Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is planning to cut by thousands the number of refugees Australia brings into the country as she searches for ways to drive down the overall inflow of migrants.
Shadow ministers working on the migration policy, which is expected to be made public next week, have resolved to drive down refugee numbers from the current 20,000, say sources familiar with the plan but not permitted to talk about it publicly.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
The party has not settled on the amount by which it would cut the humanitarian intake, but it could be by as many as 5000 or 10,000, sources said, which the opposition will contrast with the intention spelt out in Labor’s national platform to raise the number to 27,000 over time.
The Albanese government is unlikely to boost the number so high because the migration program as well as housing and settlement services are already stretched.
“The only way Labor can get near 30,000 is by putting people up in expensive hotels as they do in Britain,” one Liberal frontbencher said. “The services aren’t there, and we’re struggling to build enough social housing as is.”
Ley has moved quickly to develop a migration policy as she faced pressure over the issue from her right flank and One Nation following the internal dispute over climate targets last month. One Nation has been targeting migration and is sitting at record highs in all major published polls. This month’s Resolve Strategic Monitor has One Nation at 14 per cent and the Coalition at 26 per cent.
The United Nations said in May that an estimated 83.4 million people, a record, were displaced and living away from their homes, exiled by an increase in disasters and conflict – notably in Sudan, the Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Ukraine and Palestine.
Most of Australia’s refugees in the past few years have escaped the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria and Myanmar.
Several polls, including Resolve, have tracked growing concern among voters about Australia’s migration levels as living standards have stagnated and debates have emerged about culture and identity.
When asked by Resolve about Australia’s current immigration settings, two in three voters wanted all immigration paused until the supply of housing has caught up with demand, the poll found, while just 13 per cent of people would oppose such a move.
This masthead reported on Wednesday that Ley’s plan is expected to include reforms to crack down on fraudulent appeals by people claiming asylum to stay in the country, with more resources devoted to deporting them when their legal options are exhausted.
The party also plans to make those seeking to live here sign up to the Australian Values Statement – which emphasises freedom of religion and the Australian “fair go” – as a visa condition. It would thereby tie the statement to the character test, breaches of which result in visa cancellation.
Sources said the plan would also cut international student numbers, though not by as much in regional universities. There is disagreement within the party on whether to set a target for the net overseas migration figure, but the Coalition is not expected to do so in the plan being developed by immigration spokesman Paul Scarr and home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam.
Ley’s policy announcement, originally planned for this week, was delayed as the Coalition focused its energies on the spending saga surrounding Communications Minister Anika Wells.
After debate on whether Chinese Communist Party members could face stronger visa vetting under the Coalition’s beefed up values test, opposition frontbencher James Paterson said it was “wrong” to suggest the Coalition would go down that path, as the party tries to repair relations with Chinese-Australians.
“If we are going to be implementing a values-based test for visa applicants, it will be universal in application, it will not be discriminatory,” Paterson said on Thursday.
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