Australia should continue welcoming migrants while setting clear expectations about integration and matching migration levels with housing and public services, Peter van Onselen has argued.
He said the debate had become trapped between those who viewed every new arrival as a threat and those who treated concerns about immigration as a moral failing, leaving little room for a more measured approach.
Welcoming people is a policy choice, he argued, but making integration work is a responsibility for government. That involves more than granting visas, attending citizenship ceremonies and celebrating cultural diversity.
New citizens should understand the democratic and social principles that underpin Australian life, including equal citizenship, freedom of expression and religion, and equality between men and women.
Those principles are set out in the federal government’s Australian Values Statement. The question, Mr van Onselen said, was whether they represented meaningful commitments or merely words on a page.
Integration and equal rights
He cited forced marriage as an example of where those values must be upheld. The Australian Federal Police received 118 reports in 2024-25, compared with 91 the previous year.
Although the figures remain relatively small, the increase is significant, he said. A young woman’s right to choose her husband should take priority over demands made by her family, regardless of whether exercising that freedom might offend people claiming to speak for a particular community or culture.
The same standards should apply to recent arrivals and people whose families have lived in Australia since the First Fleet, with no exceptions based on background.
Language skills are another essential part of integration. Australian Bureau of Statistics analysis of the 2021 Census found that 82 per cent of permanent migrants who had arrived within the previous five years were proficient in English, compared with 91 per cent of those who had arrived more than a decade earlier.
Being able to speak to a child’s teacher, follow instructions at work or explain symptoms to a doctor is fundamental to independence in an English-speaking country. Governments seeking integration should therefore ensure migrants have the tools to participate fully in society.
Migration and the housing shortfall
Housing capacity must also be considered when migration policy is set. Net overseas migration added more than 500,000 people in 2022-23 before falling to about 306,000 in 2024-25.
The post-pandemic catch-up contributed to the earlier surge, but new arrivals still require homes, classrooms and other services. The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council said Australia completed 177,000 dwellings in 2024, against estimated underlying demand of 223,000.
That left a shortfall of 46,000 homes in a single year. Migration is not the only cause of pressure on housing, with planning failures, construction costs, labour shortages and years of insufficient supply also contributing.
However, governments aware of those constraints have a responsibility to account for them when determining migration levels. When housing becomes more difficult to secure and services come under strain, resentment can be directed at migrants who did not set the rules or fail to plan infrastructure.
Mr van Onselen argued that migrants deserved better than arriving in a country that had not prepared adequately for them, while existing residents also deserved better than being told to show tolerance while dealing with the effects of poor policy planning.
There is no contradiction, he said, between supporting migration and questioning its scale, or between embracing cultural diversity and insisting on shared civic obligations. Australia’s identity will continue to change, but politicians must lead while also responding to voters’ concerns.
