Immigration Minister Tony Burke has rejected claims Australia is experiencing ‘mass migration’, arguing migration levels have fallen sharply from their post-pandemic peak while warning drastic cuts would damage the economy.
‘There are parts of the world where mass migration is something that they are dealing with. It is not something we’re dealing with in Australia,’ he said.
‘There was a peak post-pandemic, which was too high. There are reasons why it was too high and reasons why, logically, there was always going to be a peak.’
Burke also defended immigration as critical to Australia’s economy, and said both regional areas and major cities depended heavily on overseas workers and international students.
‘It is true that immigration is critical to the economy of our regions. It is also true that immigration is critical to the economy of our cities as well,’ he said.
He said international education supported jobs well beyond universities, including cleaners, maintenance workers and businesses used by foreign students.
‘There’s a whole section of the economy in the cities that is only there because we have an important export industry in international students,’ Burke said.
‘Drastic cuts, wherever you make them, hurt the economy in every part, in every area.’
Burke said any attempt to lower migration needed to take account of the economic consequences.
He pointed to the construction industry as an example of Australia’s dependence on overseas-born workers.
‘We talk about the need for extra housing. It’s pretty hard to get a house built without having a plasterer involved,’ he said.
‘In both Sydney and Melbourne, close to two-thirds of the plasterers we have were born overseas.
‘We need immigration. We just need to make sure that it is targeted to Australia’s needs, both in terms of numbers and across the different categories that work for our economy.’
However, he acknowledged Australia has a problem with visa hopping, where some migrants move repeatedly between temporary visas despite having little prospect of qualifying for permanent residency.
‘There are individuals who would never, in fact, meet the qualifications to be able to become a permanent resident, and effectively jump from visa to visa, use the appeals process to be able to stay here as long as possible,’ he said.
‘It eventually becomes absurd not to just let them stay because, at that point, they have Australian-citizen children and, at that point, they are so integrated into a local community.’
He also claimed Australia’s housing shortage is not primarily the result of immigration, it is largely because Australians are living in smaller households.
‘Housing, and the housing shortage we have, is not caused by immigration.
‘Anyone who looks at the migration program and wants to somehow say it was their fault, no. Australians have made a decision about how many people they want per household.’
Follow the latest developments live.
Albanese government admits it must deal with ‘visa hopping’
Tony Burke claimed the government needed to crack down on ‘visa hopping’, which he argued allows people to stay in Australia for years despite having no realistic pathway to permanent residency.
He said a small number of migrants are able to ‘jump from visa to visa’ and use the appeals system to prolong their stay.
‘There is a problem with visa hopping,’ Burke said.
Burke said some individuals who would ‘never, in fact, meet the qualifications’ for permanent residency are able to remain in Australia for extended periods before becoming deeply connected to their communities.
He argued this can create situations where governments are reluctant to remove people because they have Australian-citizen children and have spent years building their lives in Australia.
‘We need immigration’: Tony Burke
Tony Burke told the National Press Club that migration remains essential to Australia’s economy, warning that deep cuts would have consequences far beyond major cities.
‘We need immigration,’ he said.
‘We just need to make sure that it is targeted for the needs of Australia in numbers and across the different categories that work for our economy.’
The Home Affairs minister said immigration supports businesses, jobs and industries across both regional and metropolitan Australia.
He added that the benefits extend beyond universities, supporting workers in areas such as maintenance, cleaning, hospitality and retail.
‘Drastic cuts, wherever you make them, hurt the economy in every part, in every area,’ Burke said.
But he also linked migration to challenges in Australia’s housing market, noting many of the workers needed to build new homes were born overseas.
He said close to two-thirds of plasterers in Sydney and Melbourne were migrants.
Burke claims there is no ‘mass migration’ in Australia
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke rejected claims Australia is experiencing ‘mass migration’ during the speech.
‘There are parts of the world where mass migration is something that they are dealing with,’ he said.
‘It is not something we’re dealing with in Australia.’
Burke argued the country’s post-pandemic surge in arrivals had fallen and was now tracking below government forecasts.
‘There was a peak post-pandemic, which was too high. There are reasons why it was too high and reasons why, logically, there was always going to be a peak,’ he said.
The Home Affairs minister said the latest ABS data showed net overseas migration was now 47 per cent below its peak of 556,000 in 2023.
He also pushed back on arguments that some visa programs should be excluded from migration debates, insisting every part of the immigration system contributes to overall migration numbers.
‘No area of the immigration program is irrelevant to net overseas migration,’ Burke said.
As an example, he said working holiday-makers contributed 48,000 people to net overseas migration last year, arguing temporary visa holders remain a significant component of Australia’s migration intake.
International students are set to face tough new restrictions on bringing family members to Australia as Labor unveils a major crackdown on temporary migration and visa-hopping.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will unveil the long-awaited overhaul at the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday, with the government aiming to cut net overseas migration to 245,000 in 2026-27 and 225,000 the following year.
His highly anticipated speech is titled ‘The work of managing the migration program: Who arrives, who stays, who leaves’.
Almost 46,000 of the 337,427 student visas granted last financial year went to secondary applicants, including partners and dependent children.
Labor is also preparing to target so-called visa-hopping, where temporary migrants move between student, graduate and other visa classes and remain in Australia for years without securing permanent residency.
The announcement comes more than a month after Burke abruptly cancelled an earlier National Press Club appearance amid cabinet disagreement over the scale and design of the reforms.
Overseas migration numbers have dropped, ABS reports
The latest figures on Australia’s net overseas migration reveal a decline in migration levels.
According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data, net overseas migration fell to 292,100 in the year to March 2026, down from 309,500 in the previous 12-month period.
Despite the decline in net overseas migration, Australia’s population still grew by 392,700 to a total of 27.9 million people.
