The Coalition would not cut working holiday visas as part of its promise to reduce migration, senior Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie says.
The Coalition has been under pressure to release further details about which immigration streams it would target in government. Peter Dutton has claimed the increase in immigration of the past two years has driven up house prices.
Under the Coalition’s proposed policy, it would lower permanent migration from 185,000 in 2024-25 to 140,000 in 2025-26. Permanent migration would increase to 150,000 in the following two years and then to 160,000 after that.
Dan Tehan, the shadow immigration minister, further confused the issue on Friday when he said the Coalition would abandon its longstanding target to maintain a two-thirds share for skilled migration with one-third of the intake reserved for the family stream.
Tehan said the reduction in permanent visas would see dramatic cuts to the skilled migration intake. He vowed a Dutton government would not touch the family stream intake.
Dutton has said net overseas migration levels would be reduced by 100,000 if he was elected as prime minister on 3 May.
In mid-April, Dutton said he would move to slash the net overseas migration figure from 260,000 to about 160,000 “straight away”.
On Sunday, McKenzie, the opposition’s infrastructure spokesperson, told ABC TV that working holiday visas would not be targeted.
“We need those backpackers out in our regions. Tourism, hospitality and the agriculture tasks … we’re not cutting that,” she said on Insiders.
Earlier in April, Dutton said the cuts would not affect every visa category.
“We’ll take that advice when we get into government in relation to where the economic settings are and where the demands might be,” he said, accusing the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, of creating a “huge mess”.
“They’ve boomed migration, which has cruelled housing, and we’re going to fix the problem and we’re going to help young Australians get back into housing.”
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Net overseas migration is the difference between those leaving and those entering the country – and includes people on temporary visas such as working holidaymakers and students. It spiked after Covid, due to pent-up demand for entry to Australia and lower-than-usual departure numbers.
A Coalition campaign spokesperson said on Sunday: “As Senator McKenzie said today and Peter Dutton has made clear previously, the Coalition will reduce permanent migration by 25%, and these reductions will be spread across the skilled and family streams – with the exception of parent visas, which will be preserved in line with existing settings.”
There have been questions over which components of the skilled stream the Coalition would target.
The easiest visa to cut would be the “skilled independent” category, former deputy secretary of the immigration department Abul Rizvi said last week. But that accounts for fewer than 17,000 people this financial year, and the biggest occupation is nursing.
“Are you really going to cut nurses? That would be brave,” Rizvi said.
Presuming the Nationals would not allow a cut to the 33,000 regional migrants, that could leave a fight with businesses to slash 44,000 planned employer-sponsored visas this year, or a stoush with the states over their 33,000 skilled permanent migrants.
