Australian Labor Minister Tony Burke to Unveil Major Migration Policy Changes

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of Labor’s immigration shake up.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is set to announce tough new visa rules at a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra around 12.30pm. The speech is titled: “The work of managing the migration program: who arrives, who stays, who leaves.”

It’s been more than a month since Labor’s original announcement was delayed.

Today’s immigration announcement is timed to occur one day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flies to New York. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is also set to release fresh migration data later today.

Stay tuned as we bring you the latest developments.

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has labelled Burke’s migration plan “underwhelming” as she claimed the government was responsible for “letting in people” who did not share Australian values.

“We think this is, you know, not going far enough … And the fact is, we’re letting in people that don’t share our values. So we want to see an overhaul of this system, not just tinkering at the edges. So very underwhelming,” she told Nine’s Today show this morning.

She was not asked to elaborate on what those values were.

Appearing alongside the senator was Independent MP Allegra Spender, who said she did not believe either major party had come up with a considered plan about migration.

“To be honest, there hasn’t been a population strategy. There hasn’t been a population strategy from either of the major parties about how do we expect our migration system to go,” she said.

“How can it provide the skills that we need, make sure that we can bring in the people that we love, but also do this in a way that makes sense in terms of the infrastructure that we’re building. So we have a really long way to go.”

Former Liberal minister Chris Pyne said that “migration has made Australia what it is today”, and that culling international students would be “an act of self-harm”.

“Migration has built the country … Migration has made Australia what it is today,” Pyne told ABC’s 7.30 last night.

“It’s very important to remember how this country came to be as great as it is. Skilled migrants add to our tax take … So, saying that we’re going to start curtailing international students is definitely an act of self-harm.”

He called on politicians to stand up for a migration population that is “sustainable”, but also acknowledges the benefits migrants bring to the country.

“Australia is so powerful internationally because of its multiculturalism and all the people in Australia who do business with the countries that they came from, or their grandparents came from, because of the knowledge they have, the skills they gain, the language commonalities, these things are not something that we should be embarrassed about. We should be championing them.”

Population figures to be released today should reveal if the federal government’s efforts to curb net overseas migration are working.

The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics cover the first three months of the year which traditionally swell as people move into the country to take up jobs and start their educational studies.

Australia’s population growth has been slowing since it peaked at almost 2.5 per cent in the second half of 2023, but it still remains among the fastest in the developed world. Through 2025, the population grew by 1.5 per cent or 412,000 to an estimated 27.8 million.

The main driver of growth has been net overseas migration. That reached a record of 556,000 in the 12 months to September 2023. Last year, it eased to 311,000.

Despite the slowdown, net overseas migration remains on track to be well above the federal government’s own budget forecasts of 295,000 this financial year.

Labor will try to salvage its long-awaited migration plan by stopping students from bringing family members and targeting the ballooning number of overstayers, as the Coalition splits over Pauline Hanson’s push to achieve negative migration.

After weeks of cabinet squabbling over how to reduce the intake by 80,000, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will front the National Press Club on Thursday with a plan to rein in the number of temporary migrants, which has grown to 3 million and turned into a top-level concern of voters battling high inflation and housing costs.

After Burke’s speech on migration was postponed last minute in early August to work out the economic impacts, his plan tightens control over a visa program he argues has lacked sufficient oversight since the Howard era.

Labor aims to enforce more departures and deportations once visas expire, restrict visa hopping and rein in surging onshore asylum claims, which have been exploited by foreigners trying to extend their stay while waiting on appeals.

Read the full story here.