Forget immigration - the problem is supply, inequality & inclusion.

When I say it’s been a while, I mean it.

The last time I wrote anything of substance was in 2017 when I wrote a play, titled A Sign of The Times and performed in Short + Sweet Illawarra.

The irony that Donald Trump was President then — and is now again — and that I’m once more spurred on by the same undercurrent of racism and misunderstanding that inspired my play, is not lost on me.

That play was a series of interwoven monologues based on characters I caught the train with every day — culminating in a moment where an older man tells a younger girl to “Go back to where you came from.”

He meant for her to go to the previous train carriage, not a whole other country.

But in the social climate of the time, those words landed differently.

My play was about how meaning can be twisted by fear, and how context can turn ordinary moments into confronting commentaries on who belongs, and where.

by Crystal Brandon

Where I Come From

Let’s start with an origin story, because they matter. We teach kids to ask who, what, where, why, how — and then when we grow up, we often settle for face value.

But is it enough?

TikToks suggesting how my workplace should best handle me based on whether I'm neurodivergent, or suffering oldest-daughter syndrome, suggest that maybe it isn’t enough.

I was born and raised in southwest Sydney, the daughter of two working-class parents who believed that with enough tenacity, loyalty and sacrifice, you could carve out a place of your own.

My Mum trained as a nurse at St Vincent’s Hospital and she still says nursing was her ticket to independence.

My Dad left school after Year 10 to work in the family business at Flemington Markets, which had been started by his grandfather, Girolomo — a post-war migrant who, tired of being an underpaid carpenter, took his case to the district court, lost, so decided to build something of his own instead.

Girolomo opened a stall in Sydney’s B-Shed and crafted a new life from nothing.

That was the kind of Australia they came for: where work could build possibility.

I grew up in Campbelltown, went to multicultural schools, and my social circles were often jokingly called “The United Nations” — our self-identifying “natios” being Canada, the Philippines, India, Uruguay, and everywhere else.

My first job was at a $2 shop in Campbelltown Mall run by a Lebanese-Australian family who taught me how to balance a register and keep a counter tidy.

Later I worked for another Lebanese family in retail, then at Remax Results Real Estate, then Boost Juice, then David Jones.

I was embedded in migrant communities, and I saw daily the grit and aspiration people brought here with them, and then continued to carry.

After a failed entry to real estate (courtesy of the Global Financial Crisis), I followed in Mum’s footsteps and went into nursing.

I worked in aged-care facilities while studying at the University of Wollongong, eventually becoming a registered nurse and working in the Emergency Department at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

It was there — in Emergency — that I witnessed what Australia really looks like.

I ordered both the halal and kosher meals for my patients in beds 8 and 9, while screening every meal (and visitor, if I’m honest) delivered to my colourful patient in bed 10, who bore a striking resemblance to the head of a bikie gang on the run from Australia’s Most Wanted. 

The conversations were incredible — people from completely different walks of life, united by the same need for care, dignity, and compassion.

That experience stayed with me.

It taught me that our shared humanity doesn’t begin or end at our borders. It’s not about where you were born, what language you speak, or what you believe in. It’s about how we look after one another when we’re at our most vulnerable.

And yet, increasingly, I see that understanding fading.

Racism and resentment have crept back into the national conversation, dressed up as “concerns about housing” or “population” pressure.

From the South Coast View

Fast-forward to now: my husband Glenn and I sell about 45 homes a year between Gerringong and Ulladulla, and we’ve done that for nearly six years straight.

We see first-hand who’s buying, who’s selling, and what drives the market in regional New South Wales.

I can tell you with absolute certainty: immigration is NOT what’s pushing house prices up.

During COVID, migration was essentially shut down.

Borders closed, international arrivals plunged, net overseas migration dropped dramatically — and yet house prices didn’t collapse.

In many places, they soared. In lifestyle coastal markets like Huskisson, Vincentia and Berry, prices jumped 20–30 per cent despite almost zero new arrivals.

If migration were the true lever pushing prices, why did they rise when migrants weren’t coming?

From March 2020 onward, home values nationally climbed about 38 per cent.

During those early pandemic years (2020–2021) when migration was extremely weak or even negative, housing prices still advanced significantly.

So who exactly were we blaming then?

The answer is simple: we weren’t. Because we knew the truth.

When supply is choked, when interest rates fall, and when demand surges from buyers, prices rise — regardless of who crosses the border.

Where the Real Pressure Lies

Housing prices are being driven by structural and policy failures, not immigration.

For decades, Australia has under-invested in social housing, delayed land release, and wrapped developers in red tape.

Councils and governments have layered on planning restrictions while population — local and domestic migration included — has continued to grow.

Our cities are now divided by class and access.

Inner areas remain tightly regulated and increasingly unaffordable, while middle-class families and migrants are pushed further out — to suburbs with poor infrastructure, limited transport, and weak community connection.

