Australia's Immigration Levels Fall Amid Housing Concerns and Far-Right Rise

SYDNEY: Australia’s immigration levels fell last year, official data showed on Thursday, as its center-left government seeks to combat an ascendent far-right riding a wave of public discontent over soaring housing prices and cost of living.

Net overseas migration added 301,000 people to Australia’s population of 28 million last year, Canberra’s Bureau of Statistics reported.

Immigration minister Tony Burke said the figure was down nine percent from a year earlier and 45 percent lower than a post-Covid peak in 2023.

“We are bringing migration down with a sensible, measured approach to provide the skilled workers Australia needs,” Burke said.

International student numbers are falling as the government instead prioritized skilled workers “we need to care for our sick and elderly and build homes,” he added.

Australia’s Labor government is seeking to boost the supply of housing and lower costs through tax reforms.

Long a fringe movement, Pauline Hanson’s far-right One Nation has surged this year to become the country’s most popular political party.

Hanson had leapt on a historically high number of arrivals when the border re-opened after the Covid pandemic to blame migrants for housing shortages.

The far-right provocateur is a long-standing critic of multiculturalism in Australia, where 8.8 million residents were born overseas.

Addressing Canberra’s National Press Club on Wednesday, Hanson called for Australia to instead embrace “monoculturalism.”

“Australians aren’t buying this crap from the political establishment and its media supporters anymore,” she said.

The opposition Liberal party — currently bleeding support to One Nation — said the migration figure was “still far too high.”