Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will use an address at the National Press Club today to unveil long-awaited migration measures that target temporary migrants seeking to bring family members to Australia, switch visas or extend their stay. The federal government is tightening temporary visa rules to reduce net overseas migration to 225,000 people by 2028, after talks with the Coalition over stronger legislation broke down.
Who Gets Hit First
International students and the families of skilled migrants are the first people in the firing line. The ABC reported on Wednesday that the policy would include an effective ban on international students bringing family members to Australia. International student numbers are expected to be left untouched, but they will effectively lose the ability to bring their families to Australia under the crackdown. That’s the shape of the “overhaul”: keep the labor supply and the tuition stream, cut the human ties.
Last financial year, 337,427 student visas were granted. Of those, 45,991 went to secondary applicants, classed as dependents or family. Those numbers sit under the government’s new push to narrow who gets to move, who gets to stay, and who gets to live with whom.
What the Government Says It’s Doing
In a speech titled The Work of Managing the Migration Program: Who Arrives, Who Stays, Who Leaves, Mr Burke will outline how the government plans to meet its target of reducing net overseas migration from about 300,000 now to 225,000 by 2028. The overhaul will be pursued through regulation, including changes to visa conditions and application processes, because the federal government has no clear path to pass stronger legislation after compromise talks with the Coalition broke down.
Mr Burke had intended to announce the policy six weeks ago but was forced to abruptly postpone his address amid disagreement between ministers weighing competing priorities. Today, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said reporting on the disagreements had been "overstated." She said, "We've been having sensible, detailed conversations because that is what a mature government does," and added, "We want to have a sensible policy as a government that recognises that some immigration is still very important to this country. We also want to make sure the debate retains at its centre the reminder that Australia has been built on migration."
That’s the language of managed consent. The machinery keeps moving, just with a softer tone.
The Queue Gets Longer
Under pressure to reduce overseas arrivals, Mr Burke has already made sweeping changes to the migration system, pausing or slowing down the processing of working holiday maker visas in July, and re-prioritising the processing of skilled visas. The changes, under Ministerial Direction 119, mean any worker applying for a skilled visa from overseas is now at the back of the queue, pushing visa wait times from days to over a year in some cases.
Asked by Indi MP Helen Haines about the "go slow" on working holiday visas hurting regional Australia, Mr Burke told parliament the government needed to get net overseas migration "down." He said, "We need to make sure that we deal with the numbers overall and do so in a sensible, targeted way that provides the easiest pathway through for the Australian economy."
The people at the bottom wait longer. The people making the rules call it targeted.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor met twice last week as Labor sought potential support for its immigration reforms. The government hoped to pass legislation that would restrict the time people had to make onshore asylum claims and limit international students' right of appeal to remain in Australia. But talks stalled after the Coalition presented a list of demands including tougher restrictions on so-called ISIS brides and linking migration to housing completions.
Having effectively dealt itself out of the reforms, Coalition figures have since argued the government already has sufficient powers to curb migration through regulation. During Question Time on Wednesday, Mr Burke said the "best" outcome would have been to tackle migration through legislation. He said, "In the absence of that, there are still more levers the government will be able to use."
The Political Theater Around the Cuts
Ahead of Mr Burke's NPC speech, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson released a statement also accusing Labor of "starving" regional Australia of labour and tourists. She said, "The government would rather destroy industries in regional Australia than face the problem of unskilled arrivals and students head on."
Senator Hanson pre-emptively criticised Labor's migration proposal because the government's net overseas migration forecasts, if reached, meant an extra one million people in Australia over the next four years. One Nation this week announced it would cut the number of visas by 750,000 over three years, resulting in net negative migration. The proposal targeting international students and the families of skilled migrants has been criticised by the Coalition and Labor, with Environment Minister Murray Watt arguing it would "probably drive the Australian economy into recession."
The opposition is finalising its own migration proposal, which Shadow Home Affairs Minister Jonno Duniam has said it will release in the coming weeks. Nationals Leader Matt Canavan said he was on a unity ticket with Coalition leader Angus Taylor, who agreed immigration numbers "must come down." Mr Canavan said, "We've got to get this right in terms of balancing the impacts to the economy," and, when asked if it was a problem that the Coalition was going to be the last to release its immigration policy, said, "I don't see that as an issue seen as the election is not for another 18 months."
The parties argue over the pace, the numbers, and the packaging. The people being sorted through the system get the bill either way.