Latest / The Front / Stop the visa hop: inside Labor’s migration crackdown

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Stop the visa hop: inside Labor’s migration crackdown · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, August 28, 2026. Police took three months to
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  Speaker 1: to theaustralian.com.au for our rolling coverage of the aftermath of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: flash flooding disaster in Nepal and Tibet. Nothing makes Labor
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: politicians sweat like an immigration controversy. And now the federal
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  Speaker 1: government has come up with a crackdown to bring migration
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  Speaker 1: numbers down in the attempt to appease the right while
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  Speaker 1: trying not to alienate the left.
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  Speaker 2: Will it work?
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  Speaker 1: And what problem are we trying to solve anyway? That's
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  Speaker 1: today's story. Geoff Chambers is the Australian's political editor and
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  Speaker 1: he's been writing about a concept that I hadn't heard
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  Speaker 1: of before. Geoff, what is visa hopping?
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  Speaker 2: Well, visa hopping is a very common trend.
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  Speaker 3: That over the last two decades, we've seen a bit
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  Speaker 3: of a cottage industry emerge amongst migration agents and such.
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  Speaker 3: And the advice that is given is that if you're
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  Speaker 3: here on a temporary visa, or if you're here as
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  Speaker 3: an international student, there are avenues and pathways to remain
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  Speaker 3: in the country and quite often remain in Australia indefinitely.
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  Speaker 3: And what they do is basically hop from one type
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  Speaker 3: of visa to another. And we've seen this a lot
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  Speaker 3: in the international education, higher education, VET, English language sectors,
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  Speaker 3: where you're going to see a person that's arrived here
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  Speaker 3: from abroad do one course, and then they're going to
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  Speaker 3: move to another course and seek a different visa. And
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  Speaker 3: this is a big issue because They're doing this here
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  Speaker 3: in Australia onshore. Quite often under these student visas, you
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  Speaker 3: can bring family members out here. So they're looking to
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  Speaker 3: have a longer life and a longer time in Australia.
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  Speaker 3: But when we've currently got about 700,000 international students in
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  Speaker 3: the country, that becomes a bit of an issue. And
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  Speaker 3: few countries, Western countries, actually allow this onshore application. So
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  Speaker 3: I think it would make a difference if you can say, okay, look,
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  Speaker 3: We're very open to you making that application, but you
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  Speaker 3: do have to go home and you do have to
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  Speaker 3: make that new pitch as to why you want to
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  Speaker 3: continue your various courses here in Australia.
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  Speaker 1: This is part of a crackdown, a looming crackdown that
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  Speaker 1: you've revealed that the Labor government is now working up
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  Speaker 1: and it's all about getting net overseas migration down. Labor
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  Speaker 1: has been trying to get the net overseas migration down
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  Speaker 1: for quite a while now and.
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  Speaker 2: It's really struggling.
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  Speaker 3: Why?
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  Speaker 1: Is visa hopping the reason?
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  Speaker 3: I think the reason is to get the NOM down
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  Speaker 3: requires some pretty extreme and drastic decisions.
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  Speaker 2: One is in the enforcement.
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  Speaker 3: So if you do have illegal overstays, you're going to
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  Speaker 3: have to make that call that they're going to have
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  Speaker 3: to go to a detention centre and then they're going
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  Speaker 3: to have to get deported. And that is something that
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  Speaker 3: has happened under Labor, but the argument is they haven't
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  Speaker 3: gone as hard as they possibly could. I like to
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: go back after the 2022 election when Claire O'Neill is
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  Speaker 3: the then Home Affairs Minister tasked Martin Parkinson, former PMC
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  Speaker 3: and Treasury Secretary, to do Labor's big migration review. And
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  Speaker 3: the purpose of that really was to say, oh, the
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  Speaker 3: coalition over a decade did such a bad job.
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  Speaker 2: Here are all the problems.
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  Speaker 3: So what Martin Parkinson did was he actually, in fact,
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  Speaker 3: identified what needs to be done. And Labor, for the
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  Speaker 3: last three and a half years almost now, haven't really
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  Speaker 3: followed through. So they're now in the process of trying
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  Speaker 3: to do that because they understand that. that the optics
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  Speaker 3: for a Labor government in particular to look like they're
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  Speaker 3: not on top of immigration and on top of borders,
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  Speaker 3: this is becoming problematic as we see the rise of
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  Speaker 3: One Nation and both the Labor Party and Anthony Albanese's
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  Speaker 3: personal standings go down post-Bondi terrorist attack. And as everyone's
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: sort of doing it tough in this cost of living environment.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really interesting philosophical one for Labor, isn't it?
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  Speaker 1: The big argument for many years in Australia has been
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  Speaker 1: that higher levels of migration improve our Labor productivity. We
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  Speaker 1: bring in the kind of skilled workers who have the
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  Speaker 1: initiative to get themselves here in the first place. They
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  Speaker 1: contribute to Australia. They make this country better. And especially now,
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  Speaker 1: our fertility rate is.
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  Speaker 2: Low and falling.
