The general tactic of politicians when they haven’t got a clue how to resolve an issue – which is most of the time – but want to give the appearance of doing something, is to blame an unpopular minority for the problem.

A very popular choice when it comes to housing affordability issues is foreign investors.

You can slam foreign investors without any direct electoral consequences, because foreign investors don’t vote in Australian elections.

As politicians, they can present themselves as big and tough by banning foreign investment – or, even better, slug them with major new taxes as a way to raise more revenue from the housing industry – while claiming in front of the media that they’re doing it to improve housing affordability and help first-home buyers.

The problem is – it doesn’t work.

Foreign investors are not, and never have been, the cause of unaffordable housing in Australia or anywhere else.