# Is Labor’s migration plan tackling a real problem or a political one?

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 17 Sep 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/8878357e-dc38-4952-95c6-b4c800608747/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

After one false start and a hell of a lot of political pressure from the right, Labor has finally unveiled its long-awaited immigration plans. Backpackers, students and visa overstayers will all be targeted by the measures – designed to bring net overseas migration down from around 300 thousand, to 225 thousand by 2028. So what impact will the overhaul have on our economy, our communities, and on Labor’s re-election prospects? Today, journalist Peter Mares – who writes extensively on immigration for Inside Story magazine – on what’s in store, and whether the issue Labor’s addressing is a political problem, or a real one. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Inside Story Magazine journalist Peter Mares Photo: AAP Image/Lukas Coch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am. After one
[0:09] Speaker 1: false start and a hell of a lot of political
[0:11] Speaker 1: pressure from the right, Labor has finally unveiled its long-awaited
[0:15] Speaker 1: immigration plans. Backpackers, students and visa overstayers will all be
[0:19] Speaker 1: targeted by the measures, designed to bring net overseas migration
[0:23] Speaker 1: down from around 300,000 to 225,000 by 2028. So what
[0:29] Speaker 1: impact will the overhaul have on our economy, our communities
[0:33] Speaker 1: and on Labor's re-election prospects? Today, journalist Peter Mayers, who
[0:38] Speaker 1: writes extensively on immigration for Inside Story magazine, on what's
[0:42] Speaker 1: in store and whether the issue Labor's addressing is a
[0:45] Speaker 1: political problem or a real one. It's Friday, September 18th. Peter,
[1:01] Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Tony Burke, after a lengthy delay,
[1:04] Speaker 1: has finally laid out Labor's plan to bring down migration.
[1:09] Speaker 1: When you strip away the politics around it, what is
[1:11] Speaker 1: actually changing?
[1:13] Speaker 2: Well, there's a whole bunch of stuff, and it is
[1:14] Speaker 2: more a set of minor changes around a whole lot
[1:19] Speaker 2: of different visa categories than a fundamental overhaul of the
[1:22] Speaker 2: migration system. It's also important that he's doing it all
[1:25] Speaker 2: through regulations, not through legislation. So we're not going to
[1:29] Speaker 2: see a bill go to Parliament... because he hasn't been
[1:31] Speaker 2: able to strike a deal with the coalition. So every
[1:34] Speaker 2: change he's making is a change in the regulations, as
[1:38] Speaker 2: it were. So overall, he wants to see net overseas
[1:42] Speaker 2: migration come down to 225,000. We need immigration. We just
[1:45] Speaker 2: need to make sure that it is targeted.
[1:52] Speaker 3: For the needs of Australia in numbers and across the
[1:55] Speaker 3: different categories that work for our economy.
[1:57] Speaker 2: That's unchanged. That's what the government has said for quite
[2:00] Speaker 2: a while. What has changed is the way in which
[2:03] Speaker 2: he wants to achieve that. And I guess the two
[2:07] Speaker 2: areas he's targeting are students and backpackers, so temporary migrants,
[2:12] Speaker 2: international students and backpackers. When it comes to students, what
[2:15] Speaker 2: he's said is that international students in future won't be
[2:18] Speaker 2: able to bring family members with them.
[2:22] Speaker 3: We will no longer be allowing the attaching of family
[2:25] Speaker 3: members for international students or for graduate visas. Anyone who
[2:29] Speaker 3: already has their family attached to a visa and is
[2:33] Speaker 3: already here, we're not going to be breaking up families onshore.
[2:35] Speaker 2: Now, this will make a very small difference because only
[2:40] Speaker 2: about 12-13% of student visas are what are called secondary visas,
[2:44] Speaker 2: that is partners and children. So it's a small number.
[2:49] Speaker 2: With backpackers, the changes are a bit more complicated. But basically,
[2:54] Speaker 2: if you come to Australia as a working holidaymaker for
[2:56] Speaker 2: a year, and if you work for three months in
[2:59] Speaker 2: a regional area, you can get a second working holidaymaker visa.
