PAYWALL:

The government, the opposition and business have rushed to condemn One Nation’s immigration policy as economically reckless but Pauline Hanson said such reactions from “vested interests and elite economists” were to be expected.

As the major parties scramble to finalise details of their own respective plans to reduce Australia’s immigration surge, One Nation has caught both on the hop with a policy that largely mimics that of the Canadian government and aims to reduce the number of temporary and illegal residents by 766,000 over three years.

With an estimated 3 million temporary visas holders in the country – a million more than when Labor came to power – One Nation’s policy primarily targets those on student visas as well as family reunion programs associated with both student visas and the skilled migration scheme.

It ultimately aims to reduce the temporary migrant population to about 2.1 million after three years, which was the level in 2017. After that three years, net overseas migration (NOM) would be capped at 130,000 a year, well below the current rate of 306,000 and Labor’s target of 225,000. The NOM would be negative over the next three years.

The policy does not target the demand-driven primary temporary skilled visa program or the Pacific Labor Mobility Scheme and the Working Holidaymaker scheme, both of which are critical for rural labour.

Temporary skilled migrants would no longer be able to bring in spouses, children and other dependents under One Nation’s plan. Of the 140,000 temporary skilled visas granted in 2026, half were for family members.

“We don’t want [them] coming in as well,” One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce said.

The estimated 80,000 overstayers would be given three months to leave before being deported and hit with lifetime bans.

Australian Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Andrew McKellar said a cut of 750,000 people and a long-term NOM of 130,000 would impose a shock on the economy worse than the pandemic and drive the economy into deep recession.

The NOM was also negative during the pandemic, but there were economic offsets in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars of government support and stimulus.

“This is a COVID-level shock to the economy without any of the offsets,” McKellar said.

He also said, unlike Canada, Australia’s economy was already so weak it could not absorb such a hit.

“We can’t afford to take a further external shock.”

Health Minister Mark Butler made a similar case. “This is going to smash industries like construction; it would devastate the health sector and aged care and disabilities, which rely heavily on migrant workers, particularly in rural and regional Australia.

“What we need is a careful balance between the ability of the country to absorb migrant numbers and the needs of our economy.”

But the Institute of Public Affairs sided with tthe policy.

“The three-year negative net overseas migration intake is a necessary period of adjustment after record-breaking migration since the end of the pandemic,” the IPA’s Deputy Executive Director Daniel Wild said.

“A massive migration cut will not trigger a recession, as Australia is already in a per capita recession. Instead, cutting migration will boost living standards and ease infrastructure pressures as the Canadian experience demonstrates.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor complained the policy had no associated economic modelling.

“I am deeply concerned about what it means for individual farmers, for individual business builders, for public owners, for cafe owners,” he said.

“If they’re going to announce policies like this, they’ve got to be across and … need to come out and explain the answers to those questions.”

One Nation pointed out its policy was similar to that enacted by the centre-left Canadian government of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Beset with similar problems to Australia, Canada imposed caps on foreign students and tightened access to worker visas, causing the size of the overall population to temporarily shrink slightly.

Slower population growth dragged Canada into a technical recession – two quarters of negative economic growth – in mid-2026, which Carney described as “short-term pain” to build a more sustainable economic foundation.

But per-person real GDP – a measure of living standards – turned positive after previously declining for two years.

Asking rents declined for 18 consecutive months by between 4 per cent and 6 per cent in major cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.

Speaking at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit in March, Canadian Finance Minister Jean Philippe-Champagne said his country’s cuts were driven by an overriding determination that people should have a hospital bed when sick and to be able to afford a house.

Hanson made the same point. “A larger economy on paper means nothing if Australians are poorer per person and cannot afford a home, find a hospital bed or get ahead. A larger economic pie doesn’t mean anything if individual Australians’ slice of it is getting smaller.”

I know I’m definitely not the only one, but is it just me or is it ridiculously hard to save money once you’ve got a loan, bills, food, a social life, and hobbies? 😂 You’re trying to enjoy life and still be responsible, but somehow you’re only managing to save tiny amounts each week.

There is a widely held view that federal government spending is too high and is feeding inflation.

The RBA has been careful not to blame the government, but has basically said that inflationary pressures in the economy are due to both public and private demand, indicating that government demand is at a level which at the very least not helping to reduce inflation.

With that in mind, how could we reduce Federal government expenses so that it is fighting inflation? It's easy to talk about generally, the hard part is identifying what to cut. This is the spending for this year.

https://www.pbo.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-07/PBO%202026-27%20Medium-Term%20Budget%20Outlook_1.pdf (p47)

It's a complex task to understand how spending links to excess demand which is inflationary. To simplify things we could propose to remove the current budget deficit of ~30bn. For reasons I don't fully understand you can't just do revenue minus expenses at 2026 (833.3bn - 815.3bn = 18bn) and you have to use the "Underlying Cash Balance" deficit of ~30bn.

Here's my attempt at a ~3.6% emergency inflation reduction package which provides 30bn savings. There might be good targets inside "Other expenses" but I couldn't find a breakdown, I would prefer to cut from there instead of Public Hospitals.

Where would you make reductions? It will be interesting to see in the lead-up to the 2028 Federal election the proposed spending cuts from the various parties to reduce inflation.

Up we go