No entry, no growth: Australia’s immigration pause illusion

Halting migration might sound like a quick fix to Australia’s housing and economic woes, but the real outcome would be stalled growth, lost jobs and rising costs across the nation, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

A RECENT Resolve Poll finds that 53% of Australians want immigration paused.

The only time in modern Australian history that we have had something akin to an immigration pause was 2020-21, when the Government used emergency health powers to largely close international borders. Net migration fell to negative 88,760, although the permanent migration program was delivered at 160,052 and the permanent humanitarian program at a historically low 5,947.

The unemployment rate in 2020-21 spiked to around 7.4% and economic growth in the June quarter of 2020 fell to negative 5.9%; the September quarter of 2020 fell again to negative 3.1% and in the December quarter of 2020, to negative 0.4%. The Government moved to support the economy with unprecedented wage subsidies and other fiscal measures, leading to the biggest budget deficit in our history, as well as interest rates falling close to zero. Many governments around the world took similar action.

While an immigration pause outside a pandemic may not lead to such severe outcomes, it would certainly slow economic growth and negatively affect many industries and businesses. How much it would address the housing crisis is unclear. Part of our housing and infrastructure challenge is finding enough traditional trade workers to build more houses and infrastructure.

A significant part of the housing crisis is a crisis of affordability. Many people simply can’t afford the rents being asked for, even with Commonwealth rent assistance. Even during COVID, when international borders were closed, there was no dramatic fall in rents or house prices.

Australia’s migration numbers defy both camps

Analysts expect new ABS data to show net migration holding steady around 315,000, defying claims of both a rebound and a collapse.

To implement an immigration pause, the Government would need new and unprecedented legal powers. Unlike the Trump Administration, it would not be able to invent an emergency to use emergency national security powers, as the High Court in Australia is not as easily manipulated as the Supreme Court in the USA.

It is not clear whether the proposed immigration pause relates to net migration (currently around 315,000 per annum) or the permanent migration program (currently around 185,000 plus 20,000 humanitarian visas). It’s also not clear how long the pause should last. There appears to be an implication that the pause should last until housing “catches up”.

Let’s assume it would take three years for housing to “catch up”, even though that is highly unlikely. So, how would a three-year net migration and permanent migration pause work?

Politically, the reluctance of former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to nominate which visas he would cut to get to his smaller migration program (140,000); smaller humanitarian program (13,500) and lower net migration (160,000); and Nationals Leader David Littleproud’s insistence that visas that assist regional Australia would be out-of-bounds, suggests only One Nation may take a three-year immigration pause policy to the next Federal Election. One Nation lives in the wonderful world of never having to think about how it would implement its policies.

One Nation would need to win a majority in both houses of Parliament — winning the balance of power in the Senate would not be sufficient. While that is unlikely, let’s assume it happens and that One Nation policy is for both zero migration and humanitarian programs as well as zero net migration.

Zero migration and humanitarian programs

A zero offshore humanitarian program could be delivered using existing powers. A zero onshore program would require Australia to withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention. That would be a slow and difficult process as it requires both changes to domestic law as well as international processes to withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention. That would take years rather than months.

One Nation also says it has a policy of mass deportation. But it appears to have given that about as much thought as Trump did for his mass deportation policy. A mass deportation policy would involve eye-watering costs but only a minor increase in deportations (and likely lots of people taken into detention in error who then sue for compensation).

But let’s assume a One Nation government proceeds with a policy of a three-year immigration pause. The planning level for the 2025-26 Migration Program is in Table 1.

(Data source: Department of Home Affairs)

Parent and other family reunion visas could be capped at close to zero using existing laws, as these are already severely capped every year. There would be a massive backlash from various migrant communities, but a One Nation government may rejoice in that.

Capping cannot, however, be used for partner visas and dependent child visas. That would require legislation that Parliament has twice before rejected. One Nation would need to use its numbers in the Senate to override the objections of other parliamentarians, as well as those of Australian citizen partners and parents.

Note that the very large outcome for partners in 2020-21 was due to new Immigration Ministers Andrew Giles and Alex Hawke clearing the partner backlog ahead of an Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) audit of partner visa processing to avoid audit criticism.