[3:03] Speaker 2: And then if you work another six months in a
[3:04] Speaker 2: regional area in certain jobs, you can get a third visa. Now,
[3:09] Speaker 2: that used to be automatic. You did the time, you
[3:11] Speaker 2: got the visa. He's introducing a ballot system, which means
[3:15] Speaker 2: that you can do your three months working, picking fruit
[3:17] Speaker 2: or whatever, and then you put in for a ballot
[3:19] Speaker 2: and see if you get a second visa. That second
[3:22] Speaker 2: visa ballot is quite a lot. It's about 45,000, whereas
[3:27] Speaker 2: last year there were 57,000. So it's down by about 12,000.
[3:30] Speaker 2: The really big difference is in the third visa, because
[3:34] Speaker 2: the ballot there is only for 5,000 places. So it's
[3:37] Speaker 2: going to be very hard to get a third visa.
[3:38] Speaker 2: So that will make more working holidaymakers go home earlier
[3:43] Speaker 2: and make the working holidaymaker scheme less attractive overall.
[3:47] Speaker 1: What did you make of Labor's promise to crack down
[3:50] Speaker 1: on deportations for people overstaying their visas?
[3:53] Speaker 3: Effectively, what we are going back to doing is simply
[3:56] Speaker 3: being able to make sure that if you overstay, you
[3:59] Speaker 3: will not be able to say, well, there's no consequences
[4:01] Speaker 3: as if they're ever going to make sure that I leave.
[4:03] Speaker 1: Does that send us down a US-style ice path potentially, Peter?
[4:08] Speaker 2: No, I don't think so. I think that, well, we
[4:10] Speaker 2: need to make a distinction here between two things. On
[4:14] Speaker 2: the one hand, there are overstayers, that is people whose
[4:18] Speaker 2: visas have run out and then they basically disappear into
[4:21] Speaker 2: the community and live unlawfully in Australia. And actually, those
[4:26] Speaker 2: numbers are pretty small. There's only about 70,000 or 80,000
[4:29] Speaker 2: and those numbers haven't changed in decades. The really big
[4:33] Speaker 2: problem the government faces is people seeking to stay by
[4:37] Speaker 2: other means by applying for different visas. They call this
[4:39] Speaker 2: visa hopping.
[4:40] Speaker 3: The second issue that needs to be dealt with is
[4:43] Speaker 3: visa hopping. Now, not all of the movement from one
[4:47] Speaker 3: visa to another is what I would call visa hopping.
[4:49] Speaker 3: A lot of it is actually the system working as
[4:51] Speaker 3: we would want it to.
[4:53] Speaker 2: So, for example, you might do a degree in a university.
[4:57] Speaker 2: And then you want to stay in Australia, but you
[4:59] Speaker 2: can't get a permanent visa. So you say, I'll go
[5:01] Speaker 2: and do a TAFE course or a vocational education course.
[5:05] Speaker 2: And what the government has said is you can't do
[5:07] Speaker 2: that anymore. You can't go, how Burke termed it, you
[5:09] Speaker 2: can't sort of go down the ladder of degrees.
[5:12] Speaker 3: And one of the worst examples is they transfer down
[5:17] Speaker 3: to a not so legitimate educational provider who is able
[5:22] Speaker 3: to say to them, study with me. It'll cost you less.
[5:26] Speaker 3: We're not very demanding on whether you attend anything and
[5:29] Speaker 3: you'll be able to go for your life and get
[5:30] Speaker 3: out there and work.
