By Michelle Grattan
One Nation this week released a radical policy proposing Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) be negative over three years, as the country reduced its temporary migrant population by 750,000.
Under its plan, the student intake would be dramatically cut, the opportunity for temporary students, graduates and temporary workers to sponsor family members would be substantially restricted, “visa hopping” would be attacked, and those here illegally would be booted from the country.
One Nation is not providing numbers for the individual years of the three-year period when the NOM would be negative. The NOM “is the net gain or loss of population through international migration to and from Australia”.
After the negative “reset”, the NOM would return to a ceiling of 130,000. under the policy. At present the NOM is about 300,000, with the government seeking to reduce it to 225,000 by 2027-28.
One Nation has pre-empted the major parties, which are yet to release their policies to curb migration. Federal cabinet was set to discuss the issue again on Monday, and the Coalition is still working on its alternative.
Last week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor held two meetings to discuss whether there were common elements they could agree on for legislation.
Earlier, One Nation preempted the opposition on tobacco excise and superannuation policies.
Under One Nation’s proposed program
- Students would have to depart when they finished their studies unless eligible for a targeted graduate pathway
- Graduate visa holders could switch to an employer-sponsored temporary skilled visa, but not to another graduate or student visa from onshore
- Temporary skilled workers could renew their work visa if eligible, but could not switch onshore to various other temporary categories
- Visitors could not apply for another visa from within Australia, apart from an exception for family sponsored applications.
- There would be carve outs for PALM (Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme) workers and backpackers, needed for regional areas. Most of these workers are not counted in the NOM.
The main student visa intake would be capped at 100,000 a year for three years.
The migration policy says the target would be to cut the student visa population , including accompanying family, from 590,000 to 350,000 – the same level as in 2015.
One Nation wants to cut the graduate visa population from 270,000 to just 40,000 by the third year, a massive reduction.
There would be a single student graduate visa with a cap of only 20,000 granted annually. The new visa would be for 18 months and one off.
Allocations will first be made to graduates who held the new high-value study visa. Remaining places will be open to other students, with priority being given to fields such as science, engineering, frontier technology and healthcare, and exceptional graduates in other fields that serve the national interest.
One Nation’s plan will also ensure Australian students are not competing with international students for graduate jobs in fields like accounting, IT and business where there is a clear oversupply of graduates already.
One Nation Migration proposal
Uncapped estimates. These grants are demand-driven. ^ Family Exceptions. High-value study/ PhD visas who transition to graduate visas may apply for dependent / family visas given. the high economic contribution of these cohorts. All other graduate visas will be limited to primary applicants only. One Nation Press release
One Nation would end family visas for temporary skilled workers.
Employers will still be able to sponsor skilled workers. The program will remain demand-driven, with no new cap on primary worker visas.
Around 70,000 primary visas were granted in 2025–26. That provides a guide to the program’s size without accompanying family visas, but future numbers will depend on employer demand.
The removal of new secondary visas is expected to reduce the total number of people on temporary skilled visas, including family members, from approximately 263,000 to 160,000 by year three.
Bridging visas will stay for “legitimate applications that are permitted to be made in Australia”.
One Nation claims the skilled visa program “has become a family immigration program”.
Under the policy, people here illegally would have three months to leave. If they complied they could apply from offshore for a visa in the future. If they did not comply they would face “immigration enforcement” and be banned from ever re-entering the country.
One Nation says there are about 80,000 people in Australia illegally. Large businesses will be faced with bigger penalties for employing illegal migrants.
Immigrants could not come from countries on the government’s “do not travel” list. There are currently 26 countries which would include Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela, Palestine and Lebanon.
One Nation denies its restrictive migration policy will mean fewer essential workers including nurses and builder workers.
“While we are removing secondary visas (i.e. family and dependants), this policy does not make any changes to the existing primary temporary skilled visa program. The program will continue to be driven by employer demand.
One Nation also rejects claims big cuts to immigration would crash the economy,
“The major parties use migration to make the economy look bigger and collect more tax. But a bigger pie does not mean a bigger slice for every Australian, especially when rent and bills swallow more of the family budget.”
Labor and Liberals say policy disastrous for economy
But government and opposition said the policy would be dreadful for the economy.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said it would “kill the Australian economy, and it would kill regional economies in particular”.
Liberal deputy leader Jane Hume said: “Even already today, economists have come out and said that potentially, with the numbers that One Nation is throwing around, you could send the economy into recession”.
Health Minister Mark Butler said: “This would absolutely smash industries like construction that rely very heavily on migrant workers, but also devastate health and aged care and disability sectors that particularly rely upon migrant workers, especially in rural communities where it’s very difficult to find Australian-trained doctors.”
Opposition leader Angus Taylor questioned what the policy would mean for “a publican in Tamworth, a farmer in Narrandera or Griffith? And what does that mean for a builder in Ipswich?”
The CEO of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Andrew McKellar, warned: “The risk here is if you take those headline numbers at face value, this is a COVID level shock to the Australian economy without any of the offsets.
“It will end up doing long-term damage to the Australian economy. It will reduce the future potential growth of the Australian economy. It’s doing nothing to support productivity to grow our GDP or to grow real incomes in the long term.”
Former government official and migration expert Abul Rizvi gave the policy a mixed response, posting on social media that some of its changes were good but “trying to reduce [temporary entrants] population by 750,000 over 3 years when labour market is relatively strong will be challenging”. ‘
Michelle Grattan is a Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra. This article was first published by The Conversation
