Australia immigration announcement LIVE updates: Net overseas migration continues to slow amid Burke’s major reforms in National Press Club speech

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of Labor’s immigration shake up.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke is set to announce tough new visa rules at a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra around 12.30pm. The speech is titled: “The work of managing the migration program: who arrives, who stays, who leaves.”

It’s been more than a month since Labor’s original announcement was delayed.

Today’s immigration announcement is timed to occur one day before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flies to New York. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is also set to release fresh migration data later today.

Stay tuned as we bring you the latest developments.

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Liberal senator James Paterson said this morning the government did not actually want to reduce migration numbers at all and accused Labor of using Tony Burke’s address to the National Press Club as a symbolic gesture rather than a promise to act.

“The government’s heart is not really in it … All of this is just window dressing,” he told News24.

“They’ve made choices, they’ve made policy choices that have allowed these extraordinary numbers of people to come in at a totally unsustainable rate. While we are failing to build enough houses to accommodate them and the existing Australian population, and it is no wonder that rents are skyrocketing, that housing affordability has gone backwards, and Australians feel like the system is out of control and not serving their interests.”

The Coalition’s migration plan would see the number of new migrants matched to the number of houses built.

Earlier this morning, independent MP Allegra Spender flagged her concerns about policies that seek to cut skilled migration without considering the impacts those changes would have on the construction sector.

Nationals leader Matt Canavan has both attacked One Nation and said its headline migration proposal was not “silly”, just lacked detail.

Speaking to Radio National, Canavan likened the minor party’s plan to slash the number of temporary visa holders by 750,000 over three years to the decline during the pandemic.

“We had a 760,000 reduction in Covid, and so I think we’ve got to be really careful … We don’t want another Covid. We don’t want shock therapy,” he said.

He attacked One Nation’s “haphazard” proposal, following weeks of confusion and contradiction from within the minor party’s ranks.

Nationals leader Matt Canavan has avoided questions about the split in the Coalition over migration policy that we reported yesterday.

Asked whether it was true that he had pushed internally for deeper cuts to achieve net-negative migration levels – something One Nation is proposing – Canavan said he would not disclose details of private conversations.

“But I’ve said for a long time that migration needs to come down,” the senator told Radio National.

Canavan said too much focus was being placed on the net overseas migration figure, which tracks the flow of people in an out of Australia by counting the number of long-term arrivals minus departures.

“A particular issue I think, is that there’s not enough focus on the … stock of temporary visas. A lot of focus on the so-called net overseas migration rate, which itself is not a comprehensive figure.”

He said the ballooning number of people on bridging visas showed the system was not working.

Universities Australia CEO Luke Sheehy has branded the proposed changes as “a continuation of years of chipping away at Australia’s great national asset, international education.”

Worth $54 billion annually, international education is Australia’s fourth-largest industry with international students underwriting research and locals’ education. The funding provided by international students, particularly to Australia’s prestigious Group of Eight universities, is a lynchpin of the university system.

“The intention of this policy is pretty clear; they want fewer international students. They want to slash the numbers coming into the country. That’ll have real consequences, both economic and for our relationships across the world,” Sheehy said.

New South Wales’ two biggest universities – the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales – each reported $1.7 billion in revenue from international students last year.

“This is going to do lasting damage. We have already seen the world’s highest visa application fees. We’re sending the wrong signals at a time when international students can help turbocharge not only our universities, the way we operate, but our skills base for the future.”

Minister for Industry and Innovation Tim Ayres said One Nation and the Coalition’s approaches to migration would “tank” critical sectors of the Australian economy.

“The outcome today will reflect a good government process led by the prime minister and the minister here, Tony Burke, to deliver the best outcome, focusing on getting migration to the right level, but doing it in a way that doesn’t tank our economy and wreck regional economies in particular, which is what One Nation and Liberal and National … thought bubbles would do,” he told News24.

“We’re going to make more reform announcements today, and that is what Australians can expect, not showbiz from us and nasty memes and social media posts, but deliberate, careful government in the interest of Australia and Australians, and in this area, particularly in the interest of Australians in the regions and in the suburbs, to deliver the right outcome on migration.”

Ayres also dismissed the suggestion Labor had copied One Nation’s migration policy and claimed it was “not similar at all”.

“It is, as Tony will outline, well thought through, considered, using all the resources of government, to make sure that in all of those categories you’ve just outlined and more, that we’re making sure that the migration strategy fits Australia’s circumstances.”

Abul Rizvi has also speculated that Labor might curb working rights for some asylum seekers, as this masthead has previously reported.

He said the government could reintroduce the 45-day rule, meaning that if arrivals apply for asylum beyond that window, their working rights are restricted.

“Another one is if you’ve already been refused asylum at the primary stage, if you appeal, you don’t have work rights whilst your appeal is considered,” the immigration expert told ABC TV.

Rizvi said Labor’s regulatory changes could be implemented very quickly. The government has not been able to introduce legislative reform – which is a more lengthy process – because it could not secure the support of the Coalition or Greens.

Rizvi also said he was worried about how Australia’s regional partners, that provide a steady flow of students to the country, would react to attempts to curb their numbers.

He said Labor’s next move would be watched closely.

“Countries that compete with us for overseas students, as well as the source countries that provide students to us, they will all be taking notice,” the former immigration department deputy secretary told ABC TV.

“My biggest worry is how countries like Indonesia – our nearest neighbour with whom we have a large number of agreements, and we work very closely with them on all sorts of things – will react. I think we need to tread carefully in that area.”

Immigration expert Abul Rizvi has warned that separating international students from their spouse or children would turn away migrants that Australia sorely needs.

“If the objective is to reduce the total number of temporary entrants in Australia, that’s fine. But let’s do it intelligently. Let’s not do it in a way that shoots ourselves in the foot,” he told ABC TV.

Labor will announce a restriction on family visas today, after One Nation proposed barring students and skilled migrants from bringing their families to join them in Australia.

Rizvi, a former Department of Immigration deputy secretary, said it made sense to limit the ability of those doing short courses under a year from bringing their families to live with them.

“But as you get out to longer and longer courses, say a four-year nursing degree or indeed a six-year medical degree, forcing students to separate from spouse and dependent child for that length of time, I think becomes problematic,” he said.

“[They] probably just won’t come here. They’ll choose somewhere else.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said Labor had “lost control” of immigration as he claimed Burke’s announcement today would be “more of the same”.

Here’s what he told reporters outside Parliament House this morning:

[Labor] lost control of immigration numbers when it came to government. We saw immigration numbers get to over 500,000 when it hadn’t got much above 200,000 before that. This is out of control, and what we’ve seen from reports this morning is all we’re getting is more of the same.

There’s no change to the targets, and let’s be clear: Labor has never reached its immigration targets. It’s not reached a single target ... It’s clear here that they’re not even going to reduce those targets or get to them based on historical experience. This is a minister who has failed every single time when it comes to immigration, and all we’re going to get now is more of the same from Labor. The numbers are too high, the standards are too low, and both must change.

Australia must welcome international students, not send a message they aren’t welcome, warned University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott.

Speaking on ABC Radio National this morning, Scott said that while the university would wait for the particulars of the announcement, the government should tread carefully with the signal they are sending to the international student market.

“It’s the overarching message I’m most worried about. On top of the political debate, on top of a dramatic increase of visa cost, on top of a dramatic increase of visa rejections, we need to be very sure we’re not sending a message to the world that international students aren’t welcome here. We must welcome them,” he said.

“We should treat that sector the same way that we treat, with respect, the mining sector, the agricultural sector, the tourism sector,” he said.