[5:31] Speaker 2: So that's one of the ways they're trying to stop
[5:33] Speaker 2: what they call visa hopping. The other and the big
[5:36] Speaker 2: problem is people ending up on bridging visas while they
[5:40] Speaker 2: try to get another visa. And they might be, for example,
[5:43] Speaker 2: seeking asylum. You know, the government does have a real
[5:46] Speaker 2: problem here. A lot of claims for asylum that really
[5:49] Speaker 2: have no merit. But because it takes so long to
[5:52] Speaker 2: get a decision, you get work rights and you can
[5:55] Speaker 2: stay in Australia while the decision is made. So you
[5:58] Speaker 2: might end up in Australia for several years with work rights.
[6:00] Speaker 2: And this has been exploited by scammers, by dodgy labour
[6:04] Speaker 2: brokers and others, bringing people in on tourist visas and
[6:06] Speaker 2: then encouraging them to apply for for protection visas. And
[6:11] Speaker 2: the tricky problem the government faces here is how do
[6:13] Speaker 2: you crack down on that without also cracking down or
[6:17] Speaker 2: creating a situation which is totally unfair for someone who
[6:20] Speaker 2: does have a legitimate asylum claim.
[6:22] Speaker 1: So what did Burke say about how they would tighten
[6:25] Speaker 1: up visa hopping, as he put it?
[6:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, the main way they'll tighten up visa hopping
[6:30] Speaker 2: is by making it so you can't move down the
[6:34] Speaker 2: skills ladder, as it were, or down the educational ladder.
[6:37] Speaker 2: So you limit the options for visa hopping. And visa
[6:39] Speaker 2: hopping is a problematic term, right? I mean, we've created
[6:42] Speaker 2: a system in Australia whereby we have encouraged temporary migration.
[6:47] Speaker 2: We've opened things up. We've created a whole lot of
[6:49] Speaker 2: lawful ways for people to stay in the country. And
[6:52] Speaker 2: it shouldn't be surprising, given that Australia has a pretty
[6:55] Speaker 2: strong economy, pretty good employment prospects, that people then seek
[6:59] Speaker 2: to stay here on a legitimate visa because they see
[7:02] Speaker 2: better life prospects for themselves here.
[7:05] Speaker 1: So we have created this system.
[7:07] Speaker 2: And when people are accused of visa hopping, they're not.
[7:10] Speaker 1: Doing anything wrong.
[7:11] Speaker 2: They're not doing anything illegal. They're just looking for the
[7:14] Speaker 2: visa options that are there for them to enable them
[7:17] Speaker 2: to remain in Australia.
[7:19] Speaker 1: So how is what the government has announced compared to
[7:23] Speaker 1: One Nation's offering announced earlier this week, which was based
[7:26] Speaker 1: on cutting our temporary migration intake by 750,000 over three years,
[7:32] Speaker 1: taking us into negative migration. How does this compare to that?
[7:36] Speaker 2: Well, it's a much slower winding back of migration. And
[7:42] Speaker 2: it's an open question as to whether it's enough to
[7:44] Speaker 2: reach the government's targets. I think it will be because
[7:48] Speaker 2: numbers have been trending down already and the government's done
[7:50] Speaker 2: a lot of other things to slow migration. For example...
[7:54] Speaker 2: It's increased the price of most visas by 25%. It's
[7:58] Speaker 2: required students to have a lot more savings than they
[8:02] Speaker 2: used to have if they want to come and study
[8:03] Speaker 2: in Australia. It's increased English language requirements for various things.
[8:07] Speaker 2: So net overseas migration has already been slowing. But how
[8:11] Speaker 2: it compares to One Nation, I mean, one of the
[8:13] Speaker 2: things One Nation wanted to do was to say, if
[8:15] Speaker 2: you're a temporary skilled migrant, so let's say you're a
[8:18] Speaker 2: doctor going to work in a regional town like Bathurst
[8:23] Speaker 2: or something like that on a four-year visa, you can't
[8:27] Speaker 2: bring your family. That would have made a difference to
[8:30] Speaker 2: numbers because about 40% of all people who come under
[8:35] Speaker 2: a skilled migrant category are either the partners or children
[8:38] Speaker 2: of skilled migrants. But you're talking about skilled migrants. You're
[8:40] Speaker 2: talking about people that are not students. They're at a
[8:43] Speaker 2: later stage in their life. They've got families. They've got partners.
