It is naive to think that Australia could have continued as a mostly white enclave of 8 million people living off the island continent’s natural resource base seven decades ago, or to stand still today with a more multicultural population three times that size. And they include immigrant apartment builder Harry Triguboff, who built his first block of flats in Sydney in 1963 and who spoke at our Summit as No. These include the likes of Lendlease founder Dick Dusseldorp, Stockland founder Ervin Graf and Westfield founder Frank Lowy, who all arrived in Australia from Europe within a few years of the Financial Review’s launch. That has provided the national income that has attracted enterprising people from around the world to help build the homes, offices and shopping centres for a population that has expanded from 8 million in 1951 to nearly 26 million today. The fundamental driver of this prosperity has been the shift from an economy based on exporting wool and wheat to Britain, to selling iron ore, coal and gas to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Yet population and property have played a critical role in the national prosperity created in the seven decades since The Australian Financial Review was launched in 1951. Janie BarrettĬritics of a “big Australia” tend to dismiss such calls to reboot the nation’s immigration program as quickly as possible as simply returning to some population Ponzi scheme that benefits property developers without any boost to national prosperity or per capita income. As Dexus chief executive Darren Steinberg suggested, that won’t happen until CBD food courts find the workers to feed the workers in the office blocks.Ĭharter Hall CEO David Harrison speaking at The Financial Review Property Summit in Sydney. As CEO of leading commercial real estate investment and management firm JLL Stephen Conry said at the Summit, getting back to normal is about Australia making a full economic recovery from COVID-19, which will be held back until the pre-pandemic vibrancy is restored to the nation’s CBDs.

Yet, by and large, the property sector’s interest in getting workers back to the office, opening up the international border to tourists and students, and rebooting a sizeable immigration program are also in the national interest. It is not surprising that The Australian Financial Review Property Summit on Wednesday heard multiple calls for governments to hold their nerve and avoid knee-jerk border slammings and hard lockdowns amid the arrival of the omicron strain of COVID-19. Property has been at the front line of Australia’s pandemic experience as offices and shops have been forced to close by lockouts in the nation’s two biggest cities, landlords have been pressured to give rent holidays, a surge in online shopping has led to a boom in warehouses and record low interest rates and government subsidies have pumped up the housing sector.

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