One Nation's immigration plan: A dystopian future for Australia

One Nation's recently released immigration plan sets out a dystopian future for Australia, and every voter should imagine the foreseeable real consequences of their plan before voting at the next federal election, writes Belinda Jones.

ONE NATION released its immigration policy this week; Pauline Hanson fronted the media to outline her plan to overhaul Australia's immigration system radically.

Despite warnings that One Nation's net negative migration plan could tip Australia into a Recession and devastate the Australian economy, Barnaby Joyce flippantly retorted that he didn’t care.

Joyce immaturely refused to let the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) review One Nation’s numbers, casting aspersions that the PBO was incompetent and scoffing at suggestions it would give Australians confidence in One Nation's immigration plan.

Joyce said:

“I’m elected, they’re not.”

It wasn’t too long ago that ex-accountant Joyce complained he was “struggling to make ends meet” on his then-salary of $211K per annum, which doesn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in his ability to be the Federal Treasurer.

Given Joyce’s laissez-faire attitude and heavily criticised immigration plan, it would be wise for Australians to really think hard about One Nation’s dystopian plan for their future.

Australians need to imagine the consequences of this ill-conceived policy. Complain as we might about the state of our federal politics; it is true to say that Australians are accustomed to evidence-based policy decisions from our federal government, so it will be quite a shock to the system for Australians to live under a government whose policy is largely based on conspiracy theories and Facebook posts.

In this futuristic imagining, it's Australia in 2032, just under four years since the last federal election. One Nation won the 2028 federal election on the back of preferences in a deal former Member for Hume, Angus Taylor, now regrets.

Shortly after the election, Hanson quit the Senate and ran for the lower House seat of Wright in the by-election caused by a first-time former One Nation MP whose name everyone has forgotten, having to quit for personal reasons two hours after he was sworn in. Hanson became PM. Joyce became Treasurer.

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Hanson immediately began her billion-dollar renovations to The Lodge – to turn it into a Queenslander – so, of course, she moved to Kirribilli House on Sydney Harbour until they're done.

True to their word, Hanson and Joyce immediately got to work after their election success, taking an economic jackhammer to every federal government institution they could find.

With undignified haste, the first force of immigration compliance officers were recruited and completed their 21-day course in immigration ethics, law, human rights and safe people-handling skills from an ex-con Muay Thai boxer Joyce met in a bar.

This in-depth training taught new immigration compliance force recruits how to round up visa overstayers and anyone else that One Nation had doomed to deportation. Mistakes were made, but Joyce didn’t care because he was elected and everyone just had to deal with it.

Aged care homes and hospitals were raided by immigration compliance officers, and hard-working staff, friends, and loved colleagues were taken off to overcrowded detention centres. Legal and human rights denied, Joyce said he didn't care because he was elected and they weren't.

Since Hanson's election four years ago, these have become places of death and disease due to chronic underfunding coupled with the forecast explosion in numbers Hanson predicted in her 2026 immigration plan.

The hospitals and aged care facilities that have the staff to remain open are now so expensive that they have become an enclave for the very wealthy.

Most Australian families now have to look after their ageing family members at home.

Rural Australians now have fewer health facilities. In Hanson’s dystopian 2032, most of the staff have left, and they took their families with them.

School numbers reduced dramatically, forcing many rural schools to close; many teachers lost their jobs and the cost of private schooling tripled what parents were paying in 2026 — making it an enclave for the very wealthy.

Hanson’s plan was the final nail in the coffin for many small rural communities; now they’re just ghost towns. It happened so quickly.

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Since Foreign Minister Malcolm Roberts withdrew Australia from the United Nations (UN) and many other bilateral and multilateral forums, Australia has been ostracised by the international community. Free trade agreements scrapped by Roberts have resulted in massive trade tariffs and sanctions from former traditional trading partners.

Hanson’s denial of basic legal rights to many immigrants fighting to retain the right to legally stay in Australia has been criticised around the world and many complaints have been made to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Internationally, Australia has become a pariah state since Hanson's election.

Australia’s export industry tanked overnight when traditional export markets across the world closed their doors to Australia in solidarity with many other nations protesting the Hanson Government's violation of global norms and practices which underpin international trade and relations.

In the dystopian year of our leader Pauline 2032, Brisbane was supposed to have hosted the Olympic Games, but after just over three years of net negative migration, the planned facilities remain just ugly scars on the landscape.

Unable to get skilled staff, many building companies have collapsed, which has caused a domino effect throughout the construction industry and supply chains. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) pulled the pin on Brisbane a year ago when they could see the domestic and international chaos unfolding under the Hanson Government.

The Fitzroy River will never see an Olympic rowing event, which is just as well really because net negative migration has gutted Rockhampton's accommodation and hospitality sector.

All those tourism dollars and international exposure would’ve done Australia the world of good, but you couldn’t tell Hanson & Joyce when they came to power; they were determined to do it their way and they have.

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Anyone lucky enough to find a labourer, sparky, chippy or builder is now paying triple what they did back in 2026; they’re as scarce as hen’s teeth now.

No apprentices coming through either since Hanson defunded TAFE. Renovating or building a new house has become an enclave of the very wealthy.

Early in her term, one of the first things PM Hanson actually did was to implement her “Small Government” initiative, which slashed the public service – law enforcement, teachers, nurses, administration, defence – no department escaped unscathed. Wait times for every government service blew out as a result, with many Australians exhausting their savings and superannuation while they waited months or years for their unemployment claims to be processed.

Hanson’s brutal cuts to federal law enforcement have seen Australia become a dumping ground for the world’s illicit drugs — the skeleton border control staff left now have a mammoth job to do with less staff; it’s a losing battle.

Most shareholders haven’t seen a franked credit for three years now, so many who invested their hard-earned superannuation in the share market lost everything, terrible to watch.

The seventh year of El Niño has seen catastrophic weather events impact Australia, fires, floods, and cyclones catching Australians by surprise since Hanson defunded the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), ABC and SBS.

Early warning systems that Australians used to be able to rely on simply don’t exist in Pauline Hanson’s dystopian future for Australia.

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2031 saw Australia's first-ever negative natural increase in the population, with fewer medical staff and record unemployment; the cost of having a baby has tripled what it was back in the 2020s. Families have now become an enclave of the very wealthy.

Since Hanson banned safe abortions back in 2028 just after the election, the rate of unsafe abortion clinics skyrocketed. All those black market cigarette operators put out of business by Joyce’s cheap ciggies transferred their business model to illegal abortion clinics. Women are now dying in their droves, like back in the 1920s.

Joyce, the man who couldn’t handle the family budget doesn’t know what to do to bring the economy out of deep recession, still refusing to listen to Australia’s top economists.

Hanson still has not confirmed when or if she’ll hold a federal election this year, telling reporters last week that she’s “had a gutful of democracy” and will hold the next election when she sees fit.

She added that she was certain Joyce will turn the economy around any day now and ease the pressure on Australians suffering under 17 per cent unemployment, 26 per cent interest rates and inflation at record-high levels.

Any day now.

Belinda Jones is an IA assistant editor and a former teacher and federal political candidate. You can follow Belinda Jones on Twitter/X @belindajones68.