{"id":819600,"date":"2026-05-24T20:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/819600\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T20:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:06:27","slug":"angus-taylors-migration-cap-may-not-cut-migration-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/819600\/","title":{"rendered":"Angus Taylor\u2019s migration cap may not cut migration at all"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last Australian immigration minister to argue for a specific target for overall overseas migration fixed to a percentage of the total population was Labor’s Arthur Caldwell<\/a> in 1945<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Calwell’s speech to parliament on August 2 that year became famous for kicking off Australia’s “populate or perish” immigration push. The phrase is associated with Calwell but was coined in the 1930s by former then-health minister Billy Hughes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Calwell established that the government should target 1 per cent per year population growth through planned migration on top of a 1 per cent natural increase.<\/p>\n

In the years since, Australia has had a target for permanent migration \u2014 set in this month’s budget at 185,000<\/a>.<\/strong> But that is only part of the story.<\/p>\n

The houses and migration equation<\/p>\n

Eighty years after Calwell’s plans came into effect, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has proposed a return to full immigration targeting<\/a> \u2014 sort of “depopulate or perish” \u2014 with the number to be based on houses built. It seems also to be aimed at depopulating One Nation’s vote, so the Liberal Party doesn’t perish.<\/p>\n

Linking migration policy to housing is unlikely to produce “one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history”, as promised by Taylor in his budget reply speech.<\/p>\n

Labor upgrades migration by 55,000<\/a><\/p>\n

The federal budget reveals the government expects more migrants to arrive to Australia than previously thought, even as it faces a campaign from the Coalition and One Nation to slash migration rates.<\/p>\n

In fact, as things stand, it would not produce any cut in migration at all.<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2024-25, the latest year for which we have data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics<\/a>, population growth was 419,300, made up of natural increase (112,600) and 304,700 net overseas migration (NOM) that includes the 185,000 target plus additional migrants drawn from those already in Australia for work or study, for example<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Using the average occupancy of 2.4 occupants per household<\/a>, those extra people in 25-26 would need 174,708 places to live.<\/p>\n

As it happens, dwelling completions in 2024-25<\/a> were almost the same as that \u2014 174,792, or 84 more houses and flats than theoretically needed under Taylor’s plan.<\/p>\n

Some have characterised Taylor’s policy as “one house per migran<\/a>t<\/a>“, but that’s not what he said.<\/p>\n

He said: “A Coalition government will cap immigration<\/a> numbers based on the number of homes constructed each year”.<\/p>\n

However, migrants tend to come in families, and don’t each need a house to themselves.<\/p>\n

In the second half of 2025, dwelling starts picked up to around 17,000 a month, or a bit more than 200,000 a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, natural increase is declining with the birth rate, and the Treasury is forecasting NOM this year<\/a> will be 295,000, about 10,000 less than last year. The housing surplus this year is likely to be slightly more than last year.<\/p>\n

There were some migration reforms buried in the budget papers<\/a> specifically to “reform the Working Holiday Maker (WHM) program to better control numbers, reduce barriers to work, provide a fairer allocation of WHM visas, and support Australia’s national interests”.<\/p>\n

That probably means fewer WHM visas, although that’s complicated:<\/p>\n

WHM visas involve individual reciprocal deals with 60 other countries. A simple way to reduce numbers might be to cancel Scott Morrison’s third visa extension, which was offered if the visa holder agreed to work in regional areas.<\/p>\n

If Treasury’s forecast comes to pass and housing completions stay where they are, then matching migration with houses would involve increasing migration, not reducing it, as I said <\/a>on Insiders last Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Angus Taylor argues that the Albanese government “always exceeds its immigration targets”, although the number in the budget is not a target, it’s a forecast.<\/p>\n

Experts like Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, told me this year’s NOM looks likely to be around 300,000, not much more than the Treasury forecast, and certainly not the blowout being predicted by the Coalition, One Nation and the Institute of Public Affairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

None of which makes the Coalition’s policy of tying migration to housing supply a bad one \u2014 instead, it suggests it is just too narrow and needs to go further.<\/p>\n

The correct level of migration is complicated, emotional and prone to being used by politicians to get cheap votes.<\/p>\n

LoadingHomes are not the only thing<\/p>\n

We could make it a matter purely of arithmetic and judgement by a well-resourced independent body, a bit like how the Reserve Bank runs monetary policy \u2014 that is, with a big staff of economists and experts who advise a board of decision-makers who don’t answer to politicians.<\/p>\n

What’s more, housing is just one of the things they would have to consider when setting the right level of migration, not just forecasting and outsourcing to universities.<\/p>\n

The other things apart from the number of houses being built are:<\/p>\n

A lot of this, but not all, is connected to housing; there’s also transport, energy and technology. Road and airport congestion are fairly easy to assess, but other infrastructure requirements are complicated by the energy transition and the boom in artificial intelligence, which is why this requires expert judgement.<\/p>\n

Australia’s fertility rate is <\/a>1.48 births per woman<\/a>, well below replacement and in long-term decline. On the current trend, deaths will exceed births in about 25 years, while the working-age population will fall below the non-working population before that. Some level of migration is essential for that, but trained demographers need to work out how much.<\/p>\n

Treasury’s FIONA (“Fiscal Impact Of New Australians”) model clearly shows that most migrants are a net positive for the budget, and that having fewer of them would increase the deficit. Only the humanitarian intake is a net fiscal negative.<\/p>\n

This is described as Australia’s third-largest export industry, although that includes all the money foreign students spend, even if they earned it here. Still, last year there were <\/a>157,000 foreign students<\/a> or more than 50 per cent permanent migration<\/a>. <\/strong>Without them, Australia’s universities would be bankrupt, and the nation’s basic scientific research would come to a halt.<\/p>\n