[8:47] Speaker 2: And to say to them, you can come to Australia,
[8:49] Speaker 2: but only on your own, leave the kids and the
[8:51] Speaker 2: partner behind, that's an outrageous suggestion.
[8:54] Speaker 1: And then to put it crudely, they're in their prime
[8:56] Speaker 1: in terms of being able to pay taxes, pay for
[8:59] Speaker 1: some of the services that are needed to support them
[9:01] Speaker 1: and us.
[9:02] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[9:03] Speaker 1: It's pretty cruel, is it not?
[9:04] Speaker 2: It would be cruel and it would be counterproductive because
[9:07] Speaker 2: often the partners of skilled migrants are skilled migrants themselves.
[9:11] Speaker 2: They often work. They contribute to the economy. The other
[9:14] Speaker 2: difference with One Nation would have really, you know, One
[9:17] Speaker 2: Nation's plans would really crash the higher education sector if
[9:20] Speaker 2: you bring the numbers down as fast as they would
[9:23] Speaker 2: like to do. So it's a much more careful approach.
[9:28] Speaker 2: approach than One Nation has shown. Although, you know, we
[9:32] Speaker 2: do see all the parties here kind of running in
[9:36] Speaker 2: the same direction, which is to say migration is too high.
[9:39] Speaker 2: We've got to bring the numbers down. I was pleased, however,
[9:42] Speaker 2: that Tony Burke did give a defence of migration in
[9:46] Speaker 2: his press club speech, what it does for Australia, how
[9:49] Speaker 2: we benefit Australia benefits. He was pressed by a couple
[9:52] Speaker 2: of journalists at the Press Club who said, why haven't
[9:55] Speaker 2: you been saying this stuff before? Why you know you've
[9:57] Speaker 2: been missing in action they got very defensive about that
[10:00] Speaker 2: do you.
[10:00] Speaker 4: Acknowledge that while you've been in government there are points
[10:03] Speaker 4: in this debate that have been extremely harmful to migrant
[10:06] Speaker 4: communities where labor was either quiet or according to those
[10:10] Speaker 4: communities felt like there was a silence and is there
[10:14] Speaker 4: a concession that you need to make that it's as
[10:16] Speaker 4: a result migrant communities who have paid the price of
[10:19] Speaker 4: demonization in this process.
[10:22] Speaker 3: Can you give me an example of when I've been
[10:24] Speaker 3: silent on that?
[10:24] Speaker 4: This is what the migrant community is feeling.
[10:28] Speaker 3: I've spent my whole career, my entire political life, standing
[10:33] Speaker 3: up against hate speech.
[10:34] Speaker 2: But I think it's true that One Nation has been
[10:36] Speaker 2: setting the agenda here and the government is scrambling to
[10:39] Speaker 2: catch up.
[10:43] Speaker 1: Still to come, is migration or politics at the heart
[10:47] Speaker 1: of this announcement? Peter, how much of this immigration issue
[10:56] Speaker 1: is about politics and One Nation putting it on the agenda?
[11:00] Speaker 1: And how much of it is a real problem with
[11:03] Speaker 1: our migration levels? Or is it both?
[11:05] Speaker 2: I think it's both, Daniel. I think it is both.
[11:08] Speaker 2: There are real problems. And part of that all goes
[11:11] Speaker 2: back to the pandemic, right? We had this, some call
[11:16] Speaker 2: it a kind of whiplash experience where migration stopped, went
[11:20] Speaker 2: backwards actually, during the pandemic when all the borders closed.
[11:24] Speaker 2: And if people remember, as the pandemic came to an end,
[11:28] Speaker 2: there was huge panic in the business community about not
[11:31] Speaker 2: having enough workers to do the jobs we needed to
[11:34] Speaker 2: get done. And the then Morrison government basically stepped on
[11:38] Speaker 2: the gas and opened up migration again and really made
[11:42] Speaker 2: it attractive to come to Australia. And the numbers boomed.
