Angus Taylor’s immigration plan misses the target – on politics and on policy | Abul Rizvi

Under pressure to match One Nation’s most recent iteration of its immigration policy of negative net overseas migration (Nom) for three years in a row, Angus Taylor has announced the Coalition’s new Nom target will be 100,000 in its first two years from 2028-29, rising to 130,000 then 160,000 by 2032. That sits conveniently between Labor’s target and One Nation’s.

The most surprising aspect of the Coalition’s announcement is that in six pages of policy detail, for which the opposition should be commended, there is not a single mention of the labour market.

There is no chance a Nom figure of 100,000 a year over two years can be delivered if the labour market remains at around its current state. That is, an unemployment rate of 4.6%, and a participation rate of 67% with about 325,000 job vacancies. The Coalition would be overwhelmed by pressure from the business community to increase its target.

In my experience, the Coalition can never stand up to the business community on immigration levels. It was why it stomped on the immigration accelerator after the lifting of Covid lockdowns by introducing unprecedented reductions in immigration standards that Taylor now says need to be increased. The Coalition kept urging the Labor government to increase immigration levels in the second half of 2022.

Labor was too slow to act on the blowout in Nom in 2022-23 and is now paying the price for pretending it didn’t need to be managed.

The Coalition may point to Canada successfully reducing Nom from well over 1 million in 2023-24 to less than 200,000 in 2025-26. That was driven by a very weak labour market with unemployment about 7% and a falling participation rate in most of 2025. In that weak labour market, Canada massively cut student and temporary worker numbers. It smashed university budgets. But Nom in Canada is now rising strongly as its labour market strengthens.

Massive fluctuations in Nom are never good policy. Business and government agencies need stability and predictability to plan and invest. That includes the housebuilding industry which, without massive government support, will be reluctant to increase housebuilding against the background of an ongoing competition for huge cuts to immigration levels.

That is not to say there aren’t aspects to the Coalition’s announcement that may be necessary. Reducing the humanitarian program from 20,000 to 10,000 is sensible when you consider we are now struggling to provide adequate settlement services to this highly vulnerable cohort. The finding that 90% of refugee kids live their first year in poverty is not the sign of generosity but of policy failure.

It also makes sense to reduce the number of temporary graduate visa holders in Australia as well as the number on bridging visas.

But the claim that the policy will “virtually eliminate bridging visas” from more than 400,000 currently to 20,000 is arrant nonsense. A very large portion of the bridging visa backlog is onshore applications for not just student visas but also parent visas, partner visas and asylum. While some of the Coalition’s and Labor’s tightening of onshore visa applications will help reduce the flow of applications into bridging visas, the bulk of the backlog will remain.

At more than 270,000, there are too many temporary graduates in Australia chasing too few permanent residence places. Labor should have done more to address this. However, the Coalition’s policy of trying to reduce this to 10,000 is going too far.

Temporary graduates are a key feeder group into skilled temporary visas, the regional visa, state and territory-nominated visas and the skilled independent visa. The Coalition is not proposing to cut any of these – indeed, it is proposing to increase skilled temporary visas by over 100,000. If that is the case, it will need to find more people directly from overseas to fill these visa places. More people coming directly from overseas would increase Nom, not reduce it. It would also require a reduction in standards, not the increase Taylor is promising.

The Coalition is proposing to reduce annual student commencements to 245,000 from the government’s national planning level (NPL) of 295,000 in 2026 and 2027. But under Labor’s own policy, with eye-wateringly high levels of student visa refusals, the 295,000 will not be delivered. Essentially, Labor and the Coalition are very close on student visa policy. It’s One Nation’s policies that are more likely to smash the international education industry, forcing taxpayer-funded bailouts of universities and/or huge job losses.

The permanent migration program is to be held at 185,000 a year. That contributes about 75,000 a year to Nom, which the Coalition seems to have not considered.

The Coalition says the number of New Zealand citizens in Australia will increase by 45,000 to 776,600. That would require both continuation of a strong labour market as well as a major contribution of NZ citizens to the Nom of about 35,000 a year. That is because between 20,000 and 30,000 New Zealanders become Australian citizens annually – thus are no longer counted as NZ citizens in Australia.

The large annual contribution to Nom from working holidaymakers is to continue. In 2024-25, that was well over 50,000 which could fall marginally but would largely continue in a strong labour market.

With a strong labour market, there will also be high numbers of Australian citizens returning and fewer leaving although the net contribution to Nom would remain negative.

On its own calculations, the Coalition would not come close to delivering its Nom target of 100,000 in years one and two. Those are political targets, not policy targets.