Having made bold promises to reduce immigration in his 2024-25 budget reply speech and in a radio interview with 2GB’s Ben Fordham the next day, Peter Dutton is scrambling to explain his position on immigration levels.

In a recent interview with Laura Tingle on the ABC and then again in an interview with Andrew Clennell of Sky News, Dutton refused to re-commit to the 160,000 net migration target he announced over six months ago on 2GB.

No explanation for rationale

The rationale for his 160,000 target, or how he would deliver it, has never been explained other than the fact it was 100,000 less than the Albanese government’s net migration forecast of 260,000 for 2024-25. That is a forecast the government will exceed, possibly by around 100,000.

By now, Dutton appears to have worked out that getting net migration down to 160,000 would require both:

• A very weak labour market, with unemployment rising to over 6 per cent, possibly higher, and
• Controversial cuts to a range of visas that are a priority for either the National Party (for example, agriculture visas, working holiday maker visas; other regional visas) or his constituents in the business community (for example, employer sponsored temporary visas).

In addition, he has opposed the government’s student capping legislation, which would have been essential to his policy of capping student numbers much more severely overall as well limiting them at metropolitan universities while allowing regional universities to grow.

Presumably he opposed that legislation just to create some Trump style chaos and would resurrect that legislation if he wins the next election.

When asked explicitly about his net migration target of 160,000, Dutton said: “We’ve spoken about a 25 per cent reduction because the government’s bringing in a person every 44 seconds at the moment, 1.67 million people over five years.”

Clennell again asked: “No, but on net migration – that’s permanent migration. What about net migration?”

Dutton responded: “Well, our policy is on net migration at the moment, it’s an interesting topic you raise because the government has a disaster that’s been brewing for the last couple of years.”

Notice Dutton makes no reference to the Coalition stomping on the student and working holiday maker visa accelerator that drove most of the rapid rise in net migration immediately after Covid.

Clennell persisted: “But you’re not sticking to the 160,000. You’re not sticking to the 160,000 target for net migration then?”

Avoiding questions

Dutton again avoids the question: “Andrew, what we’ve said is that we want our migration program to step down in the first two years. It will ramp up again in years three and four and we will bring down the numbers who come through the humanitarian and refugee program back to the long-run average of that.”

Dutton kept trying to divert Clennell away from net migration to the permanent migration intake, knowing that Clennell knew what Dutton was doing but hoping that Australians won’t understand the difference.

The fact is cutting the permanent migration program to 140,000 and the humanitarian program to 13,500 will make only a very minor reduction to net migration. That’s because the bulk of the permanent program is sourced from temporary migrants who have already been counted in net migration.

Smoke and mirrors

But even Dutton’s permanent migration policy is fraught with difficulties. Cutting the permanent program to 140,000 with the family stream limited to one-third, would require capping partner visa grants.

Applications for partner visas are currently booming, something the Labor Government is illegally failing to accommodate. There is little chance any future Senate would give government the power to legally cap partner visas.

So Dutton’s position on immigration levels is to now appear that he will cut immigration levels more severely than Labor is trying to (somewhat unsuccessfully) while hoping the media won’t ask for too many details on either why net migration blew out or how he will cut it.

Not quite Trump’s mass deportation chaos but still a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Abul Rizvi PhD was a senior official in the Department of Immigration from the early 1990s to 2007 when he left as Deputy Secretary. He was awarded the Public Service Medal and the Centenary Medal for services to the development and implementation of immigration policy.

This article first appeared in Pearls and Irritations. Read the article here.