Ministers insisted discussions were civil and productive, but at the time of writing they were still going.<\/p>\n
Nobody could have imagined that, within days, it would be relegated to only the second-strangest frontbencher-induced migration-related press club kerfuffle of the month.<\/p>\n
Enter Andrew Bragg, the Liberal housing spokesperson, who took to the esteemed stage on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Among the many, many things he said in a speech<\/a> his colleague delicately described as “just his opinion”, there was this on migration:<\/p>\n “[A] reduction can be achieved while benefiting the budget and the economy, including by \u2026 modest reductions in international students, working holiday makers, and post-study work visas.”<\/p>\n It sounded like some meat on the bones of Angus Taylor’s policy to link migration levels to housing construction. Here at last was some detail on which migration streams would be trimmed to meet the Coalition’s target.<\/p>\n Except it wasn’t. Bragg was riffing, or as he put it, trying to “move the debate on towards where the numbers are probably going to hit”.<\/p>\n The visa categories had not been green-lit by the shadow cabinet, and in fact some in the shadow cabinet vehemently disagreed.<\/a><\/p>\n Andrew Bragg was riffing when he recently indicated migration targets, which have not been backed by his party. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n Matt Canavan, the Nationals leader, insisted that his party would not allow any cuts to backpackers on working holiday visas, who were “not the problem” and were needed in the regions. Taylor said no details were final and Bragg had been pulled for a quiet chat.<\/a><\/p>\n Labor, the Liberals and the Nationals \u2014 all in a muddle on migration.<\/p>\n It sounds like perfect political fodder for One Nation, which has built its political insurgency on the premise that it is the only party capable of “plain speaking” on migration.<\/p>\n Except that Pauline Hanson’s party may be even more muddled than the others.<\/p>\n Its “target” of 130,000 was at first a temporary migration target, or possibly temporary and permanent; it is now permanent, but only temporarily.<\/a> Got that?<\/p>\n There is a reason this stuff is hard, even for someone whose desire to cut migration is as unrepentant as Hanson’s: for all the focus on the level of migration, its causes are murky, and it is harder for politicians to control than they would like to admit.<\/p>\n The migration net<\/p>\n For starters, the main figure everyone seems determined to talk about \u2014 net overseas migration (or “the NOM”)<\/a> \u2014 is almost universally misunderstood.<\/p>\n For one thing, it is not actually a measure of “migrants” at all, at least in the way they are conventionally understood in the political debate \u2014 or at least not just migrants.<\/p>\n It tracks arrivals and departures of both foreigners and Australians, excluding short-term visits.<\/p>\n And because it measures inflows and outflows, it is not a reliable measure of how many migrants are actually in Australia at any one time. It measures speed, not mileage.<\/p>\n Net overseas migration is a difficult number to nail down. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n So you can add successive numbers together to say that well over a million people have entered Australia in net terms since Labor took office \u2014 as its opponents do \u2014 but this gives you no historical context and only indirectly tells you about the migration system.<\/p>\n It does not tell you, for instance, that net migration was not just low but actually negative during the pandemic.<\/a><\/p>\n Migration dips as Coalition accuses government of failing to meet targets<\/a><\/p>\n Net overseas migration remained above 300,000 last year, fuelling opposition claims Labor has locked in an unsustainable new normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n More people were leaving than were arriving, as the border shut and many migrants returned home. When the borders reopened, the pent-up demand was one cause of the spike, as were pandemic policies encouraging migrants who stayed here to stay even longer.<\/p>\n This doesn’t ‘debunk’ the popular perception that migration is unusually high \u2014 if you look at the total number of visas on issue,<\/a> you will see that that number is also high.<\/p>\n But it does lead to confusion now that net migration has become the main fixation of political debate: every party is scrambling to frame their policies in terms of what it will mean for the NOM, but NOM targets are only loosely related to actual visas.<\/p>\n Even if a political party can nominate the visa streams it wants to clamp down on \u2014 as Labor seems very close to doing \u2014 it still cannot be assured of delivering a particular NOM, as there will always be comings and goings (including of Australians) outside its control.<\/p>\n Labor: half-target, half-forecast<\/p>\n Labor’s apparent solution will be to set a plan to meet the level of NOM that Treasury forecasts will occur in the year 2027-28, which is currently 225,000.<\/a><\/p>\n This is challenging enough, given that Treasury forecasts have generally been exceeded in recent years.<\/p>\n But it is not quite a target, even if it sounds like one.<\/p>\n Labor’s actual target seems to be the number of people on so-called “bridging” visas, an assortment of visas given to those who are in between recognised categories like student or humanitarian visas.<\/p>\n Tony Burke postponed an address in which he was expected to outline Labor’s migration policies. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n Cabinet discussions have highlighted the runaway growth of the bridging visa cohort, which numbers more than 400,000<\/a> \u2014 a level roughly double the pre-pandemic norms.<\/p>\n Many of the people in that bucket are likely those described by the former top public servant Martin Parkinson as “permanently temporary” in his often-forgotten report to the Albanese government in 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n The term describes those who have outstayed their initial reason for coming to Australia and are unlikely to seek or be granted permanent residency, but who may yet stay for many years, either on bridging visas, as temporary workers, or as perennial students.<\/p>\n Labor will seek to reduce that number with measures that may include limiting work rights for those who are on bridging visas while they appeal rejected humanitarian claims,<\/a> and those who are on them because they have applied for family visas.<\/a><\/p>\n Both measures are contentious but might, as one minister suggested to the ABC, salvage something of “the spirit” of Parkinson’s review by clarifying the status of those who are in visa limbo.<\/p>\n The measures would also be expected to reduce the NOM, as would a likely measure to restrict the length of stay for some backpackers.<\/p>\n But the government still could not say with certainty that any of this would achieve a NOM of 225,000.<\/p>\n The Coalition: a NOM target we cannot know<\/p>\n The Coalition’s target also has an element of fuzziness.<\/p>\n It has promised a one-to-one ratio between housing completions and net migration, but has yet to nominate any visa categories and has given itself some wriggle room to change that ratio in future.<\/p>\n While Andrew Bragg used current completion rates to suggest an indicative NOM target of under 180,000, the Coalition will not actually have to nail itself to any specific number before the election, since by definition the future NOM will not be known until after it.<\/p>\n Angus Taylor quietly counselled Senator Bragg over his speech. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n This has caused some consternation, with former Liberal staffer Peta Credlin telling Taylor in an interview this week that he would “still need a number” if Labor and One Nation were going to set them.<\/p>\n That prompted Taylor to make the curious suggestion that because housing completions were so dismally low under Labor \u2014 a bad thing \u2014 that would likely mean a housing target of even further below the 180,000 than Bragg suggests \u2014 a good thing.<\/p>\n The Nationals’ opposition to any backpacker cuts is just one of the problems that will face Taylor when he is eventually required to be more specific.<\/p>\n Business concerns over skilled workers and community concerns over family visas are another.<\/p>\n One Nation: possibly no NOM target<\/p>\n But even Hanson has seemed reluctant to nominate visas for the chopping block. Her party has the most ambiguous policies of all.<\/p>\n One Nation’s Net Overseas Migration target is also unclear. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/245140691972b89e939f794aeb41ee13.jpeg\")
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