One Nation has unveiled a plan to slash immigration by 750,000 places over three years, with the sharpest cuts aimed at international students and the families of skilled migrants. The party would cap student visas at about a third of the current intake, cut family visas for both international students and skilled migrants to zero, and ban people who overstayed their visa from Australia for life.
Who Pays for the Border Theater
International students and migrant families sit at the bottom of this scheme, and they’re the ones being squeezed hardest. Student visas would fall from 590,000 to 350,000, while the number of international graduates allowed to stay and work after finishing their studies would drop from 270,000 to just 40,000. Families of students on standard visas would be shut out entirely. Families of skilled migrants would be cut off too.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said Australians had "had enough of mass migration" and accused the major parties of sacrificing living standards to "serve vested interests". She said the plan would bring migration to 2017 levels of between 2.1 and 2.2 million people. The party also wants migration levels to go backwards for the first three years in what it calls "net-negative migration" to give Australians "breathing space". After that, it would pursue a "ceiling" of 130,000 in the net overseas migration program, reviewed year on year.
The language is all about control. The policy paper says Australia would "continue to welcome international students," but only on terms set from above, with migration decisions "made separately in Australia's interests". That means the gate stays in the hands of the state and its political managers, while the people trying to study, work, or reunite with family are told to wait their turn.
Universities, Workers, and the Bosses’ Math
The proposal goes further than the party initially indicated. It would create a new visa category for "high-value" students, similar to US President Donald Trump's so-called "genius visas". Those visas would prioritize people with PhDs and science, engineering and frontier technology. Senator Hanson said the new visa would help attract "the world's brightest minds in science, engineering and medical research," and would return universities to their "proper role as research institutions rather than visa factories."
But the policy also makes clear who gets treated as useful and who gets treated as disposable. Families of students on high-value visas would be allowed to apply to come to Australia. Families of standard student visa holders would not. Study areas deemed "oversupplied" — including accounting, IT and business — would face tougher visa settings.
Labor frontbencher Murray Watt said the policy would "destroy regional economies" and "probably drive the Australian economy into recession." He said, "Apart from One Nation, we all recognise that we do have some serious labour shortages in some industries, and that is why coming out with these knee-jerk remarks can be a real economic problem." Hanson answered with a line that cuts through the usual growth worship: a large economy meant "nothing" if Australians could not afford a home. "A larger economic pie doesn't mean anything if individual Australians' slice of it is getting smaller," she said.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said it was still unclear what the net overseas migration would be year on year under the One Nation program, but he was "deeply concerned" about the potential impact on business. "They need to explain what their policies mean for hardworking small businesses in this country," he said. "It's half-baked."
What They Call Order
One Nation Treasury spokesperson Barnaby Joyce told News24 that some universities were "basically harvesting people" for the purpose of bringing them into Australia, not to create a graduate who could go on to contribute. He said the party was not proposing "running around door to door" to find visa overstayers, but said they would "pop up". He would not put a number on negative NOM over the next three years because he said deportation was a complex process.
Joyce also tried to sell the plan as a return to some cleaner, safer past. Asked whether the policy would push Australia into recession, he claimed it would merely return the Australian economy to 2017 settings. "We're going back to 2017 levels, and I don't think 2017 was a disaster for Australia," he told News24. He also said he was confident house prices would not fall back to 2017 levels. "And after three years we go back to our NOM ceiling of 130,000 after we've done the hard work, and then we get a more standard, effective and diligent way to bring people in," he said.
The party says skilled migrants would remain uncapped and driven by "employer demand," with trades prioritized. But the family visas for skilled migrants would go to zero, though Joyce indicated some family visas may be available on a "needs basis." "If people have a needs basis in certain areas, that becomes a consideration of the visa application process," he said. That’s the apparatus speaking in its favorite language: exceptions, conditions, and permission slips.
One Nation said it would retain settings for seasonal workers, including the working holiday maker program and the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, which many regional communities relied on. National Farmers Federation chief executive Michael Guerin warned farm workers were not responsible for Australia's housing crisis and said migration should not be treated as a "political football." He said, "International students also contribute to agriculture's workforce, particularly through casual and seasonal roles in regional areas, helping farms meet peak labour needs when local workers are not available."
The party has also stuck by its promise to pause migration from countries the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade rates as "do not travel" because of "terrorism or other extreme security risks." It has previously promised to refuse entry to migrants from nations "known to foster extremist ideologies" that are "incompatible with Australian values and way of life." Hanson said she wanted to stop taxpayer-funded legal aid for visa appeals. One Nation also has a policy to introduce an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare, and promised to withdraw Australia from the UN Refugee Convention.
The whole package reads like a border regime sharpened for political gain. Families get split. Students get sorted into the worthy and the unwanted. Workers get counted as inputs. And the people making the rules keep calling it prudence.