Voters favour deeper cuts to migration as Labor misses budget boost

Australians have backed the case for lower migration after a bruising political fight over housing and congestion, with 66 per cent of surveyed voters saying last year’s intake was too high.

The exclusive findings also show that 50 per cent of voters want Labor to make deeper cuts to migration than it revealed in last week’s federal budget, as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton steps up his calls for more drastic action.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are at odds over the migration intake.Credit:

The government has gained strong support for new budget measures including its $3.5 billion energy subsidy and its $6.2 billion housing plan, as well as greater backing for the revised stage 3 income tax cuts.

But the budget has not generated a political gain for the government, with the Labor primary vote slipping from 30 to 29 per cent over the past month, and the Coalition vote holding steady at 36 per cent.

The survey, conducted for this masthead by Resolve Strategic, found that 40 per cent of respondents believed the budget was good for them and their households, up from 31 per cent on the same question after the budget last May.

Asked about the budget’s impact on the country, only 41 per cent said it was good, down from 44 per cent one year ago.

“Budget bounces, at least immediate ones, are as rare as unicorn droppings,” said Resolve director Jim Reed.

“This one is no different, though we may yet see some recovery for Labor as the popular tax cuts and subsidies flow through to hip pockets from July.”

Voters prefer Anthony Albanese as prime minister when asked to name their favoured leader, giving him 40 per cent of the vote compared with 32 per cent for Dutton. The result was 41 to 32 per cent last month.

The government promised to cut net overseas migration by capping overseas student numbers and cracking down on suspect education providers, admitting concern about the surge in the intake to 528,000 last year.

While the budget forecast a fall in net overseas migration to 395,000 this financial year and 260,000 next year, Dutton promised bigger cuts in his budget reply speech on Thursday night and radio interviews on Friday.

The new findings show 66 per cent of voters believe last year’s migration intake was too high, while 23 per cent thought it was “about right” and 9 per cent were undecided. Only 2 per cent thought it was too low.

The question told respondents the net overseas migration outcome had risen to 528,000 a year, the actual number in Tuesday’s budget papers.

The survey also found 50 per cent believed the plan to cut migration next year did not go hard enough. Another 35 per cent thought next year’s intake was “about right” and 11 per cent were undecided. Only 4 per cent thought the forecast was too low.

The question told respondents net overseas migration was forecast to fall to 260,000 next year, as stated in Tuesday’s budget.

A similar question last December found 55 per cent of voters thought the forecast for migration was too high, suggesting the objections have eased since Labor announced further action in the days before the budget.

In a danger sign for Labor, 60 per cent said the government was handling migration in an “unplanned and unmanaged way” and 20 per cent said it was being run in a “carefully planned and managed way”, with the rest undecided.

The same question in December found 57 per cent thought the government was handling the issue in an unplanned and unmanaged way.

“Immigration is becoming a growing issue,” said Reed. “This isn’t a product of who is coming here or why, but the sheer quantum.”

The Resolve Political Monitor surveyed 1602 eligible voters from Wednesday to Saturday, producing results with a margin of error of 2.4 per cent. The questions reflected the government policies in the budget last Tuesday and could not be modified to ask about Dutton’s proposals on Thursday or Friday.

Dutton blamed the government for the migration surge and said on Friday he would make deeper cuts to net overseas migration to get an intake of 160,000, which would be an additional cut of 100,000 places.

Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary in the Department of Immigration, said the Coalition target would require the “decimation” of the international student intake and a “massive weakening” of the labour market from a shortage of workers.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the deeper Coalition cut to migration would weaken the budget and the economy when the country needed nurses, builders and other skilled workers within a lower intake.

“He hasn’t factored in the damage that he will do to the economy with these numbers he’s plucked out of the air,” the treasurer said on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday morning.

Dutton said the numbers had to be cut to make more housing available.

“International students are great, that’s fine, but we can’t have rental accommodation and housing taken up by non-citizens when our own citizens can’t find a roof to put over their head,” he said on radio station 2GB on Friday.

Economists and housing industry experts disputed the Coalition’s claim that its migration would make 100,000 homes available to Australians over five years.

Voters cut Labor’s primary vote from 32 to 30 per cent in the Resolve Political Monitor last month, then trimmed another percentage point in this month’s survey to take the result to 29 per cent. The party’s core support is now below the level it gained at the election, which was 32.6 per cent.

Support for the Coalition increased from 35 to 36 per cent in the April survey and held steady in the May survey.

The latest survey showed the Greens’ primary vote fell from 13 to 12 per cent, while Pauline Hanson’s One Nation rose from 5 to 7 per cent and independents increased their support across the country from 11 to 12 per cent.

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