Migration debates have a nasty habit of forcing us into two silly camps.

Apparently you either need to defend the migration system exactly as it is or you must want to slash migration to zero. I want to do neither. 

Australia’s migration system is badly in need of reform and the government knows it.

The 2023 Parkinson Review described a system that was no longer fit for purpose after decades of piecemeal changes. 

But fixing a migration system isn’t the same thing as crying out for zero migration. 

Demographically, we need migration. 

Let’s put a number on it. If you forced me to pick a sensible level of net overseas migration for Australia in normal times, I would say around 200,000 people a year. 

I don’t mean exactly 200,000 every year – migration doesn’t work like that.

Think of a broad band, perhaps 180,000 to 240,000 net overseas migration (NOM) depending on the economy, the labour market, housing construction, infrastructure capacity and the whims of human nature (Australians and Kiwis can come and go as they please and marry who they want). 

In the year to December 2025, Australia had a NOM of 301,000 – still above the 20-year average of 232,000, but well below the post-Covid peak of 556,000.

The peak wasn’t nearly as crazy as it looks – it was mostly the result of a migration catchup after a short period of negative NOM during the pandemic. 

The federal budget expects NOM to return to 225,000 in a few years. That looks much closer to a sustainable cruising altitude. 

In a nation of 28 million people, a migration intake of 240,000 translates to less than 0.9 per cent of annual population growth.

Henry Sherrell and Lachlan Vass recently argued in Inflection Points that Australia should keep population growth from NOM below 1 per cent per year. Importantly, they admit there is no magical science behind exactly 1 per cent.

Their bigger point is that migration requires an upper boundary and public confidence that the government is actually in control. I agree with that principle. 

Zero migration remains a terrible idea 

Two years ago, I ran a thought experiment in this column asking what Australia would look like under zero migration. The answer wasn’t pretty. 

Australia is ageing, regardless of what we do with migration. Migration cannot stop ageing, it can only slow it down and, crucially, ensure that enough working-age people remain available to staff the economy and finance the growing cost of an older population.

Treasury’s Intergenerational Report projects that the share of Australians aged 65 and over will rise to 23.4 per cent by 2062-63.

At the same time, labour-force participation is expected to decline as the population ages. 

Our fertility rate is also nowhere near replacement level. This matters because tomorrow’s workforce is largely already visible. The 25-year-olds of 2046 have already been born. 

If the generations entering the workforce are smaller than the generations leaving it, there are only a few ways to compensate. We can work longer, increase participation, become dramatically more productive, or bring in working-age migrants. 

We should do the first three but will have to do the fourth as well. 

Just over one-third of Australian workers today were born overseas. In residential care services it is 59 per cent, in computer systems 58 per cent and in hospitals 44 per cent.  

Zero migration therefore doesn’t magically return Australia to some stable demographic equilibrium. It accelerates ageing, shrinks the future taxpayer base and makes already difficult workforce shortages harder. 

That recognition doesn’t make 500,000-plus NOM sensible, but it clearly shows that zero migration is a terrible idea.

What sort of migration system should we run? 

Public discourse obsesses about the NOM number, but the composition of the migration intake matters even more. 

This is where I think the current debate goes wrong. 

The Parkinson Review pointed out that temporary migration had become largely demand driven.

The stock of temporary migrants had almost doubled over 15 years, particularly through student and graduate visas, while the permanent migration cap no longer effectively controlled population growth. 

That is a bizarre way to run population policy. We should plan migration primarily around NOM, because NOM is what determines how many extra people are actually here requiring homes, roads, trains, schools and hospitals. 

And rather than reinventing the target every budget, governments should publish a rolling 10-year migration range that states, territories, universities, infrastructure planners and businesses can plan around. 

Smooth and predictable migration is much easier to absorb than enormous post-pandemic surges followed by panicked policy tightening.

The Parkinson Review made exactly this point, arguing that predictable migration improves planning for housing, infrastructure and services. 

This leads me to repeat an argument I have made before – Australia needs a national demographic strategy linking migration, housing, infrastructure and the age structure of the population.

Migration should be one lever in that strategy, not a number determined in isolation by whoever happens to be immigration minister or by a leader that needs to score some political points. 

Fewer temporary migrants, more future Australians 

I recently pointed out that in 1960 permanent settlers accounted for about 79 per cent of long-term migrant arrivals.

By 2024-25, permanent visa holders accounted for only about 16 per cent of migrant arrivals. Australia transformed from a settlement country into a temporary visa country. 

That has consequences for social cohesion. People behave differently when they know where home is. 

A permanent migrant can buy a house, establish a business, build a career, join a sporting club, cross-marry, bring up Australian children and generally organise their life around remaining here. 

Someone bouncing between student, graduate, bridging and temporary work visas does not have the same certainty. 

The Parkinson Review worried about exactly this emerging class of “permanently temporary” migrants. It argued that keeping large numbers of people here without a credible pathway to citizenship damages social cohesion and democratic resilience. 

Critics of our high migration regime argue that it puts social cohesion at risk. A shift towards more permanent visas would mitigate that concern. 