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  Speaker 1: We're not replacing ourselves in the numbers that we need
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  Speaker 1: to sustain our economy into the future. you could take
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  Speaker 1: a pretty cynical view and say Labor still holds that view,
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  Speaker 1: but is prepared to sacrifice it because they're worried about
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  Speaker 1: One Nation. Is it as simple as that right now,
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  Speaker 1: or is there a bigger shift going on within Labor?
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  Speaker 3: The economic impacts of substantially lowering the net overseas migration figure,
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  Speaker 3: which some people argue is not the figure that should
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  Speaker 3: actually be looked at because the NOM looks at everything
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  Speaker 3: that's coming in and out of the country, any visitors,
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  Speaker 3: any Australians that are coming in and out. So It's
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  Speaker 3: actually quite hard to get that number down significantly. You'd
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  Speaker 3: have to do some pretty drastic things to get to
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  Speaker 3: that point. I think that Anthony Albanese has intervened. He
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  Speaker 3: clearly was concerned about what happened to Keir Starmer over
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  Speaker 3: in the UK, who, you know, obviously has been replaced.
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  Speaker 1: So Keir Starmer's small boats record is officially worse than
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  Speaker 1: any of his predecessors as Prime Minister.
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  Speaker 3: And Anthony Albanese and Tony Burke have now changed their
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  Speaker 3: views on things like Operation Sovereign Borders, boat turnbacks, the
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  Speaker 3: use of Nauru. All of these are important, but there
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  Speaker 3: is a bigger issue at play, and that is the
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  Speaker 3: impacts of this huge post-pandemic record migration levels on things
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  Speaker 3: like community infrastructure and transport and jobs and all the
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  Speaker 3: rest of it. So they've got that on one side,
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  Speaker 3: and then they've got the economic ramifications on the other side.
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  Speaker 3: And if you're Jim Chalmers, You're already delivering deficits. You're
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  Speaker 3: already swimming in a sea of debt. He can't really
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  Speaker 3: do with some significant cut to migration. And as you say,
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  Speaker 3: around population, the birth rate is down. So we are
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  Speaker 3: very heavily reliant on those immigration flows to have the
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  Speaker 3: people to do cleaning jobs, cooking jobs, all those types
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  Speaker 3: of those jobs that potentially Australians don't want to do.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got these two things at force.
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  Speaker 3: And then you've got a Labor Party who obviously, 2007
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  Speaker 3: to 2013, under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, lost control
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  Speaker 3: of the borders. And Anthony Albanese and a bunch of people,
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  Speaker 3: including Tony Burke and Chris Bowen, who were immigration ministers
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  Speaker 3: during those governments, they know full well what the fallout
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  Speaker 3: is if you can't get that narrative right.
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  Speaker 2: We are seeing too many drownings. We are seeing too
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  Speaker 2: many sinkings, too many innocent people being lost at sea.
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  Speaker 3: The alternative script, which probably prompted a postponing of Tony
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  Speaker 3: Burke's announcement of the so-called immigration crackdown, are those people
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  Speaker 3: that are worried about their left base, are worried about
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  Speaker 3: people who think that Labor are being mean and being
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  Speaker 3: like Donald Trump and going too hard or following one
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  Speaker 3: nation and the coalition down a rabbit hole. So you've
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  Speaker 3: got those competing pressures at play. But at the very least,
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  Speaker 3: while Labor might optically want some people to think that
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  Speaker 3: this is going to be a really forceful crackdown around
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  Speaker 3: visas and immigration, it might be more of a feather
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  Speaker 3: duster than a big stick. I think Anthony Albanese has said, look, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: this is a guy that did pretty well amongst diaspora
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  Speaker 3: communities in the last two elections. he's saying now, look,
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  Speaker 3: let's just hit our targets. I think we've got to
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  Speaker 3: at least hit our targets, but we don't have to
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  Speaker 3: go substantial. We don't have to follow the other guys
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  Speaker 3: and go substantially lower, but we do have to hit
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  Speaker 3: our targets, guys.
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  Speaker 1: That would bring the norm to 220 odd thousand people
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  Speaker 1: a year. The coalition is saying it should be more
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  Speaker 1: like 180,000, but One Nation got itself tangled up. Pauline
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  Speaker 1: Hanson says it should be 130, but then other members
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  Speaker 1: of One Nation pointed out quite rightly, I think, that
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  Speaker 1: if you include the people who we need to work
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  Speaker 1: in our aged care homes, as you said, Jeff, to
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  Speaker 1: clean our offices, to pick the fruit that Australians apparently
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  Speaker 1: don't want to pick, it would be much higher than that.
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  Speaker 1: It would be more like 180,000 people. That's the alternative
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  Speaker 1: for Labor, isn't it? It's just holding the line and
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  Speaker 1: hoping that that becomes obvious to Australians. Most Australians have
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  Speaker 1: never even heard of the norm, though. Pauline Hanson will
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  Speaker 1: keep saying migration is too high and that's why you
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  Speaker 1: can't get a house.
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  Speaker 4: Why are you using mass migration to paper over your
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  Speaker 4: abysmal economic management, disregarding the call from millions of Australians
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  Speaker 4: to stop it due to their standard of living being destroyed?