[11:46] Speaker 2: And Labor was probably too slow to wind back some
[11:49] Speaker 2: coalition initiatives and And so we saw that breakout year
[11:54] Speaker 2: when net overseas migration was 500 and something thousand, you know,
[11:59] Speaker 2: it was a huge surge and it's been falling back
[12:02] Speaker 2: since then. So, you know, if we hadn't had COVID,
[12:05] Speaker 2: I don't think we'd be in the same, having the
[12:07] Speaker 2: same debates we're having now, but we are having them.
[12:10] Speaker 2: We're having them not just because Pauline Hanson and One
[12:14] Speaker 2: Nation have been making the running, but because people are
[12:16] Speaker 2: experiencing the real difficulties in the rental market. I mean,
[12:20] Speaker 2: they were anyway. I'm not blaming migrants to the rental market.
[12:23] Speaker 2: But if you do have a big influx of international students, say,
[12:28] Speaker 2: then that will affect rents around universities and colleges and
[12:31] Speaker 2: so on. So the two are connected. So there are
[12:34] Speaker 2: real problems and they're very difficult problems to tackle. And
[12:38] Speaker 2: I hope the government is still going to do what
[12:41] Speaker 2: it said it would do when it came in in
[12:42] Speaker 2: 2022 and the process it started. which was to comprehensively
[12:47] Speaker 2: review the migration program and try to make it more systematic,
[12:52] Speaker 2: try to give it a proper overhaul rather than just
[12:54] Speaker 2: keep tweaking the bits here and there.
[12:57] Speaker 1: So there is some correction needed, but there's also a
[13:00] Speaker 1: risk that when it comes to the politics around this,
[13:02] Speaker 1: that we could overcorrect, particularly given some of the hard
[13:06] Speaker 1: numbers we're seeing from One Nation and the Coalition. Is
[13:09] Speaker 1: that a risk?
[13:10] Speaker 2: I think it is a risk. I mean, I think
[13:12] Speaker 2: what we want to avoid is what we've experienced with COVID,
[13:16] Speaker 2: where you get these dramatic fluctuations, you know, down or
[13:20] Speaker 2: up in migration, because that creates reverberations throughout the economy.
[13:26] Speaker 2: So you want to keep it a bit kind of steadier,
[13:30] Speaker 2: if you can. And it is quite hard to do
[13:32] Speaker 2: because you implement policy X, one year and then a
[13:37] Speaker 2: year later you realise it hasn't had quite the effect
[13:39] Speaker 2: you intended and people have found a workaround and all
[13:42] Speaker 2: the rest of it. It's very tricky stuff. I think
[13:44] Speaker 2: the fundamental problem here, Tony Burke said something very interesting
[13:48] Speaker 2: right at the start of his speech. He said, we've
[13:51] Speaker 2: moved to a demand-driven migration system. If 100,000 international students
[13:56] Speaker 2: want to come and study in Australia, they can come.
[13:59] Speaker 2: If Australian businesses want to import skilled workers, they can
[14:02] Speaker 2: import them. There's no quotas attached and the numbers go
[14:05] Speaker 2: up and down according to demand. And Tony Burke said
[14:09] Speaker 2: that's not what Australians want. They want to see the
[14:12] Speaker 2: government in control of migration.
[14:14] Speaker 3: And they do want to see government able to take
[14:17] Speaker 3: a higher level of control on different parts of the
[14:20] Speaker 3: immigration system compared to what previously has been there.
[14:23] Speaker 2: I'm surprised that all of a sudden the government's saying
[14:26] Speaker 2: this because this has been obvious for a very long time.
