Labor Government playing dicey politics with immigration management

The government’s reluctance to confront rising visa backlogs and immigration pressures risks exacerbating Australia’s immigration problems, leaving politically difficult decisions for another day. Dr Abul Rizvi writes.

I PREDICTED that in the 2026-27 Budget the Labor Government would begin to tackle the significant immigration policy challenges facing Australia.

Although some small steps have been taken, big problems are still shelved. This will further magnify the challenges in the future.

The three big issues I hoped the government would address were:

the massive backlog of joint and employer-sponsored visa applications;
a formal plan to manage net migration to counter existing misinformation; And
Measures to address the mismatch of 3 million temporary migrants with the current size of the permanent migration programme, including a record visa backlog of over 430,000.

Unfortunately, the Government has done little to address these challenges.

Partner accumulation

None of the government’s public statements mentioned the partners’ backlog (see Table 1).

At formal planning levels for the permanent migration programme, the Government has repeatedly stated that joint visa applications are managed on a demand-driven basis as required by law.

At official planning levels for 2026-27 (see below), the Government stated:

‘Delivery of Partner and Child visa categories is demand-driven and available with indicative planning levels only.’

Despite this clearly false statement, the partners’ backlog is likely to be around 120,000 by the end of 2025-26 (six weeks from now). This is against the backdrop of an annual application rate of around 65,000 and a planning level of 41,500 (an increase of 1,000 at planning level 25-26).

In other words, the Government plans for joint visa applications to rise again by around 20,000 in 2026-27 (after allowing for a small rate of refusals and withdrawals).

At some stage there will be a class action or Ombudsman Report into the Government’s unlawful management of joint visa applications. This would force the Government to clear the backlog and pave the way for obvious criticism that it has mishandled immigration.

Persistent skill stream

Unlike planning levels 25-26, where the Government simply cut and pasted planning levels 24-25, the Government has made some significant changes to planning levels 26-27.

(Data source: Ministry of the Interior. *For some unreasonable reason (I asked DHA for a reason and they said nothing), the total program does not include the 3,270 quotas for permanent residence for the Pacific Fiance Visa)

The increase in quotas for employer-sponsored permanent visas is due to a strong application rate as well as a large backlog. With the stock of employer-sponsored temporary visa holders in Australia at record levels (255,821 at the end of March 2026), strong demand for employer-sponsored permanent visas will continue to grow unless the Government tightens policy and/or there is a major weakening in the labor market.

Increasing the quotas for the Qualified Independent category and decreasing the quotas for the Regional visa are surprising decisions.

Skilled Independent immigrants undoubtedly perform better in the labor market than Regional visa holders. They earn more (and therefore pay more taxes) and are more likely to be in occupations that are in national demand. But they also tend to settle in major metropolitan centers.

On the other hand, regional visa holders are filling the vacancies that regional Australia is trying to fill; They note that the average age for regional Australia is around 42, while for metropolitan Australia it is 36. Territory Australia urgently needs more health and aged care workers, as well as workers in the agricultural and tourism industries.

The decision to reduce quotas for regional visas will come under harsh criticism from regional businesses, regional development authorities as well as state/territory governments. The Labor Government may be happy to see these complaints as a way of exposing the National Party and One Nation Party’s position on the Regional visa.

Net migration and temporary entrants

It is no surprise that the Treasury has increased its 2025-26 net migration forecast from 260,000 to 295,000. This 2025-26 forecast It was obvious before the start of the financial year that it was too low.

The Treasury also raised its net migration forecast for 2026-27 from 225,000 to 245,000, followed by 225,000 in 2027-28. So the Treasury still estimates that net migration will fall by 50,000 people, followed by a further 20,000 people.

inside Budget DocumentsThe government has already marginally increased the allocation of permanent residences for people entering Australia temporarily. This would mean a small reduction in net migration (all else equal), but this would be unlike the reductions envisaged by the Treasury. The Government will have to tighten policy further if it wants to reduce net migration, according to Treasury forecasts.

It will also need a contingency plan for any legislative guidance to clear the common visa backlog or the ongoing pressure for permanent places at record levels of temporary graduates, working holidaymakers, skilled temporary entrants and bridging visa holders currently in Australia.

The reality is that the size of the current stock of temporary entrants to Australia is not compatible with the size of the permanent migration programme. Either the Government should reduce the stock of temporary arrivals or increase the permanent migration program. In fact, he chose to do neither.

In the current environment, this is a risky policy.

Doctor Abul Rizvi He is an independent Australian columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul or Bluesky @abulrizvi.bsky.social.

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