The surprising thing about One Nation’s new immigration policy is not that it contains extreme ideas. It is that parts of it deserve serious discussion.
The best part is its pledge to regulate the size and composition of the temporary migrant population.
This is the right number to target because it links directly to problems people care about, including poor planning, obstacles to integration and migrant worker exploitation.
It is also feasible to contain. Its size is determined by two flows a government can control: the net intake of people on temporary visas, and the number who convert to permanent status.
If these flows are kept equal, the temporary population stabilises. This is not a theory or forecast. It is a mathematical fact.
By contrast, recent political debate has focused on net overseas migration (Nom): the difference between migrant arrivals and departures.
Nom provides a rough measure of all migration. So to claim Nom is the problem supports the false conclusion that all migration is problematic.
It is not. Some parts cannot and should not be regulated, such as movements of Australian citizens. Others, such as permanent migration, are already well regulated. Temporary migration, by contrast, was deregulated 25 years ago and now needs reviewing.
Regulating temporary migration means controlling how many temporary migrants arrive, how long they stay, how many leave and how many become permanent residents. This is all possible under existing legislation. What is changing is the political consensus about whether it is desirable.
Following Canada’s lead in regulating the temporary migrant population could help Australia avoid the problems of previous “guest worker” programs. One Nation deserves credit for putting this on the table.
Beyond this, however, its policy jumps from real problems to blunt, kneejerk cuts that would do more harm than good.
First, it proposes reducing the temporary migrant population by 750,000 over three years by pushing net overseas migration into negative territory.
That is extraordinarily radical. We tried it recently – and it went badly.
Australia last recorded negative net overseas migration during the Covid border closure. Businesses failed, the economy contracted sharply and governments spent massively to cushion the shock. Deliberately recreating that outcome makes little sense.
Migration is too important to be governed by slogans, arbitrary numbers or scapegoats
Second, One Nation’s approach to departures is too punitive. Australia has the right to enforce its immigration laws, and people without a lawful basis to remain have to leave.
But a three-month deadline backed by aggressive enforcement and lifetime re-entry bans raises questions about proportionality and due process. Families, children, long residence and legal processes make cases more complicated than a blanket rule allows.
A migration system must be enforceable, fair and humane. The one-off Covid cohort requires a mix of conversion to permanence for some, extended temporariness for others and, for a few, incentives to depart once visas expire. The objective should be harm minimisation, not an arbitrary net migration target.
Third, there is a racial dimension that cannot be ignored.
One Nation has a long history of framing migration through racial and cultural division. That does not make every question it raises illegitimate. It is reasonable to argue migration is too high or temporary migration needs tighter regulation.
But blaming particular ethnic or religious communities for housing shortages, pressure on services, falling living standards, crime or security threats is analytically weak and socially corrosive. There is a crucial distinction between debating migration policy and blaming migrants.
A better policy would stabilise the system after Covid and tackle the long-term imbalance between permanent and temporary migration. Both require governing the temporary population deliberately.
We should collectively decide how large it should be, what purposes it serves, and where pathways should end. People should either leave when their temporary purpose has ended or, where Australia’s need and their connection have become permanent, have a realistic pathway to permanence.
Australia once led the world in migration research and policymaking, but that capability has eroded. It needs an independent national migration research institute to produce authoritative data, model competing proposals and test political claims against evidence.
Migration is too important to be governed by slogans, arbitrary numbers or scapegoats. If Australia wants a system that commands public confidence, it needs a better-informed debate about what migration is for and how it should be governed.
• Alan Gamlen is a professor at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University and director of the ANU Migration Hub
