Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has proposed cutting Australia’s temporary migrant population by about 750,000 over three years, with international students and graduate visa holders among those targeted by the immigration crackdown.
The plan would push net overseas migration below zero during a three-year “reset”, before imposing a permanent annual ceiling of 130,000 arrivals.
That would be significantly below the Labor government’s forecast of 245,000 net overseas arrivals in the current financial year and 225,000 a year thereafter.
One Nation says the temporary migrant population has grown from just over two million when Labor came to power in 2022 to roughly three million.
Under the proposal, international student visas would be capped at 100,000 a year. The party would also target lower-level courses which it claims have become a route for some overseas students to remain in Australia.
PhD candidates and students taking selected science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees would instead be eligible for a new uncapped visa. One Nation estimates that about 15,000 foreign students and their dependants would use the scheme.
Skilled worker visas would remain uncapped, but family members would no longer be able to obtain secondary visas. One Nation says this would reduce the programme from about 263,000 people to 160,000 within three years.
The party’s figures indicate reductions of 239,923 student visa holders, 229,674 graduate visa holders, 103,448 temporary skilled workers and 112,533 people on bridging visas. It also aims to remove 80,000 unlawful non-citizens or people who have overstayed their visas.
Hanson said illegal migrant employment would be targeted by cutting off access to illicit income. People in Australia unlawfully would be given three months to leave, while those who remained would face immigration enforcement and a lifetime ban on re-entering.
“Australians have had enough of mass migration,” Hanson said, arguing that families were competing with hundreds of people for rental accommodation and that patients were being left in ambulances because hospitals lacked beds.
She also claimed young Australians were being shut out of home ownership while wages and infrastructure failed to keep pace with population growth.
“The Labor-Liberal political cartel has sacrificed Australian living standards to serve vested interests demanding continued mass migration,” Hanson said.
If One Nation is elected in 2028, the party says it would return the temporary migrant population to 2017 levels and reduce the international student population to levels last seen in 2015.
Hanson said a larger economy did not necessarily improve living standards if Australians were poorer per person and unable to afford homes or secure hospital beds.
“Vested interests and elite economists will shriek at the prospect of these cuts,” she said. “But Canada has shown you can cut migrant numbers, take pressure off rents, and still grow the economy.”
