Albanese overrules Labor refugee intake cut amid internal party conflict

Anyone looking for an indication of just how hot the politics of immigration are running inside federal Labor need only consider what happened on Thursday.

Morning newspaper reports confirmed that Labor would cut Australia’s annual refugee intake, with numbers dropping from 20,000 arrivals to 13,750 from next financial year.

Under intense pressure from One Nation, and facing public concern that the rate of overseas arrivals are adding to infrastructure pressures and housing shortages, the government had already flagged plans for a major immigration policy reset. The cut to humanitarian places had been settled separately and was simply the end of a temporary increase from 13,750 places, announced in 2023.

But the news quickly roiled Labor MPs. Some believed the increased allocation had been extended, others believed that decision was a fait accompli at next year’s budget.

Appearing at a summit in Dubbo mid-morning, Albanese sought to dismiss the reports but did not say they were wrong. By late afternoon, he overruled the decision and confirmed in a statement that the cut would not proceed.

One Labor MP was frank about the chaos. The party would be at war if the cuts went ahead, they said. Members of Labor’s left faction were “pretty outraged”, and said caucus had not been consulted. More than a few MPs went straight to the offices of Albanese and the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, seeking an explanation. One Labor source said that Burke told MPs no decision had been made on cutting the intake. Labor for Refugees, a rank and file group, said in a statement released on Friday that it was “grateful” for the prime minister’s intervention in “ensuring Australia’s humanity hasn’t been forgotten”.

This latest incident only adds to the growing expectations on the broader reset, expected to be announced soon. Originally due earlier this month, Burke’s timing was delayed by Labor’s internal deliberations.

Now more than three years on from the end of pandemic border closures, just how did Australia get here and how important will the politics of immigration be at the next election?

A difficult migration target to achieve

Quickly after Labor’s 2022 election victory, effective management of overseas arrivals became a policy and political challenge for the new government. Ahead of the 2023 federal budget, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the halt on immigration for four quarters during the pandemic would result in a reactive surge – an expected catchup, he suggested.

Net overseas migration (Nom), the overall gain or loss of total population through long-term arrivals and departures, would become a familiar term. Nom measures people coming into or leaving the country for a period of at least 12 months over 16 months, including leaving and returning Australian citizens.

The 2023 federal budget forecast a Nom of 400,000 in 2022–23, dropping to 260,000 in 2024-25.

Chalmers said at the time Australia wanted students in the economy and tourists to support communities and industries.

“Those are good things, but we need to find places for people to live,” he said on ABC’s Q+A program.

The 2024-25 Nom ended up reaching 301,000, which was 50,000 off the 2023 budget forecast but within 6,000 of the next budget’s revised forecast.

Still, the Albanese government’s adversaries have pointed to the figures as evidence of policy failures.

The former deputy immigration department secretary, Abul Rizvi, said the first problem was focusing the debate on a Nom figure as a strict cap to be adhered to.

Rizvi said governments should set a range to achieve in line with policy goals because predicting the Nom was extremely difficult.

“If the Nom falls outside your target, then you have to ask, ‘well, what policy change do we need to make to get it back in the target?’” he said.

The challenge is a high or unpredictable Nom makes budget and policy planning, and service provision for governments very difficult.

So, what can Labor do?

Senior ministers have been discussing how to find a sensible middle ground on immigration without serious negative ripple effects.

It hasn’t been easy.

From a numbers perspective, the number of temporary migrants has soared in recent years due to an easing of restrictions under the Morrison government when the country faced a labour shortage in addition to economic challenges.

While overseas arrivals are on par with, or even below in some quarters, pre-Covid figures, the surge in Nom has been mostly affected by fewer migrants leaving, Rizvi said.

“The first and biggest factor driving Nom is the labour market,” Rizvi said.

“A strong labour market makes pushing Nom down hard because everything is acting against you. A weak labour market makes pushing Nom down a lot easier because you’re sailing with the wind.”

When the labour market isn’t on side, migration policy tweaks are required.