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  Speaker 1: So if Labor doesn't actually bring the number down any
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  Speaker 1: further than its current target, how does it answer that criticism?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they're the incumbents, aren't they?
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  Speaker 3: So they're two terms in and they're going to be
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  Speaker 3: gunning for a third election either late next year or
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  Speaker 3: in 2028. And it very much squarely lays on them
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  Speaker 3: in terms of how they manage the immigration system. And
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  Speaker 3: I think for both Labor and the coalition when they
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  Speaker 3: were in power, this discussion about what skills do we
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  Speaker 3: need in this country?
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  Speaker 2: What are the skills priorities? Who are the type of
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  Speaker 2: people that we need here? I don't think the work's
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  Speaker 2: ever been done properly.
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  Speaker 3: And both my parties are promising that they will try
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  Speaker 3: and get that right. It is really complex to get
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  Speaker 3: that right because the needs change year to year. Depends
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  Speaker 3: on what region of Australia. It depends on the appetite
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  Speaker 3: of who we're trying to attract. Are we trying to
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  Speaker 3: attract high-level tech type of people, which I think we
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  Speaker 3: probably should. And I think there'll probably be some exceptions
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  Speaker 3: and carve-outs for postgraduate research and trying to attract the
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  Speaker 3: best and the brightest. But it's that sort of underlay
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  Speaker 3: under the economy, sort of, you know, the care economies,
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  Speaker 3: you know, as Australia gets older and as those workforces
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  Speaker 3: get bigger, where are we going to get those people from?
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  Speaker 1: It's a tool of our soft diplomacy too, isn't it,
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  Speaker 1: in the Pacific? The Palms Labor Scheme that brings Pacific
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  Speaker 1: Island workers here to do things like pick fruit, seasonal work.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that is Australia's kind of signature policy in
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  Speaker 1: the region to say, we care about you, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to help you bring money home to your own economies.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, it's been such a success and it's bipartisan support.
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  Speaker 3: And even One Nation people who are familiar with the
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  Speaker 3: regions and who talk to the farmers are understand that
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  Speaker 3: it's crucial and really important. And we've seen stories recently
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  Speaker 3: about the long-term trajectory of Australia's agricultural production and output.
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  Speaker 3: And it's quite frightening to see where that might go
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  Speaker 3: if we don't get that mix right. It's really fascinating,
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  Speaker 3: the politics in this, because I think One Nation, the
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  Speaker 3: Coalition and Labor ultimately have to explain what the impacts
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  Speaker 3: will be from their various targets. But I certainly think
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  Speaker 3: it's easier for One Nation and Pauline Hanson to basically,
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  Speaker 3: you know, she can move positions, it seems, and at
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  Speaker 3: this point in the cycle, get away with it.
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  Speaker 4: Your skilled list includes occupations such as dog handler, hairdresser, gardener,
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  Speaker 4: golfer and migration agent. Minister, why is your government flooding
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  Speaker 4: Australia with 80% of unskilled migration?
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, is lowering migration just a band-aid for our
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  Speaker 1: homegrown housing crisis? Geoff, Pauline Hanson's big rallying cry is
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  Speaker 1: that immigration is causing the housing crisis. The counterpoint to
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  Speaker 1: that is housing is bound up in red tape, lack
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  Speaker 1: of supply and other factors. Labor would say it's working
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  Speaker 1: on that with the big budget reforms that have been
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  Speaker 1: very controversial. What do you think? Is immigration becoming the
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  Speaker 1: scapegoat for the housing situation when it's not really to blame?
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  Speaker 2: I think it has become that, absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: And ironically, it was the coalition and Peter Dutton that
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  Speaker 3: put this, and probably before him, even under the Morrison government,
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  Speaker 3: that made that tie, that link between migration and housing.
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  Speaker 2: And it's actually, it's slipped up the coalition. Labor struggles because.
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  Speaker 3: They've made these huge promises on targets for housing supply
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  Speaker 3: and cutting red tape and all.
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  Speaker 2: The rest of it.
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  Speaker 3: And it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the trajectory
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  Speaker 3: that they require. So they naturally will come under pressure.
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  Speaker 3: And if people can't buy a house or if there's
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  Speaker 3: issues in the housing market, they're going to look for
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  Speaker 3: something to blame. And you do have Pauline Hanson then
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  Speaker 3: saying people can't get housing because immigration is out of control.
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  Speaker 3: And I think the out of control narrative, whether it's
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  Speaker 3: the public service is out of control, they're hiring too much.
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  Speaker 2: Spending's out of control.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's a fairly common theme where if people
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  Speaker 3: are struggling in a cost of living crisis, in a
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  Speaker 3: housing crisis, and they don't know who to blame and
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  Speaker 3: they're going to get told it's the government's fault, it's
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  Speaker 3: the major party's fault because they've let you down. I
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  Speaker 3: think that is why One Nation is gaining so much traction.
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  Speaker 1: Geoff Chambers is The Australian's political editor. You can check
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: out his work anytime at theaustralian.com.au.