A guardian analysis shows that the reelected coalition government will have to cut net migrations of students and temporary skilled workers by 90% to meet its "Impossible Hero" target, which is to reduce net migrations to 160,000 in the next fiscal year.
Given the practical and legislative barriers to achieving such cuts, several experts told The Guardian Australia that Peter Dutton has no realistic way to achieve the key election commitment day of Saturday’s poll.
Alan Gamlen, director of ANU's migration hub, said there was "few chances" that Dutton's migration goals could be achieved, but "this doesn't make such an objection useful for political strategies."
"Impossible hero net migration goals are textbook characteristics of global campaigns," Gamlen said.
The Liberals “created a name for themselves to be tough migration, such as through the strategy of asylum seekers, but presided over the historic expansion of temporary immigration behind the scenes.”
For example, nearly 80% of work holiday agreements with other countries are signed by alliance governments.
“One of the key reasons why we can’t control net immigration, and the important reason they miss the target, is because people have the right to enter Australia under a work holiday agreement and there is nothing they can do without violating international agreements.”
Even if done practically and legislatively, the scale of cuts can be huge consequences for the economy, budget and business efforts to find workers in a tight labor market.
The collapse of foreign student enrollment will also be in trouble with the profitability of major universities, which has already relied heavily on high international expenses.
Peter Dutton has linked the surge in net migration to the housing crisis in recent years.
Dutton recently announced: “We will cut immigration and we will stop foreign buyers from owning Australian homes and compete with young Australians in the very tight housing market.”
He made two promises in terms of immigration policy.
The first is to cut the permanent immigration program by 45,000 to 140,000 in 2025-26. Over the next two years, the permanent migration target will be increased to 150,000, and then 160,000 to 160,000.
This reduction will include cuts in humanitarian programs from 20,000 to 13,250, and after excluding parent visas, the balance of the cuts will need to come from skilled programs. As we have written, this will upend a long-term and bipartisan commitment to favor skilled workers in the permanent immigration program.
A separate but related commitment has more direct and potentially dramatic consequences.
This is a commitment to cut net income from overseas migration – a balance between entering and leaving the country – below the labour force’s estimate in 2025-26 below the labour force’s 260,000.
This net overseas immigration number or NOM is key to use when assessing the short-term impact of migration on sensitive areas (such as housing costs and demand for essential services).
It is this final promise, according to the numbers - which seems almost impossible.
About one in 10 permanent visa recipients are usually already in the country. In this rule of thumb, the cut to permanent migration of 45,000 will only reduce the smaller 13,500.
So it is worth keeping this in mind when the alliance talks about permanent immigration as a short-term restoration for expensive housing.
This means that if the league reduces NOM from 445,640 in 2023-24 (the latest full fiscal year) to 160,000 in 2025-26, the vast majority of cuts in temporary net immigration must be cut.
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And the task becomes more difficult. Dutton also carved work holiday makers from cuts under pressure, covering nearly 69,000 net immigrants last time.
Excluding a considerable group means that by 2025-26, the 270,000 temporary net overseas migrations required will be 291,990 students, skilled temporary workers and visitors from 2023-24.
In this case, the International Student NOM collapsed from over 176,000 in 2023-24 to 1,375 in 2025-26. This is also part of the 96,900 education level.
Assuming a 90% reduction, applied evenly in available categories, net visitors will drop from 72,500 in the previous fiscal year to 5,500 in 2025-26.
The main focus of employers is the implicit decline in temporary proficiency net migration, from 42,000 in 2023-24 to 3,200 in two years.
While the numbers indicate a slim hope for achieving Dutton’s net immigration target, a coalition spokesman said: “We expect the actions we promised will reduce NOM in the first year relative to the first year of the workforce, which continues to be lower than the workforce in the next few years.”
The spokesman did not specifically address the Australian Guardian's analysis.
Given that the Albany government failed to legislate restrictions on the number of foreign students (Duton opposes), net foreign students' arrivals were cut by 90% in just two years.
Business groups will revolt in the slash and burning of skilled immigration programs, with economists already warning that the use of immigration policies as a tool to reduce the pressure on housing costs comes with a range of economic consequences.
The Dutton government can significantly reduce net migration from overseas migration by somehow bringing visa holders out of the country. Apart from another pandemic or deep recession, this also seems incredible.
Former Immigration Deputy Secretary Abul Rizvi said he could not see a reliable way for the alliance to fulfill its commitments.
He said the annual net migration threshold is about 260,000, and if the government tries to push it higher, “you just create too many problems for the entire economy, and many industries have a lot of problems”.
Net outflows of Australian citizens could also be reversed if the U.S. president’s trade war destroys the world’s largest economy.
"If Trump has a path in the United States, then a large number of expats will go home," Rizvey said.