimed he talked about “white Australians, Americans, and Europeans” being replaced by “non-white immigrants, and clarified he spoke about “native-born Americans,” including African-Americans as opposed to “whites” being replaced.