When it comes to Sydney’s housing problem, Premier Chris Minns is full of, uh, ‘facts’.

‘We’re about the 830th densest city in the world and yet by most measures, we’re in the top 5 or the top 10 when it comes to being the most expensive. Those two things are related.’

One fact he missed – and one that is impossible to ignore during a housing crisis – is that New South Wales added 174,000 migrants to its population last year.

A vast majority of them made their home in Sydney.

Already, the Greater Sydney area has one of the highest foreign-born percentages in the world – bigger even than cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and London.

While nobody can blame migrants for wanting to come and live in one of the best cities in the world, surely we can say that not enough blame is heaped on the major political parties for their poor handling of this massive intake…

Especially from younger people, like myself, who are being forced by high housing prices to either forgo future savings to stay here, or flee the city in search of cheaper pastures.

Just last week, two friends of mine, in their twenties, had to up-sticks and move to Newcastle, citing cheaper housing.

With a 3-month-old baby to look after, and with their parents now living hours away, their life has been made much harder than it should be.

Is it any wonder that so many young couples are choosing to flee the cities or choosing to have kids later?

This is the true tragedy of high house costs. It’s not just a number on a screen. It’s people’s lives and it bodes very poorly for the future of Australia.

Already, Australia’s fertility rate is below replacement, but Sydney’s is absolutely through the floor.

Between 2019 and 2021, Sydney’s fertility rate dropped from 1.67 to 1.62 – lower than the NSW regional figure of 1.93 and well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

And it’s dropping fast.

This is shaping up to be a social disaster, with our cities turning into places like South Korea, where kids are a privilege reserved only for the super-rich.

Of course, Minns has admitted he’s in trouble.

Time and again, Labor’s housing flunkies have said that the solution to Sydney’s housing woes is to ‘build upwards’.

It sounds nice, but that isn’t realistic.

For one, rushed apartments are full of defects and always breaking.

As one construction expert noted, up to 50 per ent of newly built apartments in NSW could have ‘major defects.’

Call me a NIMBY, but turning the Inner West and transport corridors into developer favelas – as he proposed this week – doesn’t sound like the best path forward for Sydney.

Then there’s timing.

NSW already suffered a shortfall of around 45,000 homes last year, according to my estimate.

It can take up to three years to build a block of flats.

This is the perfect storm for a housing catastrophe.

Something serious must be done soon, or this situation will become a disaster. Empty words and false appeals to ‘building more’ no longer cut it.

In a post on his social media yesterday, Premier Minns made this point.

‘Young people should be able to make their claim on this city. It’s something that was afforded to their parents, and their parents before that.’

The truth is that like no other time in Sydney’s history, young people today are being played for fools.

Their wages are stagnant, their house prices are sky-high, and having kids is becoming a faraway pipe dream.

No state politician – Labor or Liberal – has been willing to face the issue of immigration and how it pushes young people out.

Maybe it’s time young people stepped up.

Seriously, Mr Minns, you can’t build your way out of this one.

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