Australia immigration announcement LIVE updates: Tony Burke to unveil major changes to migration system in National Press Club speech; Joyce says Labor mimicking One Nation

Barnaby Joyce has accused Labor of aping One Nation policy after this masthead revealed the government wants to target visa overstayers and stop international students bringing family members to Australia to try to hit its migration forecast.

“[Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke] can’t possibly be about to announce One Nation’s policy,” Joyce told Nine’s Today show.

“I like Tony, but honestly, he was the greatest no-show since Amelia Earhart when he didn’t turn up to the press club,” Joyce said, referring to the minister’s cancelled speech on migration policy early last month.

He said Labor would have to explain how its reforms would affect the economy, after One Nation came under fire for providing no modelling to contradict economists’ warnings the minor party’s deep cuts would tip the country into a recession.

“What’s in the budget seems to be entirely different to what we’re about to hear today. So they talk about economic modelling. Are they going to bring Jim Chalmers down?” Joyce said.

“So now, as a sequel to the arrival of Amelia, we’re going to have Jim Chalmers, the sort of rock and roll wrestler, to tell us the budget numbers … I will be watching this with absolute fascination and some trepidation, and I’ll be waiting for Jim Chalmers to explain his new budget.”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has labelled Burke’s migration plan “underwhelming” as she claimed the government was responsible for “letting in people” who did not share Australian values.

“We think this is, you know, not going far enough … And the fact is, we’re letting in people that don’t share our values. So we want to see an overhaul of this system, not just tinkering at the edges. So very underwhelming,” she told Nine’s Today show this morning.

She was not asked to elaborate on what those values were.

Appearing alongside the senator was Independent MP Allegra Spender, who said she did not believe either major party had come up with a considered plan about migration.

“To be honest, there hasn’t been a population strategy. There hasn’t been a population strategy from either of the major parties about how do we expect our migration system to go,” she said.

“How can it provide the skills that we need, make sure that we can bring in the people that we love, but also do this in a way that makes sense in terms of the infrastructure that we’re building. So we have a really long way to go.”

Population figures to be released today should reveal if the federal government’s efforts to curb net overseas migration are working.

The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics cover the first three months of the year which traditionally swell as people move into the country to take up jobs and start their educational studies.

Australia’s population growth has been slowing since it peaked at almost 2.5 per cent in the second half of 2023, but it still remains among the fastest in the developed world. Through 2025, the population grew by 1.5 per cent or 412,000 to an estimated 27.8 million.

The main driver of growth has been net overseas migration. That reached a record of 556,000 in the 12 months to September 2023. Last year, it eased to 311,000.

Despite the slowdown, net overseas migration remains on track to be well above the federal government’s own budget forecasts of 295,000 this financial year.

Labor will try to salvage its long-awaited migration plan by stopping students from bringing family members and targeting the ballooning number of overstayers, as the Coalition splits over Pauline Hanson’s push to achieve negative migration.

After weeks of cabinet squabbling over how to reduce the intake by 80,000, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will front the National Press Club on Thursday with a plan to rein in the number of temporary migrants, which has grown to 3 million and turned into a top-level concern of voters battling high inflation and housing costs.

After Burke’s speech on migration was postponed last minute in early August to work out the economic impacts, his plan tightens control over a visa program he argues has lacked sufficient oversight since the Howard era.

Labor aims to enforce more departures and deportations once visas expire, restrict visa hopping and rein in surging onshore asylum claims, which have been exploited by foreigners trying to extend their stay while waiting on appeals.

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