Shadow Minister Andrew Hastie is clinging to Dutton’s net migration fantasy, but the maths, the politics and reality all say otherwise, Dr Abul Rizvi reports.
IN AN INTERVIEW with Patricia Karvelas, Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie has re-committed to former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net migration target of 160,000, arguing that it was the right target but was poorly sold. While Hastie may try to “sell” the target better, to be successful, he would need to explain the policy changes he would make and how these would deliver the lower target.
For over 12 months, Dutton and his Shadow Immigration Minister, Dan Tehan, were repeatedly asked how they would deliver their net migration target of 160,000 and their permanent Migration Program target of 140,000 — a cut of 45,000. They continued to delay providing an explanation, saying that it would be done closer to the Election.
They eventually provide some limited details, but those largely focused on what they wouldn’t cut. Tehan explained that parent places wouldn’t be cut and eventually said the Family Stream wouldn’t be cut. That meant the whole 45,000 cut would come from the skill stream.
But Dutton had earlier promised to bring back the former Significant Investor category and to increase the migration of construction tradies without explaining how he would do that.
Apart from some silly references to cutting yoga instructors who would likely make up less than a handful of visas, neither Dutton nor Tehan could explain which skilled visas they would cut to reduce the skill stream by 45,000. They knew the business community would react badly to such a cut to the skill stream, even if it would win support on Sky After Dark. It was politically safer to say nothing about which permanent visas they would cut.
Will Hastie have the courage to explain which skill stream visas he would cut and quantify the size of the cut? I doubt it, especially as Nationals Leader David Littleproud has said he would oppose cuts to any visas that help regional Australia. Littleproud has also said he will resurrect his Agriculture Visa, which the Labor Government abolished. That visa would have turbocharged exploitation, asylum applications and net migration.
Even if Hastie can explain how he would deliver a 45,000 cut to the skill stream, he would still need to explain how he would deal with the huge (and illegally created) backlog of partner visa applications. The Labor Government is struggling with that and that is why it is yet to announce the 2025-26 Migration Program.
A 45,000 cut to the skill stream would not have much of an impact on net migration because over 60 per cent of the skill stream is delivered from people already in Australia. Not granting those people permanent visas would do little to reduce net migration. It would just leave more people in immigration limbo.
Dutton had claimed he would cap student numbers at a much lower level than proposed by the Labor Government. However, Dutton opposed legislation to enable the Government to cap student numbers. How he proposed to cap students at a lower number without a workable capping power remains a mystery.
The fact is, the Labor Government will struggle to get net migration down to the pre-pandemic levels promised by the Prime Minister without major policy tightening. How Hastie thinks he can get net migration to 160,000, given the legal and political constraints he faces and without a major deterioration in the labour market, is pure fantasy. He is unlikely to have even thought about it beyond the politics.
Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.
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