The Coalition will deliver the biggest cuts to immigration in Australia’s history if it wins government at the next election, according to Angus Taylor, in his first Budget reply speech as Opposition Leader in Canberra last night.
And while international students were not explicitly mentioned in the speech itself, they are clearly in the Coalition’s sights.
“Mass migration is changing Australia for the worst,” said Taylor.
Immigration numbers are too high, Taylor argued, placing pressure on housing, infrastructure and services and contributing to a shortfall of about 400,000 homes.
The Coalition will cap Net Overseas Migration (NOM) each year to the number of homes completed in Australia. The Housing Minister will report the number to Parliament each year and that number will set the ceiling for the NOM in the following year.
In his speech, Taylor said that the NOM would need to be significantly below the cap for the first few years of a Coalition government to allow the housing market to catch up. The actual NOM target would only be provided closer to the election, he said, drawing immediate derision from the government.
Taylor would not be drawn on giving a NOM value on 7.30 either, although when pressed by Henderson and told that the ABC had calculated the figure at 150,000, he said that the NOM would be below 200,000.
Taylor also suggested the target would represent a cut of around 70 per cent from the post-pandemic NOM peak of 550,000, implying a figure of about 165,000. Based on the Government’s reported 2024-25 NOM outcome of 306,000, a 40 per cent reduction would imply NOM of around 184,000.
By contrast, the Government’s NOM forecast in the Budget is 295,000 in 2025-26 and 245,000 in 2026-27, and 225,000 in 2027-28, 2028-29 and 2029-30.
International students are likely to be a key component of the Coalition’s strategy to reduce NOM, with Taylor accusing the Labor Government of having “lost control” of the number of international students in Australia.
In an interview with Sarah Henderson on 7.30 following the speech, Taylor said international students were “one area that is obvious for us to look at” when asked how the Coalition would reduce migration numbers. He also said that “the right mix of temporary visas will depend on the circumstances at the time”. However, he would not commit to targeting Working Holiday Makers.
On permanent migration, again there was no numerical target announced. However, Taylor said that “non-citizens” would no longer have access to a range of welfare services.
The language used in the speech appeared designed to sharpen distinctions between citizens and migrants (or ‘non-citizens’) as part of a broader political positioning on immigration.
Taylor also repeated measures it has previously released, including making the existing Australian values statement an enforceable visa condition, requiring permanent visa holders to learn English, enhancing screening to stop radicals from entering our borders, curtailing protection visa claims and deporting overstayers.
The Coalition’s Budget reply makes clear that migration will sit at the centre of its election platform, with international students likely to remain part of the political and policy debate in the months ahead.
While the rhetoric around cutting migration was strong, details remain unclear, including the Coalition’s actual NOM target, how reductions would be allocated across visa categories and what this would mean in practice for international education providers and prospective students.
The speech also sets up a clear political contest on migration heading into the election, with Labor already arguing that net overseas migration has fallen significantly from its post-pandemic peak.
For the international education sector, the concern will be whether students continue to be positioned primarily through the lens of housing and migration pressures, rather than as part of a major export industry and broader national interest strategy.
