Taylor, Littleproud say migration must be cut to free up housing

Coalition leaders Angus Taylor and David Littleproud have signalled support for linking immigration to housing stock in a policy the opposition is likely to release before the upcoming Farrer byelection to draw support back from One Nation.

As the powerful Australian Hotels Association warns against drastic cuts that could hurt pubs, Taylor’s opposition is discussing changes that would make it harder for people to gain permanent residence and citizenship by making them prove they are law-abiding, learning English and contributing to the economy.

Mirroring changes made in countries including Denmark, the Coalition is mulling whether to increase the number of years it takes to qualify for permanent settlement, according to senior party sources unwilling to speak publicly.

No decisions have been finalised in a migration package the party is expected to reveal some time before the Farrer byelection, sparked by Sussan Ley’s retirement, on May 9.

Taylor, who has made the “restoring Australia’s way of life” slogan a core part of his message, used the visit of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to praise Canada’s migration policy.

Prompted by Justin Trudeau after a public backlash over migration and house prices and continued by Carney, Canada’s centre-left government slashed migration numbers. It contributed along with other factors to a decline in house prices and a rare fall in population last year. It also arguably hurt Canada’s sluggish economy.

On Thursday, Taylor said in a speech to mark Carney’s visit that Canada was “getting immigration under control and ensuring it’s conducive to social cohesion”. In a separate interview on 3AW on Thursday, Taylor said: “We’ve got to balance migration with housing supply.”

Desperate opposition strategists have focused on migration and cultural issues to try to regain the trust of conservative voters who have shifted en masse to One Nation, before moving to new economic policies.

Development of the Coalition’s migration policy was thrown into chaos when a plan being worked on by Ley’s office was leaked. Sections of the leaked document, including a ban on migration from mostly Muslim-majority regions under terrorist control, may not end up in Taylor’s final policy. The leaked plan’s target of limiting net overseas migration to 175,000 is likely to remain.

Littleproud, speaking to this masthead’s Inside Politics podcast on Wednesday, said state governments had failed to build enough homes and “we need to buy them time to rebuild and to build supply”. The federal government, he said, could help by cutting migration.

Littleproud said there was value in potentially toughening the criteria to settle permanently, as advocated by Josh Frydenberg last week when he said Australia’s legal migration program and citizenship requirements needed to be treated as a national security issue after the Bondi massacre.

Littleproud said a previous Nationals policy in 2022 included a requirement to work in industry for five years and stay in the country for a further two years before being eligible to permanent residency. “I think there’s a lot of merit in that,” he said.

Reflecting the shift in the migration debate and the risk of alienating migrant communities, Littleproud said: “We had quite a harsh migration policy [at the last election] in the eyes of many pundits. What Peter Dutton and I took to the last election … is probably pretty close to where One Nation got to.”

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Stephen Ferguson, who represents the nation’s hoteliers, was in Canberra this week on a mission to emphasise the value of migration.

“We’ve got to be very careful,” he said. “If the kitchen can’t open because you don’t have enough chefs, then the bar person doesn’t have a job, and the barista misses out.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday defended Labor’s record under questioning from shadow treasurer Tim Wilson over the high rate of net overseas migration after the pandemic. Highlighting Labor’s focus on controlling the migration debate, Albanese claimed numbers spiked after borders reopened following the pandemic, but said Australia’s population was expected to be 754,000 smaller than what the previous government forecast.

Coalition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg said last year that a severe cut to migration would not fix the housing shortage.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan said Labor was out of step with its centre-left counterparts in Canada, which he said had acknowledged evidence that “cuts to migration reduce rents and housing costs”.

“Both Canada and New Zealand have slashed their immigration numbers and rents have fallen since. It is not rocket science,” Canavan said.

“Despite being from different sides of the political spectrum, Angus Taylor was more in tune than Anthony Albanese with the realistic approach that Mark Carney is taking on migration, energy, climate and foreign affairs.”

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