No entry, no growth: Australia’s immigration pause illusion

Stopping immigration may seem like a quick fix to Australia’s housing and economic woes, but the real result will be stagnant growth, job losses and rising costs across the country, writes Dr Abul Rizvi.

A recent Resolve survey reveals: 53% of Australians He wants immigration to be stopped

The only time in modern Australian history that we have experienced anything like an immigration pause was in 2020-21, when the Government used emergency health powers to largely close international borders. Although the permanent migration program was carried out at 160,052 and the permanent humanitarian program at 5,947, the lowest in history, net migration fell to negative 88,760.

In 2020-21, the unemployment rate rose to around 7.4% and economic growth fell to negative 5.9% in the June quarter 2020; It fell again to minus 3.1% in the September quarter of 2020, and to minus 0.4% in the December quarter of 2020. The government moved to support the economy with unprecedented wage subsidies and other fiscal measures, resulting in the largest budget deficit in our history and interest rates approaching zero. Many governments around the world have taken similar actions.

Although the pause in migration outside the pandemic will not lead to such serious consequences, it will definitely slow down economic growth and negatively affect many sectors and businesses. It is unclear how much of a solution to the housing crisis there will be. Part of our housing and infrastructure problem is finding enough traditional trade workers to build more homes and infrastructure.

A significant part of the housing crisis is the affordability crisis. Many people cannot afford asking rents despite Commonwealth rental assistance. Even during COVID when international borders are closed no dramatic decline in rents or house prices.

The Government will need new and unprecedented legal powers to enforce the immigration pause. Unlike Embers The administration cannot invent an emergency to use emergency national security powers because the Supreme Court in Australia is not as easily manipulated as the Supreme Court in the United States.

It is not clear whether the proposed migration pause relates to net migration (currently about 315,000 per year) or the permanent migration program (currently about 185,000 plus 20,000 humanitarian visas). It is also unclear how long the pause will last. There seems to be an implication that the pause should last until housing is “caught up”.

Let’s assume, although highly unlikely, that it will take three years for housing to reach this level. So how will the three-year net migration and permanent migration pause work?

Political reluctance of the former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton determine which visas to cut to participate in the smaller immigration program (140,000); smaller humanitarian aid program (13,500) and lower net migration (160,000); and National Leader David Littleproud‘s insistence that visas helping Australia will be off-limits suggests that only One Nation can implement its policy of a three-year pause on immigration until the next Federal Election. A Nation lives in a wonderful world where it never has to think about how to implement its policies.

One Nation will need to win a majority in both houses of Parliament; Winning the balance of power in the Senate will not be enough. Although this is unlikely, let’s assume that it does happen and that the One Nation policy includes both zero immigration and humanitarian programs as well as zero net migration.

Zero immigration and humanitarian programs

Zero overseas humanitarian aid programs can be achieved using existing forces. The zero land program would require Australia to withdraw from the EU. UN Refugee Convention. This will be a slow and difficult process, as it requires changes to both domestic law and international processes. UN Refugee Convention. This takes years instead of months.

One Nation also says it is pursuing a mass deportation policy. But he seems to have thought about this issue as much as he has thought about Trump’s mass deportation policy. A mass deportation policy would incur eye-watering costs, but there would be only a small increase in deportations (and many people would likely be wrongly detained and later sue for damages).

But let’s assume that the One Nation government pursues a three-year immigration pause. The planning level of the 2025-26 Migration Program is shown in Table 1.

Parental and other family reunification visas could be capped at near zero using existing law; because these are already severely limited every year. There may be a huge backlash from various immigrant communities, but the One Nation government may be happy with it.

However, the cap cannot be used for partner visas and dependent child visas. This requires a law that Parliament has rejected twice before. One Nation must use its numbers in the Senate to override objections from other parliamentarians as well as Australian citizen partners and parents.

Note that the huge outcome for partners in 2020-21 comes from new Immigration Ministers. Andrew Giles And Alex Hawke Clearing partners’ backlog ahead of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) audit of joint visa transactions to avoid audit criticism.