In terms of the skill stream of the migration program, the easiest visa category to reduce to zero would be the National Innovation Visa, which targets established and emerging leaders with high-calibre talent and skills who can make significant contributions that will benefit Australia’s future prosperity.

This includes:

global researchers;
entrepreneurs;
innovative investors; and
athletes and creatives.

As this visa is based on an invitation-only basis, the Government could simply cease issuing invitations. But doing that would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Another visa for which the Government could cease issuing invitations is the Skilled Independent category.

A clogged visa system only rewards the unscrupulous

A growing number of people in Australia remain stuck in immigration limbo.

In 2024-25, the top occupations in this category were:

registered nurses;
early childhood teachers;
civil engineering professionals;
carpenters and joiners;
architects and landscape architects;
civil engineering draftspersons and technicians;
painting trades workers;
software and applications programmers;
chefs; and
secondary school teachers.

The Government could also cease processing nominations from state/territory governments. But that would attract strong criticism from state/territory governments who use this visa to fill key skill needs within their respective jurisdictions.

The Government could do the same for Regional visas. These are used by state/territory governments and regional/local authorities to fill skill needs in regional Australia. Regional Australia finds it much more difficult to fill its skill needs (particularly in health and aged care) and hence, major concessions are made to attract skilled migrants to regional Australia.

This has been the case for almost 30 years and is not going to get better any time soon. The problem is exacerbated by the number of young Australians migrating to the major cities, leaving a more rapidly ageing population in regional towns.

Demand for places in the Employer Nomination Scheme (ENS) is booming due to the strength of the labour market. A One Nation government could cap places in this visa close to zero, but the backlash from the business community would be intense. It would not be long before even a One Nation government succumbed to the criticism.

The Government would also be under pressure to return the very large application fees these visa applicants have paid. There would be both significant processing costs as well a loss of revenue from that. Onshore applicants for these visas would need to remain in Australia on bridging visas, as there would be no legal basis to remove these people. Letting these people become undocumented and thereby unable to continue working in their current jobs would simply make the situation worse. Note, there are currently around 2.9 million temporary entrants, the bulk of whom would be working.

The already huge number of people on bridging visas (over 400,000) would increase even more rapidly. In three years, the number of people on bridging visas could easily exceed a million. That solves nothing.

Canberra sidesteps transparency by leaving thousands of visas off the books

A quiet visa carve-out leaves thousands of permanent residents uncounted, while the Government insists nothing has changed.

Net migration

But shutting down the migration and humanitarian programs would not deliver a zero outcome for net migration, as three of the biggest categories of net migration are students, working holiday makers and NZ citizens.

The Government could re-negotiate the Trans-Tasman Travel Agreement with New Zealand and then shut down the movement of NZ citizens to Australia. But that would take years rather than months to put in place the legislative and practical arrangements. The outcry from dual Australian/NZ citizens (such as former NZ citizen Barnaby Joyce) would be massive.

The Government could place a zero cap on overseas student visas. There is existing power to do that (even if there isn’t existing power to cap overseas students for individual providers). That would drive many universities and many more private colleges into bankruptcy and huge job losses. It would also mean all universities significantly cut back on research activities that are funded by tuition fees from overseas students. Note that the biggest export industry in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane is overseas students.

The Government could also place a zero cap on working holidaymakers. While usually this would require negotiations with just about every nation on the planet, a One Nation government may feel it can just tell these nations to go jump (as Trump often does). But that would not be without some form of retaliation. Note, the impact on the tourism and agriculture industries in regional Australia would be huge. The farmers who tend to vote for One Nation may be impacted like the farmers in the U.S. who vote for Trump.

A One Nation government may also close down the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, as this also contributes to net migration. Farmers who support One Nation would not be happy about that, as they would then have very little labour to undertake farm work.

The fact is that an immigration pause would do little to resolve Australia’s housing crisis but would dramatically slow economic growth, massively hit a range of industries such as tourism, agriculture and international education, involve huge costs to the Budget (note skilled migrants are a major positive for the Budget) and make the crisis in our hospitals much worse as the rising demand for health and aged care would continue with an even more rapidly ageing population but with fewer skilled migrants to fill rising staff shortages.

More than 50% of Australians may support an immigration pause, but they would be sorry about the outcomes that would deliver. A bit like American farmers voting for Trump.

Dr Abul Rizvi an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.