That’s not just a housing issue, it’s a social one. It’s class warfare dressed up as planning policy.

We should be focusing on making our CBDs and town centres liveable, workable, and playable — places where people can live close to services, shops, cafés, and parks — not pushing everyone to the fringes and calling it “growth".

The Minns Government’s recent planning reforms aim to simplify the process and reduce duplication, and that’s a good start.

But if those reforms only make it easier to approve greenfield estates while our CBDs sit idle, then we’ve missed the point entirely.

SNAPS, Tony Burke

Tony Burke MP said it best when he was asked what he made of MP Andrew Hastie’s comments about Australians becoming "strangers in their own country" due to immigration.

“He doesn’t seem to acknowledge the fact that net overseas migration has already come down 40%," Burke replied.

"When you look at total population, we’ve been at lower levels than what they projected back in their 2019 budget prior to the pandemic.

"But if he wants to make cuts further, he needs to say where.

"Does he want to make additional cuts to skilled migration?

"If that’s what he wants to do, can he nominate which aged-care centres he believes should close?

"Because without immigration, we don’t keep them open.

"Can he nominate which childcare centres he wants to close?”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

"The United Nations", Part 2

Remember that hospital ward with the halal and kosher meals, and screening the food and visitors for the third bed?

Well, there was Nepalese, Taiwanese, Jewish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indigenous Australian, and African nursing and allied-health staff.

And let’s not forget Sister Jacinta Fong, who would make cups of coffee for the patients.

Sister Jacinta was born in Papua New Guinea in 1935, after her family emigrated from South-East China to escape war with Japan.

If you’d like more examples of migrants working together - with compassion and respect - please do take yourself to your nearest hospital, medical centre, or aged-care facility.

So, What’s the Fix?

Approvals should be faster, clearer, and more consistent to cut red tape and defy planning delays choking supply — particularly for infill and mixed-use developments

But speed must be paired with sense. We don’t need more greenfield estates miles from infrastructure. We need vibrant, connected CBDs with housing woven into their fabric.

It’s well known that there’s valuable land sitting idle across the Shoalhaven — particularly in the CBD — owned by multinational companies who should pay a tax penalty on land held speculatively.

Those companies should be incentivised to build, or pay higher land-tax bills for hoarding prime sites that could be housing people and supporting businesses.

Offer concessional — or better, abolished — stamp duty for downsizers who move from 4 or 5-bedroom homes into high-quality, well-built 2 or 3-bedroom homes in CBDs.

Other states already offer concessions and NSW should follow suit.

These house older people who keep communities alive — they shop locally, volunteer, and bring casual surveillance to our town centres.

Let’s help them move while they can, not when they’re forced to by illness or injury.

The ripple effect would be immediate.

If I had good, well-presented two and three-bedroom units in the Nowra CBD, I could list another half-dozen properties tomorrow — because that’s how many down-sizers are ready to sell their four-bedroom homes and move right now into something smaller, with better access to services.

In turn, I’d have another six low-maintenance, four-bedroom family homes on the market — exactly where the demand is coming from with young families trying to get their foot in the door.

That’s the market reality.

Greenfield developments with starting prices of around $1 million for a four-bedroom home won’t help these families who neither have the money, nor are paid enough, to sustain the mortgage.

The Bigger Picture

Immigration didn’t cause the housing crisis — but immigrants are copping the blame because it’s easier than confronting decades of policy neglect.

The system is working exactly as it was designed: to protect existing wealth.

That’s not the fault of the migrant worker or the family wanting to buy their first home in Vincentia or Worrigee.

It’s the fault of a country that stopped building enough homes in the places people actually want to live.

Immigration built this country. What’s breaking it isn’t the people who move here, it’s the lack of places for them, and all of us, to live with dignity.

In 2017, I wrote A Sign of the Times because I wanted people to look closer and listen harder to what was being said underneath the noise.

Eight years later, I’m still asking for the same thing.

When we strip away the slogans, the politicians fighting for their face on TV, the riots, the marches and the blame, what’s left is the same Australia I saw on that ward at St Vincent’s: people from every background, working side by side, trying to build a better life for themselves, and others.

Housing should be an extension of that idea — about creating room for everyone.

Migrants aren’t the problem. But they are the people who staff our hospitals, build our homes, run our cafés, and teach our kids.

As Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote in Hamilton:  “Immigrants, we get the job done.”

And we do — with resilience, compassion, and, if you let us, a smile. Because Australia's story has always been about people building new beginnings.

We just need to make sure there’s somewhere for them to live.

About the author: Crystal Brandon is a licensed real-estate agent, registered nurse, and graduate of the Australian Institute of Music. Based on the NSW South Coast, she is Vice President of the Shoalhaven Business Chamber and a passionate campaigner for accessible housing, inclusion, and regional opportunity.