Sherrell and Vass go further and suggest an eight-year maximum period on temporary visas, after which you either qualify to stay permanently or leave.

I’m not wedded to eight years specifically, but I like the underlying principle. Eventually Australia must make a decision about you, and migrants deserve to know what that decision is as early as possible. 

Student visas need a particularly hard look 

This brings us to international student visas – the biggest temporary visa class. 

I remain strongly supportive of international students. They are young, ambitious, internationally connected and, when selected well, make excellent potential Australian workers and citizens. 

But the student visa must primarily be a student visa, not a cheap entry ticket into the Australian labour market. 

The Parkinson Review found that the existing system created incentives for non-genuine students and poor-quality providers, while Australia had many more international students than could realistically transition into the permanent skilled program.

It recommended focusing much more deliberately on students with the potential to succeed in Australia’s labour market.

I have previously suggested tougher English standards, tougher academic entry requirements, and the closure of all “degree mills”. I would stick with that. 

I would also make another change. As a default, undergraduate international students should not be able to bring a spouse to Australia as a dependant.

Currently, family members can accompany student visa holders and receive work rights. I struggle to see why an 18 or 21-year-old coming to Australia for an undergraduate degree should automatically create an additional pathway into our labour market for their partner.

A student visa should be designed around education. I would allow narrow exceptions and would treat PhD students and perhaps research master’s students differently. These are older candidates, often recruited globally as researchers and potential highly skilled migrants. 

At the other end of the process, we should be more generous, not less. 

A nursing, teaching, engineering, construction, medical or other high-value graduate who speaks excellent English, has an Australian qualification should have a much clearer path to permanent residency. 

A former international student also is much easier to integrate into the fabric of Australian society (especially if they didn’t bring a spouse along) – they learned the Australian way for a few years during uni, they arrived in their formative years and are more likely to integrate into Australian society than a migrant arriving in their 30s with a family. 

This is broadly where the Parkinson Review landed too. It recommended identifying high-potential graduates quickly, minimising years spent drifting around on temporary graduate visas and considering direct permanent pathways for a narrowly defined group of exceptional students. 

That is much smarter than allowing almost anyone to stay temporarily while making our best candidates jump through endless hoops. 

On top of this, we must better align the degrees that Australian universities sell to international students with known future skills shortages.

The current obsession with simply selling cheap to produce commerce degrees must end in favour of helping to soften future skills shortages. 

Make every visa place count 

If we are deliberately limiting NOM to around 200,000, every migrant place becomes more valuable. That means our selection mechanism must improve. 

Sherrell and Vass make a compelling case for giving employer-sponsored skilled migration greater priority. Employers have much better real-time information about the value of a worker than a government occupation list ever will.

Employer-sponsored migrants also tend to produce particularly strong economic outcomes. 

But there is a catch. Employer sponsorship must not mean employer ownership.  

I have argued before that sponsored migrants need the freedom to change employers, strong enforcement against exploitation and penalties for businesses abusing the system would need to be extremely harrsh.

The Parkinson Review recommended essentially the same architecture, including greater worker mobility, employer registration and better post-arrival monitoring. The goal is not simply to maximise wages or GDP. 

A helpful national migration policy delivers skills, taxpayers, entrepreneurship and productivity while also maintaining social cohesion and public confidence. 

That requires saying no more often in some places and saying yes much more decisively in others: 

• Fewer low-quality student visas. 

• Fewer dependants attached to undergraduate student visas. 

• Fewer years spent endlessly temporary. 

• More employer-selected skilled migrants. 

• More construction workers. 

• More high-quality international graduates moving quickly into permanent residency. 

• More certainty about the total number of people Australia intends to absorb. 

• Better alignment between migration, housing and infrastructure. 

A migration nation, on purpose 

The migration debate desperately needs to escape the binary choice between the status quo and closed borders. 

Australia should not run migration simply because universities want students, businesses want cheap labour, premiers want population growth or Treasury wants more taxpayers. 

Nor should we slash migration because the housing system has failed to build enough homes or because political agitators find a non-voting cohort to be a convenient scape goat for all perceived ills in the world. 

Migration is one of the most powerful demographic tools available to a country. Me must use it deliberately. 

Around 200,000 NOM strikes me as roughly the right long-term setting for Australia today. 

It’s enough to soften the effects of an ageing population, replenish the workforce, bring in missing skills and maintain Australia as a dynamic migrant nation. 

It is low enough to remain below the extreme post-pandemic growth rates and give housing and infrastructure a fighting chance of catching up. 

The exact number should move as circumstances change; the principles should not. 

Bring in fewer people temporarily. Choose permanent migrants better. Select international students more carefully and more deliberately. Give the best of them a clear path to citizenship. Match population growth with homes and infrastructure. Make the rules clear and enforce them. Be punitive with migrants breaking the law. 

Zero migration isn’t serious demographic policy. Neither is uncontrolled migration. 

Australia needs migration at a level we can manage, through a system we can trust – this all needs to be thought out in an informed public debate rather than through online rage bait headlines.  

 Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn for daily data insights.