Slash the intake: Majority of Australians demand deeper migration cuts

Two-thirds of Australians want Australia’s refugee intake slashed, more money and resources spent on deportations and a ban on immigrants coming from countries where extremism is a danger.

As negotiations stall between the federal government and opposition over a crackdown on immigration, 40 per cent of voters said Labor’s current net overseas migration target of 225,000, down from about 300,000 last year, was still too high, while 32 per cent said it was about right and 11 per cent said it was too low.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson made a brief appearance in the Senate on Monday. Alex EllinghausenA senior government source, who asked not to be named so they could speak freely about negotiations, said it was unlikely that a deal would be struck with the opposition, at least this week, and that the government would have to wind back migration using regulations, rather than by passing new laws.

As Labor and the Coalition continue to work through the details of their own immigration policies, One Nation stole a march on the main parties on Monday and released details of their own policy after weeks of confused messaging from the surging right-wing party.

One Nation wants to cut the number of temporary visa holders by 750,000 over three years, with international students bearing the brunt of the cuts, while the families of skilled migrants would be barred from joining them in Australia. Cuts of this level would effectively shrink Australia’s population temporarily, unless there was an increase in the birthrate.

After three years, One Nation proposes a net overseas migration ceiling of 130,000 a year. One Nation has already proposed blocking all immigration from countries on the Department of Foreign Affairs’ “do not travel” list.

Under the plan, international students and graduates would be the primary target, with a cap of 135,000 visas a year. Labor’s current target for new international students in 2027 is the same as this year’s: 295,000. But some of these are already onshore and have visas.

The current humanitarian annual intake is 20,000.

“Vested interests and elite economists will shriek at the prospect of these cuts,” Hanson said in a statement. “But Canada has shown you can cut migrant numbers, take pressure off rents and still grow the economy.”

The findings in the latest Resolve Political Monitor show that a majority of Australians support reducing immigration, while 31 per cent of voters said they trusted One Nation to best handle the country’s immigration system.

In contrast, 24 per cent of people said that Labor was the best party to manage the immigration system, while 19 per cent nominated the Coalition and 21 per cent said they were undecided.

The Resolve Political Monitor was conducted for this masthead from September 6 to 12 – before One Nation’s latest policy document was released – and surveyed 2250 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 per cent.

The single most popular method for reducing immigration was stop immigration from countries where there is a danger of extremism, which closely mirrors one aspect of One Nation’s policy, and which was backed by 67 per cent of people and opposed by 8 per cent, with 24 per cent undecided.

Spending more money on processing and enforcing deportations for people who illegally overstayed their visa was the next most popular method, backed by 65 per cent of people, while 62 per cent wanted Australia’s refugee intake slashed from 20,000 people a year to 13,000 a year.

Banning partner and family visas for international students was backed by 48 per cent of respondents and opposed by 18 per cent, while 34 per cent of people were undecided.

Another 53 per cent of people backed stopping New Zealanders who move to Australia from claiming Medicare and other benefits for the first five years of their stay here, something they have been able to do since July 2023.

About a third of Australians (26 per cent) wanted to cap New Zealand migration to Australia, while 28 per cent opposed such a move and 36 per cent were undecided.

About 48 per cent of people agreed with a further reduction in the number of international students at Australian universities, 20 per cent disagreed with this proposal and 31 per cent were undecided.

And finally, 47 per cent of people backed rewriting the Australia-UK free trade agreement so that British backpackers have to work in the regions, as backpackers from other countries must do, while 11 per cent opposed such a move and 42 per cent were undecided.

Labor argues that it has almost halved net overseas migration – a measure of long-term arrivals to the country minus departures – since the post-COVID surge, but experts have warned that booming numbers of bridging visas have clogged the system.

If the government is unable to reach a deal with the opposition on how to reduce immigration to Australia – both sides blame the other for the failure to reach agreement – the Labor government would still be able to implement at least some of its planned immigration cuts.

Migration expert Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, said: “They can do a great deal by regulation”.

“They could reduce refugee intake with the stroke of a pen, also most of the migration program, and there is no regulation required at all,” he said.

“If they wanted to cap partners and dependent children, that would require legislation. But caps should be a last resort.”

Both the government and the opposition slammed the One Nation proposal, arguing that such deep cuts could push the Australian economy into recession.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor labelled the plan “half-baked” when asked if he was concerned that One Nation was repeatedly setting the policy agenda.

“We don’t have the answers to the most fundamental questions, as we didn’t with their tobacco policies,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“I am deeply concerned about what [negative migration] means for individual farmers, for individual business builders, for publican owners, for cafe owners.”

Environment Minister Murray Watt said that the decreases had to come from somewhere, and likened One Nation’s policy to a “magic pudding”. He said that crucial industries such as healthcare and food industries would be decimated by a negative migration policy.

“We know the numbers need to come down, but we need to do it in a sensible way that won’t rob Australians of the services they need and drive up food prices.”

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