One response is slowing the rate of backpacker visa approvals, which the government has already ordered. It has also told the home affairs department to prioritise skilled foreign workers already in Australia for visa approvals, rather than allow more overseas arrivals.

On Thursday, Albanese said tight control of arrivals would be a bedrock of Labor’s new plans, complemented by removing visa holders who had lost their right to live in Australia.

The changes could include tougher restrictions on international students, tougher rules for their family members seeking to come to Australia and efforts to stop visa category changes for those enrolled in higher education.

New enforcement options are being discussed, as well as rules restricting people in the country already being able to lodge new applications.

Visa periods could be reduced to six months for tourists and some businesspeople, and appeal rights for rejections further curtailed.

Other plans to bring down the Nom continue to be developed, with Burke charged with overseeing a drop from the current rate of more than 300,000 to the forecast included in the May federal budget of 245,000 this financial year. From there, it would drop to 225,000 in 2027-28.

Critically, according to Rizvi, is a new requirement for the minister to report to cabinet every quarter on progress in achieving the Nom forecasts.

For other migration experts, like Alan Gamlen, a social scientist at the Australian National University, the conversation is focusing on the wrong figures.

“If we talk about Nom, we’re inviting imprecision. We’re not targeting the parts of migration that actually need to be addressed in order to properly address the concerns that people have,” he said.

“What we are doing is having a debate about a number that nobody understands, in a way that isn’t connected to the problems people are experiencing, and has zero chance of being successful at addressing those problems.”

Nom focus could force ‘silly’ mistakes

The Nom has fallen in seven consecutive quarters since September 2023. It is forecast to fall further lower than pre-Covid levels by 2027-28.

What hasn’t fallen is the number of temporary visa holders. For the 2024-25 financial year, there were 568,370 overseas arrivals, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

The figure includes Australian and New Zealand citizens, as well as permanent visa holders. Still, 363,090, or 64%, were temporary visa holders.

During the same period, 147,930 temporary visa holders departed. It’s a major talking point of conservative populist politicians but Gamlen said there are some issues.

Australia’s permanent migration program has remained consistently stable over the decade with the exception of the pandemic travel bans. Many are international students looking for ways to stay and work in Australia.

Gamlen said the temporary migration population could be controlled efficiently by stemming the demand-driven process.

Simply, instead of letting anyone apply directly for visas, it could be done on an invitation basis through prospective visa applicants filling out expression of interest forms.

That can prevent those being denied visas – due to not fulfilling the visa criteria – appealing through the Administrative Review Tribunal.

“The danger is that by constantly barking on about net overseas migration the government will feel pressured to do something that is silly, and regulate types of migration that shouldn’t be regulated simply in order to hit an arbitrary Nom target,” Gamlen said.

“There’s a very simple rule that that the government needs to be aware of – the size of the temporary population stabilises if you have an equal number of net temporary arrivals and conversions from temporary to permanent status.

“If there’s too few temporary to permanent conversions, you’ll get a growing temporary population, and if there’s too few temporary arrivals, you get a shrinking temporary population.”

No one has a clear policy

While Labor’s position remains unclear, its political rivals have less sense of what their own migration numbers should be.

One Nation has struggled to explain its own plans, with neither Pauline Hanson nor her parliamentary colleague David Farley seeming to understand what the Nom is. Both have claimed Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (Palm) scheme workers and backpackers working on farms would not be counted in their 130,000 Nom target.

The Coalition quickly separated itself from shadow housing minister Andrew Bragg’s suggestion that the Nom should drop to under 180,000 but on Friday left the door open to cutting refugee intake.

“What is clear though is we are a very generous country but charity starts at home and we have got to do the right thing by Australians first,” the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, told News24. Earlier, the shadow home affairs minister, Jonno Duniam, said Australia had a responsibility to “look after those less fortunate”. The party says firmer commitments will come closer to the election.

As for Labor’s approach, Albanese and Burke will announce the new policy within weeks.

“We’re worried about trying to get numbers right,” the prime minister said.

“We’re responding to national needs.”