Time to hit the brakes on migration

Australia is an immigration success story.

Over generations, cultures from the four corners of the earth have been woven delicately into the fabric of our nation.

This success wasn’t accidental it was curated by careful and considered government policy.

Historically the Australian Government has developed and managed immigration policies that responded to the needs of Australian society.

Take the influx of European immigrants at the conclusion of World War II.  Post war Australia was rapidly growing but the first and second world wars had seen 103,000 Australian men lost (and many more maimed), fathers and sons who would but for giving up their futures for ours would have returned to Australia as a labour force ready to build modern Australia. 

Desperately short on labour the Australian Government turned to Europe, offering young men and their families, including my own, the prospect of a better life.

It was an immigration policy centred on the needs of the Australian people, a policy in the national interest that put Australians first.

Between 1945 and 1995, a period spanning 50 years, Australia settled 5.3 million migrants, a little over 100,000 per annum.  The first twenty years of this century saw net overseas migration of 4.4 million, or an annual rate of 220,000.

Fast forward to today, an Australia facing an unprecedented housing crisis, made worse by the relaxation of our immigration settings.  Indeed, over the past three years Australia has welcomed close to 1.2 million new arrivals and in the twelve months to 30 September 2025 net permanent and long- term arrivals reached 468,390.  That rate is accelerating and can fairly be described as unprecedented, unsustainable and contrary to the national interest.

Little wonder that Australians want their Government to hit the brakes on migration, at least until the supply of housing and the delivery of critical infrastructure like roads, hospitals and schools catch up.

Having dumped Net Zero the Coalition urgently need to develop an immigration strategy that ends this era of mass migration and in so doing puts Australians first.