Peter Dutton muddies Coalition’s message on migration

The Opposition Leader has further confused the Coalition’s pledge to slash migration, amid discontent within Coalition ranks about its slim economic policy offering.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

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Peter Dutton has muddied the ­opposition’s message on ­migration amid discontent within Coalition ranks about its slim ­offering on economic policy and poor communication ahead of the election.

The confusion surrounding the Coalition’s economic agenda came as former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson rejected the Opposition ­Leader’s proposed ­migration clampdown as “trying to solve a non-existent problem”, instead warning that skilled migrants arriving in Australia were being rejected by its “fragmented” occupational licensing system.

While Mr Dutton announced in May 2024 that a future ­Coalition government would slash the net overseas migration intake to 160,000 in the 2025-26 financial year, he dumped that plan in December, pledging instead to “look at the economic settings when we come to government”.

But on Thursday, Mr Dutton changed course again, denying that he had ever backflipped on his policy for net overseas migration, which measures the difference ­between the number of inter­­national arrivals staying longer than 12 months and the number of long-term and permanent ­departures.

“I haven’t walked that back at all – that was an ABC report or something,” Mr Dutton told Nine Radio. Pressed again about the policy flip-flop, which was similarly reported by The Australian, Mr ­Dutton instead recommitted to a separate target the Coalition has set to reduce the number of permanent visas, currently set at 185,000 for this financial year.

“Our plan is to reduce the permanent migration program down from where it is at the moment to 140,000 in year one and two, and then we bring it back up in years three and four,” he said.

Approximately 60 per cent of those awarded permanent visas are already in Australia, meaning the Coalition’s proposed cut to visa numbers will have only a limited impact on the overall net ­migration intake.

Dr Parkinson, who led a review of the migration system in 2023, said the bigger issue was that there were more than two million non-citizens in Australia with work rights who were low paid under a “guest worker program”.

“It’s not about the size of the migration program, irrespective of whether you want a small migration program or a large program,” he said. “It’s about making sure whomever we bring in here actually gets to contribute to their fullest potential.”

As part of a campaign titled ­Activate Australia’s Skills, Dr Parkinson is calling for a nationally cohesive approach to skills assessment to address workforce shortages. With 44 per cent of the permanent migration program working below their skills and qualifications level, and a third of occupations suffering a skills shortage, Dr Parkinson said the issue had to be addressed quickly.

“One in three occupations has skill shortages, and yet half of our permanent migrants are working jobs that require a skill level less than what they actually have,” he said. “It contributes to slower productivity growth in Australia, and it makes it harder for those ­migrants to actually contribute to the maximum extent possible.”

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed net overseas migration continued to cool in the most recent September quarter.

As Labor attempts to reduce the recent surge in net overseas migration, which peaked at 556,000 in the year to September 2023, the latest quarterly figures showed it fell to 379,000 in the following 12 months. Australia’s annual population growth dropped below 2 per cent for the first time since the September quarter of 2022, hitting 1.8 per cent as net overseas migration reduced.

As of September 30, 2024, Australia’s population had reached 27,309,396. WA recorded the fastest annual growth at 2.5 per cent, while Tasmania recorded a fall in natural increase as the number of deaths overtook the number of births.