[14:29] Speaker 2: I wrote a book in 2016 where I said Australia
[14:33] Speaker 2: is going to run into a problem because we have
[14:36] Speaker 2: an unlimited number of temporary migrants, and a limited number
[14:40] Speaker 2: of permanent places, and a lot of those temporary migrants
[14:43] Speaker 2: will want to stay, and they will find whatever way
[14:46] Speaker 2: they can to stay in Australia long term until they
[14:49] Speaker 2: are effectively Australian in all but their legal status. Because
[14:53] Speaker 2: they've lived here, they've built their lives here, they've been
[14:55] Speaker 2: here eight, ten years or whatever, but they're still on
[14:58] Speaker 2: this indefinite temporary visa treadmill of Their lives are unstable
[15:04] Speaker 2: and it's created a whole set of problems that have
[15:07] Speaker 2: been coming at us for a long time and that
[15:10] Speaker 2: we're still not really addressing.
[15:12] Speaker 1: And finally, Peter, this is an issue, immigration is an
[15:15] Speaker 1: issue that is sort of intertwined with the story of
[15:17] Speaker 1: Australia throughout our history. It often becomes a political football.
[15:22] Speaker 1: What's the danger when we look at immigration through that
[15:25] Speaker 1: political lens and how would you like to see immigration
[15:29] Speaker 1: treated in this country?
[15:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I mean, the danger, Daniel, is a very
[15:33] Speaker 2: real one. And we've seen it writ large in this
[15:36] Speaker 2: so-called debate about immigration in recent months, which has really
[15:39] Speaker 2: been a blame game, blaming immigrants for all our problems.
[15:43] Speaker 2: Inflation must be immigrants' problems. Housing must be immigrants' problems.
[15:46] Speaker 2: Road congestion must be immigrants'. You know, we've seen a
[15:48] Speaker 2: lot of blame shifted to immigrants and very little vigorous
[15:52] Speaker 2: defence efforts. of immigration and the benefits that flow from it.
[15:57] Speaker 2: And it is a very complicated area. So I would
[16:00] Speaker 2: like to see more robust defence of migration. I'd like
[16:03] Speaker 2: to see governments saying we've got things wrong rather than
[16:08] Speaker 2: saying migrants have got things wrong and we're working to
[16:11] Speaker 2: sort them out. You know, there are abuses in the system.
[16:14] Speaker 2: There are people who seek to use the system for
[16:16] Speaker 2: their own means and not as it was intended. But
[16:18] Speaker 2: it's a system we created, as in our government's The
[16:22] Speaker 2: governments we voted for created this system. So if there
[16:24] Speaker 2: are faults, that's where the fault lies, in the way
[16:27] Speaker 2: the settings have been designed, rather than in the fault
[16:31] Speaker 2: of migrants who, for understandable reasons, may want to stay
[16:33] Speaker 2: in Australia like the rest of us.
[16:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, we forget one of the big problems with this
[16:37] Speaker 1: is that Australia is actually a lovely place to live.
[16:39] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[16:44] Speaker 1: Peter, thanks so much for your time.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Thanks, Daniel.
[17:02] Speaker 1: Also in the news, an official rate rise later this
[17:06] Speaker 1: month is now looking more likely after the US Fed
[17:09] Speaker 1: defied Donald Trump, lifting interest rates by a quarter of
[17:12] Speaker 1: a percent. Australia is expected to follow suit. The markets
[17:15] Speaker 1: now put the chance of a hike at 88%. Economists
[17:19] Speaker 1: at the big banks are more divided, though. At this stage,
[17:22] Speaker 1: only NAB is tipping an interest rate rise. A massive
[17:27] Speaker 1: attack has taken aim at Ed Sheeran, saying no artist
[17:30] Speaker 1: should tolerate the censorship of another artist however many millions
[17:33] Speaker 1: of dollars are in play. Sheeran now has no support
[17:36] Speaker 1: acts for upcoming shows after they all pulled out in
[17:39] Speaker 1: solidarity with Macklemore, who was removed from the tour for
[17:42] Speaker 1: saying free Palestine on stage. Sheeran says it wasn't his decision.
[17:48] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. Thank you for listening to 7am. We'll
[17:51] Speaker 1: be back tomorrow.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.