{"id":918077,"date":"2026-10-06T10:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/918077\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T10:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T10:52:14","slug":"taylors-hardline-immigration-plan-drags-australian-politics-further-to-the-right-and-its-all-upside-for-one-nation-australian-immigration-and-asylum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/918077\/","title":{"rendered":"Taylor\u2019s hardline immigration plan drags Australian politics further to the right \u2013 and it\u2019s all upside for One Nation | Australian immigration and asylum"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Angus Taylor\u2019s hardline immigration policy<\/a> unveiled on Tuesday, voters have a new measure of Pauline Hanson\u2019s success in dragging politics further to the right.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s plan will cut 60,000 more people from net overseas migration (Nom) than the reductions proposed by Peter Dutton just before the last election. Dutton wanted to take Nom down to about 160,000 people<\/a> a year, while Taylor\u2019s plan goes far further, beyond even Hanson\u2019s bottom line of 130,000 people.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s surge in support has coincided with intense focus on the Nom, previously a fairly unremarkable budget forecast which came and went each year.<\/p>\n

Based on sometimes scant economic analysis, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation<\/a> have all introduced plans to cut Nom, targeting overseas arrivals increasingly seen by voters as clogging up essential infrastructure, taking houses or rorting the rules.<\/p>\n

Taylor proudly called his plan \u201cthe largest cut to immigration in Australian history\u201d.<\/p>\n

It would reduce the number of temporary visa holders by about 650,000 people over four years. From the 100,000 level in the first and second years of a Coalition<\/a> government, Nom would grow to 130,000 arrivals in year three and 160,000 in year four.<\/p>\n

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Taylor has met the demands of Nationals MPs and left plenty of space for the working holidaymakers needed to pick fruit and work in rural and regional hospitality. He used the announcement to take a swipe at the country\u2019s university sector, claiming one of Australia\u2019s biggest exports sells visa pathways, not higher education.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian visa places would be slashed to 10,000 under the Coalition, a 50% cut from Labor\u2019s cap of 20,000 people a year.<\/p>\n

But serious questions remain. The immigration expert Alan Gamlen, of Australian National University, says achieving cuts of this scale would be difficult for an incoming government and would certainly result in economic losers.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how skilled visas, currently a demand-driven aspect of the immigration scheme, could be increased by about 100,000 people in select industries, as Taylor proposes. Labor believes the only way to increase uncapped visa numbers would be to allow migrants to arrive without a job offer.<\/p>\n

Eliminating bridging visas may be much more difficult \u2013 and expensive \u2013 than Taylor imagines. Migrants seeking permanent residency, skilled work or family rights often await processing on bridging visas. How would this caseload be managed?<\/p>\n

The Coalition was unclear whether the independent Parliamentary Budget Office had conducted modelling of the new policy at all. Taylor said only that the opposition had worked closely with the PBO, and wouldn\u2019t release any costings.<\/p>\n

The plan fell flat with business and asylum seeker advocates.<\/p>\n

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Speaking for big business, a traditional Coalition constituency, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss, Andrew McKellar, said chasing arbitrary Nom targets was misguided and would hurt the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness rejects the false binary that Australia must choose either fewer migrants with higher skills or more migrants with lower skills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Responding to news the Coalition plan would halve Australia\u2019s already grudging humanitarian intake, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre\u2019s Jana Favero said Taylor was out of touch with everyday Australians.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of focusing on the real problems \u2013 how to help people pay their rent, manage their mortgage or put food on the table \u2013 the Coalition is joining the far right\u2019s blame game,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The politics of immigration remains all upside for Hanson, who has Taylor and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on the back foot. On Tuesday, she said the major parties had to be dragged kicking and screaming to their cuts, and claimed they couldn\u2019t be trusted to deliver anyway.<\/p>\n

Whoever voters decide they best trust on immigration, the centre has dramatically shifted in One Nation\u2019s favour. Where it stays could change the country.<\/p>\n

Tom McIlroy is Guardian Australia\u2019s political editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Angus Taylor\u2019s hardline immigration policy unveiled on Tuesday, voters have a new measure of Pauline Hanson\u2019s success…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-918077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}