Peter Dutton on right track over immigration cut: Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott says Peter Dutton was on the ‘right track’ in his proposal to cut Australia’s immigration intake by 20,000.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Tony Abbott says Peter Dutton was on the “right track” in his proposal to reduce Australia’s immigration intake 20,000, calling him the “most outstanding minister in the government”.

The former prime minister warned immigration had become a taboo topic in Australia, as threw his weight behind the Home Affairs Minister whose proposal to reduce the annual intake to 170,000 was knocked back by Malcolm Turnbull.

“If that is an accurate story Peter Dutton who is an outstanding minister, probably the outstanding minister in the government, is on the right track,” Mr Abbott told 3AW radio.

“If we want to get wages up and if we want to make housing more affordable plainly a reduction in the rate of immigration would help, it is not the only thing but it could be an important contribution that the federal government could make.”

Mr Abbott said he favoured a non-discriminatory immigration policy, although he noted “10,000 people from the Horn of Africa obviously have ramifications that 10,000 from New Zealand don’t.”

“Things shouldn’t be off limits as much as they are at the moment, for instance it seems that the talk about the rate of immigration has been taboo until very recently, now that shouldn’t be the case,” Mr Abbott said.

“You can be pro immigrant as I am without necessary thinking the rate of immigration has got to be as historically high as it has been over the last decade.”

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Australia had a ceiling of 190,000 migrants per year and only took as many as was in the national interest.

“I think the most important aspect is to consider the makeup of the migrant community into Australia,” Ms Bishop told Sky News.

“What are the visa categories bringing people into Australia? We have foreign students, that is very good news for Australia because it is one of our largest exports, educating foreign students.

“We have a significant numbers of tourists and of course we want to increase tourist numbers because that drives productivity and jobs growth.

“Skilled labour, and that of course is demand driven, if we need more skilled workers to come in and drive productivity in this country then that is a good thing.”

Bill Shorten said immigration was important for economic growth.

“I think the broader community issue beyond the internal civil war and hate-fest which is the government, is the issue of people’s frustration at poor infrastructure, lack of access to housing and the issues in urban growth which are not adequately supported by Canberra,” the Opposition Leader said.

“We’ll maintain an immigration policy which has a refugee component, a family reunion component, and of course, a skilled migration component.”