A Melbourne resident has linked recent incidents of racial abuse against migrants to frustration over Australia’s housing crisis, arguing that government policy, rather than immigration, is driving pressure in the property market.
Tony Fitzgerald, former CEO of Outlook Aus, one of Australia’s largest social enterprises, said the issue came into focus after a close Sikh friend told him he had been racially abused twice in recent weeks.
“My dear Sikh friend recently confided that he had experienced racial abuse not once, but twice in the past three weeks,” Fitzgerald said. “This revelation saddened and shook me. He went on to say that prior to that he had only experienced racial abuse on his arrival in Melbourne many years ago.”
Fitzgerald, a finalist in the 2015 Australian Human Rights Awards – Community Section, said the incidents led him to reflect on the causes of hostility directed at migrants and how such attitudes have appeared in different forms across Australian history.
Before addressing current tensions, he described growing up in Melbourne’s northern suburbs during the 1950s and 1960s when new arrivals from southern Europe were becoming part of the local community.
“Our community saw an influx of Italian, Greek and Maltese immigrants,” he said. They were employed in northern suburbs factories and soon became integral to our lives. As kids, we played together, cementing bonds that transcended language barriers.”
He recalled a childhood conversation that, in his view, illustrated how prejudice can coexist with personal relationships.“I encountered moments that opened my eyes to the absurdity of racism,” Fitzgerald said. “An exchange with my best friend who proclaimed, ‘ I hate wogs’ left me speechless. I responded ‘Enzo, Angelo and Marco are our mates, so you hate them do you’? He said somewhat surprised, ‘oh no, they’re different ‘. This is a classic example of the absurdity of racism that blinds us to our shared humanity.”
Fitzgerald said similar attitudes were visible in sport during his youth. He remembered a Chinese teammate in junior football who was targeted by abuse from spectators.
“Fast forward to my junior footy days where we had a Chinese kid, half forward flanker, silky skills and a top bloke,” he said. “Sadly, opposing teams and parents would hurl unmerciful racial abuse at him. It’s unimaginable to consider a scenario where your child is subjected to racial taunts. We would find that pain unbearable.”
He noted that many Australians themselves come from migrant backgrounds. “My own heritage, Irish on my Fathers side and my Mothers Father was Lebanese. As Australians, we are all children of immigrants somewhere down the line – except for Indigenous peoples who have called this land home for millennia.”
Fitzgerald argued that migrants continue to play a central role in the country’s economy and workforce. “Sixty percent of Australia’s Gross National Product is from the services industry,” he said. “Immigration has brought immeasurable wealth to this country and many current immigrants largely staff our hospitals, aged care and disability services. Their contribution to small business and job creation is also immeasurable.”
He said frustration around housing affordability has become a focal point for anger directed at migrants. “The Australian housing crisis is a major trigger of racism. People wrongly believe migrants are buying up houses and disenfranchising our children from home ownership. This is patently untrue.”
Fitzgerald said the housing crisis is tied to policy decisions introduced decades ago.
“The inability of our young people to buy a home is a result of flawed government policy introduced in the late 1990’s. That is, Capital Gains Tax benefits (handouts) and Negative Gearing which subsidise and reward investors.”
“This is the root cause of the current housing crisis, not migration,” he added. Housing sales data absolutely prove that fact.”
He cited lending figures to support his argument. “The facts, Australian housing data revealed that government subsidies investors purchased nearly double the number of homes compared to that of first-time buyers,” Fitzgerald said.
“Investor purchases vs. First-Home Buyers: As of late 2025, investors accounted for a record 39 percent to over 40 percent of the mortgage market, while first-home buyers represented approximately 21–22 percent of total loans. Overall Buyer Share: Overseas migrants represent approximately 7 percent of total real estate buyers in Australia.
“Foreign Buyer Share: Foreign buyers (who may or may not be new residents) accounted for only 0.8 percent to 1 percent of property transactions in the 2022-23 financial year.”
Fitzgerald urges people to examine the data before blaming migrants for housing pressures. He said other factors contributing to housing shortages should also be considered, including social housing supply and short-term rentals.
“There are of course other factors to consider,” Fitzgerald said. “The need to drastically increase building social housing and ban foreign investment in our domestic housing market. Even though this is 0.8 to 1percent, it’s the principle.
“There is also BnB’s which have largely replaced rental stock particularly in rural areas,” he added. “Sorry, that’s not immigrants and overseas students.”
Fitzgerald warned that blaming migrants risks deepening social division while leaving the underlying issues unresolved. “Stop the demonisation of migrants for our housing crisis when fault squarely lies with the disgraceful failure of government policy,” he said. “A policy that is causing gross inequality and racial division.”
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