The visa category that is easiest to reduce to zero in terms of skills flow of the migration program, National Innovation VisaIt is a program that targets established and emerging leaders with high-caliber talent and skills who can make significant contributions that will benefit Australia’s future prosperity.

This includes:

global researchers;

entrepreneurs;

innovative investors; And

athletes and creatives.

Since this visa is based on invitation only, the Government may stop issuing invitations. But doing so would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

Another visa for which the government may stop issuing invitations is Qualified Independent category.

The top jobs in this category in 2024-25 were:

registered nurses;

early childhood teachers;

civil engineering specialists;

carpenters and carpenters;

architects and landscape architects;

civil engineering draftsmen and technicians;

painting workers;

software and application programmers;

chiefs; And

secondary school teachers.

The government may also stop processing nominations from state/territory governments. However, this will come under sharp criticism from state/territory governments who use this visa to meet essential skills needs within their jurisdictions.

The government can do the same Regional visas. These are used by state/territory governments and regional/local authorities to meet skills needs in regional Australia. Territory Australia is finding it much more difficult to meet its skills needs (particularly in health and aged care) and so major concessions are being made to attract skilled migrants to regional Australia.

It’s been this way for almost 30 years and it’s not going to get better any time soon. The problem is being exacerbated as more young Australians migrate to big cities, leaving regional towns with a faster-aging population.

Request for places in the Employer Nomination Program (ENS) is booming due to the strength of the labor market. The One Nation government may impose a quota limit of almost zero on this visa, but the reaction of the business world will be intense. It would not be long before even the One Nation government succumbed to criticism.

The government will also be under pressure to refund the very high application fees paid by visa applicants. Therefore, there will be both significant transaction costs and loss of revenue. Land applicants for these visas will need to remain in Australia on bridging visas as there will be no legal basis to deport them. Allowing these people to remain undocumented and therefore unable to continue working at their current jobs will make the situation worse. Note that there are currently approximately 2.9 million temporary participants, the majority of whom are working.

The number of people receiving bridging visas is already very high (over 400,000) and will increase even more rapidly. Within three years, the number of people receiving bridging visas could easily exceed one million. This doesn’t solve anything.

network migration

However, as the three largest categories of net migration are students, working holidaymakers and New Zealand citizens, shutting down immigration and humanitarian programs will not result in zero net migration.

Government may renegotiate Trans-Tasman Travel Agreement It reached an agreement with New Zealand and subsequently halted the movement of New Zealand citizens to Australia. However, it will take years rather than months to implement legal and practical regulations. Reaction of a dual Australian/New Zealand citizen (as well as a former New Zealand citizen) Barnaby Joyce) will be very large.

The government could impose a zero cap on overseas student visas. There is existing power to do this (even if there is no existing power to limit overseas students for individual providers). This would drive many universities and many more private colleges into bankruptcy and massive job losses. This will also mean that all universities will significantly reduce research activities funded by overseas students’ tuition fees. Note that the biggest export sector in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane is overseas students.

The government could also impose a zero cap on working holidaymakers. While this usually requires negotiations with nearly every nation on the planet, the One Nation government may feel it can tell those nations to jump in (as Trump often does). But this wouldn’t happen without some form of retaliation. Note that the impact on Australia’s regional tourism and agricultural industries will be huge. Farmers who tend to vote for One Nation may be affected like farmers in the US who vote for Trump.

One Nation may also shut down the government Pacific Australia Workforce Mobility planbecause this also contributes to net migration. Farmers who support One Nation will not be happy with this because then they will have little labor to undertake farm work.

The reality is that pausing immigration will do little to solve Australia’s housing crisis, but will significantly slow economic growth, hit a number of industries such as tourism, agriculture and international education massively, impose huge costs on the Budget (remember skilled immigrants are a big positive for the Budget) and will make the crisis in our hospitals much worse as increasing demand for health and aged care will continue with an even faster aging population, but with fewer skilled immigrants to fill the growing staff gap.

More than 50 per cent of Australians would support pausing immigration but would be upset about the consequences. It’s a bit like American farmers who voted for Trump.

Doctor Abul Rizvi Independent Australian columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.

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