More at stake as government tries to wrest back immigration conversation

September 19, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Australia’s economic success story, marked by the longest period of economic growth in the developed world, has been fuelled in no small part by migrants in our key industries, from offices and hospitals, to farms and mines.

Amid a rise in cost-of-living pressures, housing shortages and infrastructure logjams, a large portion of the electorate now lays blame for those challenges at the feet of migrants.

One Nation predictably seeded and fuelled this narrative to its own advantage. The Albanese government, in turn, has failed to challenge it and sell the value of migration to the public. Perhaps more importantly, it lost control of the conversation, which has descended into political noise and growing nativism.

It was against this super-charged political backdrop that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced a long-awaited suite of reforms designed to tighten a migration system that has, in some areas, certainly become overly permissive.

With a target of lowering net overseas migration by 20 per cent to 245,000 this financial year and to 225,000 by 2027-28, there are measures to curb “visa-hopping”, new restrictions on international student visa holders bringing in family members, stricter conditions on visitor visas and a crackdown on rogue migration........

© The Age