Calls to reduce immigration by “raising standards” sound tough, but current visa settings are already far tighter than in 2022 and further cuts would come with economic costs.

The new Liberal leader Angus Taylor has declared the development of a new immigration policy will be a priority.

While I wouldn’t hold my breath on the timing of that, it’s worth considering what he has said to date and what that might mean in practice.

Taylor says he will place greater emphasis on ‘Australian Values’ and on reducing immigration levels by raising standards.

On Sky News, Taylor t alked up his tough approach to a ‘values’ based immigration policy without explaining how he would do that. Unless he copies Donald Trump by blocking immigration from certain countries, as his predecessor was considering and One Nation is proposing, he will find testing people’s values is a lot harder than he may think. Or perhaps he knows that and thinks that rhetoric will be enough to win back One Nation supporters. After all, the media rarely asks Hanson how she would implement her policies!

Taylor and David Littleproud have also stressed reducing immigration by raising standards but without specifying what that means. To provide some context, it is worth considering the policy settings that were in place at the time of the May 2022 Election and comparing those with current policy settings. The May 2022 settings would be those he and Littleproud supported as senior members of the Morrison Cabinet.

Prior to the May 2022 Election, the Coalition Government had slammed on the immigration accelerator as business lobby groups had become hysterical about labour shortages. The new Labor Government responded by increasing the migration program from 160,000 to 195,000. That contributed only around 12,000 to the net migration boom as around 65 per cent of the program is from people in Australia and already counted in net migration.

In September 2022 former Opposition Leader Peter Dutton agreed immigration had to be increased but doubted Labor could deliver quickly enough. By mid-2023, Dutton was complaining the government had lost control of immigration as net migration blew out in 2022-23 to over 530,000 (mainly due to Coalition government policy settings driving up student and working holiday-maker applications).

Labor was slow to deal with the blow out. Nevertheless, student visa policy now is significantly tighter than in May 2022 including:

• Higher English language requirement.
• Higher funds requirement.
• Higher student visa application fees (more than double).
• Tighter genuine student requirement.
• Much tighter student work requirement. In lead up to 2025 Election, the Coalition extraordinarily proposed loosening student work requirements again. Appeared they had learned nothing from their unrestricted student work rights policy.
• Abolition of covid visa.
• Prohibition on visitors applying onshore for a student visa.
• Prohibition on temporary graduates returning onshore to a student visa.
• Tighter post-study work visa requirements and doubling of the application fee.
• Placement of all South Asian nations into the highest risk category leading to a large increase in refusal rates.

These changes have decimated the private VET and ELICOS sectors. And while further tightening is required, Taylor is in no position to argue the standards have not been increased since he was a senior Minister.

The other big contributor to the surge in net migration were working holiday-makers. The surge in these was mainly a function of a large number of new agreements as well as changes to some existing agreements to increase the minimum age and extend the visa to an automatic three years. Those were mainly negotiated by the Morrison Government although the Albanese Government has negotiated new agreements with India.

Would a Taylor/Littleproud Government tighten these policies and risk the wrath of the tourism and agriculture industries, especially at a time the labour market is strong?

For the temporary employer sponsored visa, the Albanese Government ended the 10-year freeze on the minimum salary for this visa which had been held at around $53,000 since 2013. It increased the minimum salary initially to $70,000 and from 1 July 2026, that will increase to around $80,000. It has increased monitoring measures to ensure the salary is paid and this visa is not used to undercut wages of Australians. The higher the minimum salary, the less likely this visa would be abused.

On the other hand, the Albanese Government has reduced the minimum skilled work requirement for this visa from two years to one year. A Taylor Government could sensibly return that to two years but that would draw criticism from the business community, including in terms of any tightening of policy for the permanent version of this visa which in 2025-26 has an allocation of 44,000.

A Taylor Government could reduce the 16,000 places for the permanent Skilled Independent visa but would not want to risk cutting key skills such as registered nurses (the highest number of places went to this occupation in 2024-25), traditional trades or IT occupations linked to cyber-security and AI.

Labor has abolished new applications for the Business Innovation and Investment Program (which was largely a visa for rich, old people to retire in Australia) and significantly tightened the Morrison Government’s Global Talent visa which was actually nothing like its name implied. Would a Taylor/Littleproud Government bring these back as Dutton was proposing to do? Or would they copy Donald Trump and unashamedly sell visas to the highest bidders (no matter where or how they made their money)?

The Albanese Government has steadily expanded the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) visa while abolishing Littleproud’s open-ended Agriculture Visa which would have turbo charged worker exploitation even more than the PALM visa. Will a Taylor/Littleproud Government resurrect Littleproud’s Agriculture Visa? There are few immigration policy changes that would be more silly.

The Albanese Government has continued Dutton’s practice of illegally limiting the number of partner visas (these are required by law to be managed on a demand driven basis). That will lead to a backlog of such visas by end 2025-26 of around 120,000. Does Taylor have a solution to that illegal practice?

It is likely a Taylor Government would at least copy Dutton’s proposed policy of cutting the humanitarian program from 20,000 to around 14,000, or perhaps an even bigger cut. While the bulk of people in the current humanitarian program are fleeing tyrannical regimes such as the Taliban, Taylor may instead emphasise they are Muslims in order to pander to new One Nation supporters.

A direct pathway for NZ citizens to Australian citizenship has been opened up by the Albanese Government. Together with Australia’s relatively strong labour market, that has led to a surge in NZ citizen arrivals. Would a Taylor Government reverse that change?

In 2019 the Morrison Government announced a major expansion in use of visas for regional Australia (as Immigration Ministers, Morrison and Dutton had reduced usage of these visas). The Albanese Government has largely maintained a high priority for these visas. Would a Taylor/Littleproud Government cut those back again?

The Albanese Government also reversed the cuts to immigration compliance resources under Dutton and put money into processing asylum applications more quickly as a means of discouraging unmeritorious applications which had skyrocketed under Dutton. Would Taylor/Littleproud reverse that or, as needed, put more resources into this to increase returns of undocumented migrants?

While net migration has fallen since the 2022-23 surge, at over 300,000 in 2024-25 it is still some way from Treasury’s forecast of 260,000 in 2025-26 and 225,000 in 2026-27. The Prime Minister implicitly affirmed those forecasts recently.

The Albanese Government will likely consider how it might get closer to those forecasts when it looks at options for the 2026-27 migration and humanitarian programs next month. That may include development of the 2026 Intergenerational Report which will include a long-term net migration assumption of likely around 235,000.

That will provide Taylor with context for what he might propose. But he will know that if Australia’s labour market remains strong, it would be difficult to drive down net migration much below 200,000 without making the business community, including in regional Australia, very angry.

Canada, NZ and the UK have managed to lower net migration much more rapidly than Australia, partly through very weak labour markets rapidly increasing departures. NZ has now reversed its tighter immigration policy settings and it’s highly likely the Canadians will soon do the same, particularly in terms of students.

Will Taylor/Littleproud be hoping for a blow out in the unemployment rate once they are in government in order to deliver their lower immigration targets or will they aim for some long-term stability in the management of net migration to enable Australian businesses and government agencies to better plan for the long-term?

Neither major party seems interested in something as critically needed as a long-term migration/population plan. At present, its just about battling Hanson’s madness.