One Nation MP David Farley called for a “rotating workforce” of a “minimum of 100,000” workers on top of his party’s plan to slash net overseas migration to 130,000, dragging migration policy deeper into the usual contest over who gets managed, counted, and moved around for the benefit of employers and politicians.
Who Gets Managed
Farley later admitted the arithmetic wasn’t as dramatic as it sounded. When the figures were combined, he conceded his party’s policy was “not too different” to Labor’s target. That’s the game. Different branding, same machinery. The numbers shift, the slogans change, and ordinary people are left to absorb the consequences of decisions made far above their heads.
Multicultural advocate Carmel La Rocca, president of the Multicultural Council of Griffith, said: “There's a lot of confusion and all the community want is just a balanced, constructive conversation.” She added: “Everyone is on edge and there's no harmony.” La Rocca, who lives in Farley’s southern New South Wales seat of Farrer, said politicians needed to stop arguing and lead “for the good of the country.” She said: “They should look at Australia as a whole and look at Australia moving forward in a good way, in a professional way, in a skilled way, and having a good population to move it forward.”
That’s the human cost of this top-down brawl. People living with the fallout want stability, not another round of political theater dressed up as policy debate.
What the Numbers Hide
When speaking in a round of media interviews last week, Farley said Farrer needed “dexterity and flexibility” when it came to migration policy. The article said his stance broadly has the backing of staunch One Nation supporter and Griffith winemaker Darren De Bortoli. De Bortoli said: “Politics is getting in the way of common sense, and what David certainly said on the weekend was common sense, very reflective of the seat of Farrer.” He also said seats like Farrer should be exempt from cuts to migration and wanted to see more long-term pathways for migrants based in the regions.
De Bortoli said: “We still struggle to get people in even with the current policies, and you still have trouble filling positions in the seat of Farrer.” He added: “If we've got a skill set shortage and we need to bring people in fix it, and if there's no problem with immigration with their criminal records or whatever, they should be allowed to stay.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics calculates the net overseas migration figure by including people who are in Australia for at least 12 months in a 16-month period, regardless of the type of visa they are on. Farley said the “minimum” of 100,000 workers on “rotating” visas that he wanted to see in addition to the net overseas migration figure included 40,000 on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.
June 2026 data from the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility program showed that of the 32,645 participating in the scheme, more than half, 16,595, were long-term workers, meaning they were in Australia for 12 months to four years and therefore counted in the net figure. The article said it was not clear if the 40,000 figure Farley quoted was a projected figure or if he was rounding up the current total figure of those on short and long-term visas.
That’s the bureaucratic trick at work: one set of numbers for public consumption, another set for the people actually living inside the system.
Who Does the Work
La Rocca said the idea of a rotating workforce was nonsense and would create a mess. She said: “With skilled migration, you need people who will do the job on a long term so that the job is done properly.” She also said the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility program, which was recently the subject of a Four Corners program investigating modern slavery, was one area that should be “revamped.”
She said: “If they're skilled enough to stay here and continue to stay here, the government should look at that.” She also said employers should be forced to provide housing and wanted to see more investment in public infrastructure such as transport and health.
Those demands point straight at the hierarchy underneath the debate. Workers are brought in, counted, and shuffled through schemes, while employers and officials decide whether housing, transport, and health are someone else’s problem.
De Bortoli said issues with Australia’s immigration policy seemed to be in the cities, and around how those migrants were contributing. He said: “There are obviously problems with the nature of the immigration policy … are they positively contributing to the Australian economy and productivity and society wise?”
Farley was unavailable for interview for the story. The people making the loudest claims got their say. The people expected to live under the policy got the usual arrangement: manage, measure, and move on.