Grattan on Friday: Unless you’re Pauline Hanson, the migration debate can be a dangerous sinkhole

When, way back, the opposition started talking about cutting immigration it would have thought, on the basis of polling, that it was tapping into a vein of political gold.

But since , Pauline Hanson has taken ownership of the mine and pretty much locked it away for One Nation.

Simon Welsh, from the Redbridge Group political consultancy, says: “The Liberals talking about migration doesn’t create more Liberal voters, it creates more One Nation voters.

"Immigration offers people a simple explanation for the pressures they are feeling. When the major parties talk about it, it validates that. [Voters] then ask, who is the strongest voice on immigration? It’s a massive strategic error [by the major parties],” Welsh says.

Also and crucially, the opposition may not have initially appreciated how a migration policy can open a political sinkhole that it’s easy to be pushed into and hard to scramble out of.

We’re seeing that this week, now Opposition leader Angus Taylor has finally released the Coalition’s plan.

One Nation and the government already had their policies out. So Taylor appeared very much a follower rather than leader on the issue.

His policy would cut net overseas migration (NOM), currently a little under 300,000, to 100,000 in each of the first two years, rising to 160,000 by the fourth year.

(NOM is “the net gain or loss of population through immigration to Australia and emigration from Australia”.)

For Liberals looking to compete with One Nation, Hanson’s offering goes further, with a negative NOM initially, rising to 130,000.

The real problem for the Coalition, however, is that it is very difficult to win a policy argument where there are multiple moving parts, vocal stakeholders, many potential losers, and outcomes that rely on assumptions that may or may not stand the test of the real world.

The migration system certainly needs significant reform. The government, which ordered a major inquiry led by former public servant Martin Parkinson that reported in 2023, should have done more years ago; instead it was playing catch up in its recently announced changes.

But whatever changes are made will have a bunch of intended and unintended (and unforeseen) consequences, triggering intense debate.

As the Parkinson review put it, “Our work reinforced that, while there often was strong agreement between stakeholders about broad objectives and high-level issues, putting migration into practice involves making difficult decisions about trade-offs and balancing competing, equally valid, concerns”.

The thrust of the Parkinson review was similar to that of the opposition’s policy – that is, moving away from the high proportion of temporary visa holders that underpins our labour market – although that review was more detailed and nuanced.

Taylor condemns the “guest worker” economy, saying “Australia should be a home not a hotel”. In the 1980s, the emphasis in the migration system was on permanent arrivals. Over subsequent years there has been a major trend, under Liberal and Labor, to people on temporary visas, which are more demand-driven.

In trying to cut migration, there are various big “levers” that can be pulled – visa classes with large numbers including the working holiday program, foreign students, and those on temporary graduate visas. Whichever levers are chosen will have consequences and bring reactions.

When the government announced in its recent policy overhaul a tightening of working holiday numbers, farmers and others in the regions screamed blue murder, saying there’d not be enough people to pick the fruit or serve in local cafes.

The backpackers have been protected under Taylor’s policy – the Nationals insisted on that.

As it looked for levers, the opposition went after (among others) those on temporary graduate visas – people who have finished their studies but have visas to stay and work for a period. They fill many jobs, including in the gig economy.

Business organisations have attacked the Coalition’s proposals as potentially denying them the workers they need. They are not buying Taylor’s argument that having more skilled workers as part of a more limited overall intake will serve their needs better.

And in some parts of the economy – the aged care sector for instance – it’s relatively unskilled labour that’s required. The opposition argument is that aged care workers could switch to the skilled stream, but how many would? The bar would be higher.

Former immigration official Abul Rizvi, writing in Guardian Australia, says, “There is no chance a NOM figure of 100,000 a year over two years can be delivered if the labour market remains at around its current [tight] state. […] The Coalition would be overwhelmed by pressure from the business community to increase its target.”

The policy would hit foreign students, not so much directly as indirectly. The opposition says there would be only a modest cut in the number of students allowed in. But there would be a disincentive effect from a tougher approach to family members accompanying students (as the government is taking) and from scrapping temporary graduate visas. International education is a big industry for Australia, so these changes would have potentially serious implications for export income as well as for university finances.

More broadly, the consequences of the opposition’s migration policy for particular sectors and regions are unclear. To what extent the policy would dent the wider Australian economy, which has been held afloat recently on the large intake, will be a meaty debate from now until the election.

Unfortunately for the Liberals, one of those central to the policy’s framing, spokesman Jonno Duniam, is preparing to depart parliament just as the difficult selling job gets underway. Duniam, leaving for family reasons, is among the opposition’s relatively few strong performers and the timing of his exit, although long known, couldn’t be worse.

One gets the impression that while the opposition originally saw the migration issue as a political honey pot, now its attitude has changed. It knew, given the clamour, it had to produce a detailed policy, and is now anxious to get it out of the way. Remember that only a few weeks ago it was flagging it would withhold the bottom line figures until closer to the election, when it would have the latest data. Now we have been given those numbers.

Taylor just wants to have this done, and move back onto the more fertile (for him) and less tricky economic ground as soon as he can.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.