Source : Perth Now news
Barnaby Joyce has come out firing against the Coalition’s newly announced net migration promise, accusing both major parties of mimicking Pauline Hanson’s hard-line migration rhetoric.
Angus Taylor is expected to outline the official Coalition immigration policy on Tuesday, with sources telling the Nine newspapers the Opposition Leader will set a net migration goal of 100,000 people, about 60,000 less than Labor’s proposed numbers.
Most of Labor’s cuts, which they hope will lead to a net migration total of 225,000 by mid-2028, will focus on backpackers and the families of student visa holders.
The Coalition will instead place a major focus on international students and “visa hoppers”, which they have dubbed “temporary permanent” migrants, and aims to introduce a net migration cap tied directly to housing availability.
Speaking on Today on Tuesday morning, Mr Joyce said the Coalition’s plan was clearly trying to emulate One Nation’s hard-line immigration aspirations, which are still yet to be officially costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
“I congratulate the Coalition for basically coming up with our policy. There’s a bit of nuance there but you know what, it shows an endorsement of where One Nation is off to,” he said.
“We are moving the agenda. We are moving both the Labor Party, we’re moving the Coalition, that’s what we intend to do. Obviously, we’re not that outrageous because they’ve gone and mimicked us.”
One Nation’s initial target of 130,000 net migration has been abandoned for a three-year “negative” migration target, which most major business and economic groups say could be economically disastrous for the country.
One independent MP has described the dramatic slashing of international student and worker numbers proposed by both One Nation and the Coalition as a ploy to make Australia’s population “older, poorer and dumber”.
Speaking on Today on Tuesday morning, Zali Steggall said the reduction targets set by the Coalition and One Nation framed an infrastructure problem as a migration problem.
“I disagree with the discussion around having an immigration problem. What we have is an infrastructure problem where, for too long, governments have failed to properly plan the rollout of infrastructure and have good density plans to make sure that when we have immigration, that it is matched with services,” Ms Steggall said.
“If we cut immigration too dramatically, what we will be in Australia is older, poorer and dumber because the reality is much of our economy relies on immigration, from aged care to nurses, doctors, construction.
“We won’t build the Brisbane Olympics without targeted construction immigration to meet the demand. We will be poorer simply because we won’t have the skills in our economy.”
The largest group of migrant arrivals in Australia between 2024 and 2025 were temporary student visa holders, which made up 157,000 of the 306,000 net overseas total.
Australia’s tertiary education export value is about $55bn a year.
