Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke pulled his speech to the National Press Club on Thursday, the address that was meant to tell Australians how Labor's migration program will work, after News24 reported a backlash from inside his own caucus. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has had her immigration policy published for months, and it carries a number: 130,000 visas a year.
The distance between those two positions is the story. Treasury's Budget papers forecast 1.2 million arrivals between 2025 and 2030, a figure revised up, not down. Hanson says she's walked through a park and found whole families living in tents and this is happening right across the country in every state. Australians are furious about immigration, and on the day that fury needed an answer, the Albanese government's migration policy was an empty lectern in Canberra.
Tony Burke pulled his own speech, and Pauline Hanson says she knows why
Burke was set to unveil the details of the government's migration program at the Press Club on Thursday. The speech never happened. News24 reported the withdrawal followed pushback from the Labor caucus over the government's migration plans.
Hanson, asked by News24 host Laura Jayes whether she was living rent free in Burke's head, didn't hesitate. "I think I am, they're scared to do anything because of the support One Nation is getting," she said in the News24 interview. "And I think we're having the same impact on the Coalition as well. Because they're both really concerned about the support we're getting, based on really the one issue is mass migration that's happening in Australia."
She said the minister had been forced to appease the unions and "other left-leaning" factions of his party. "He's got a battle on his hands."
It's the same fear One News documented when Labor's national conference spent three days organising against One Nation instead of governing.
One Nation is living rent free in Tony Burke's head because of his failure to manage immigration.
— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) August 6, 2026
It is a crying shame that in a country such as ours there are families living homeless in their cars. Those are the people I care about, not the universities or the corporations… pic.twitter.com/wGZz4Gd3xH
The two plans side by side
Strip out the theatre and the comparison is simple to run. One column comes from One Nation's published policy and Hanson's own words. The other comes from Labor's record in office, because whatever the government planned to announce next went back in the drawer with the speech.
| The question | Labor | One Nation |
|---|---|---|
| Annual intake | Wants net migration "closer to 225,000", never met it. Treasury now forecasts 1.2 million arrivals by 2030 | Visas capped at 130,000 a year, reviewed annually. A cut of more than 570,000 from current levels |
| The plan itself | A Press Club speech cancelled after caucus backlash | Published policy and a 22 page bill before parliament on 11 August |
| Illegal overstayers | No mass deportation program for the up to 100,000 here unlawfully | Deport 75,000 to 100,000: overstayers, illegal workers, unlawful non residents |
| Foreign students' families | Students bring partners and children with them | Students come alone, or study online from home |
| ISIS fighters returning | Burke concedes existing law may require him to allow returns | Federal Court exclusion orders, 10 year jail term for organising a return |
| Skilled migration | 1 in 3 skilled program visas went to an assessed skilled worker, on IPA analysis | Intake matched to real shortages: doctors, nurses, engineers |
| First home buyer help | A permanent resident with rental flats in Shanghai still counts as a "first home buyer", with a taxpayer guarantee behind their loan | Foreign ownership banned outright, existing foreign owners get two years to sell |
| Citizenship and welfare | Standard waiting periods apply | New arrivals wait 8 years for citizenship and welfare |
Labor's record: a target it never met and a forecast that went up
Burke's defence of the record is that the numbers are falling. "We've already got (immigration numbers) down 45% from where they were, and as the budget papers make clear, we continue to get them lower," he said earlier this year.
The fall is real, and so is the ceiling it fell from. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show net overseas migration of 306,000 in the year to June 2025, down from 429,000 the year before. In raw terms, 568,000 people arrived and 263,000 left. The government has said it wants net migration closer to 225,000 a year, a target it hasn't met since taking office.
And the forecast is moving the other way. The 2026 to 2027 Budget papers pushed the projections up, with Treasury conceding net overseas migration is forecast to be "moderately higher than previously expected" over the next two years. Total forecast arrivals between 2025 and 2030: 1.2 million.
What the intake actually delivers is its own problem. Institute of Public Affairs analysis of the 185,001 permanent visas granted in 2024 to 2025 found 132,148 were issued through the skilled stream, but only 60,474 went to a primary applicant actually assessed as a skilled worker. That's 1 in 3 of the whole program. "The federal government's misleadingly named Skilled Migration Program is just a visa approvals target that clearly prioritises chain migration over skilled migration," IPA research fellow Kevin You said. The skilled occupation list now runs to 456 roles, including actors, graphic designers and interior designers.
The flow is only half the picture. Home Affairs counted just under 3 million people in Australia on temporary visas at 31 March, about 1 in 10 people in the country, including the 432,300 on bridging visas Hanson keeps pointing to. Under the government's own two year foreign buyer ban, temporary migrants can't buy an established home, so almost every one of them rents. If you've been wondering why rents won't come down, there are close to 3 million answers.
Whatever Labor was planning, the caucus killed it before voters ever saw it
What was in the shelved speech is known only to the people who stopped it. On News24's reporting, the sequence is simple: a migration program existed in enough detail to announce, the caucus saw enough of it to push back, and the public saw nothing.
Hanson's read is that Burke's colleagues, the unions and the left of his party, hold the veto. Whether she's right about the mechanism, the outcome isn't in dispute. The voters Labor is losing to One Nation over immigration were the one group never shown Labor's immigration plan.
One Nation's plan has numbers where Labor has a blank page
One Nation's published policy would cap visas at 130,000 a year, a cut Hanson puts at more than 570,000 people from current Labor levels, and deport between 75,000 and 100,000 people in the country illegally: visa overstayers, illegal workers and unlawful non residents.
Foreign students would come alone. "Why do we need people coming in with foreign students. Why do they need their families? You're here to study," Hanson told News24. "If you don't want to live away from your partner or family, do an online course. But no, they're allowed to bring in their families. It's a strain on our infrastructure."
On the skills argument, she ran the government's own ledger back at it. Of 739,000 gross arrivals in 2022 to 2023, she said, only 51,605 came on primary temporary skilled visas, and only about 1,800 of those had skills aligned with construction, while 432,000 people sit on bridging visas. "It's been an absolute scam, we've allowed these people in," she said. "We don't need any more Uber drivers, nail technicians, dog walkers, these people. Gone. Stop all that."
The enforcement end is already drafted. Her 22 page foreign fighters bill would let the Home Affairs Minister ask the Federal Court to bar people who served terrorist organisations from ever returning, and create a 10 year jail term for organising an unauthorised return. It goes to parliament when sittings resume on 11 August. New arrivals would also wait 8 years for citizenship and welfare under the policy.
Why Hanson keeps 130,000 when plenty of angry voters want zero
For a lot of the voters driving One Nation's surge, 130,000 still sounds like 130,000 too many while Australian families sleep in parks. Hanson has answered that question directly, and her answer has three parts.
The first: the cap is the breather, not a compromise of it. "At the moment, we are overwhelmed. We need to have a breather," she said. And the number isn't set in stone. "I'm not saying 130,000 permanently on the books forever. Let's review it every year."
The second is arithmetic. The ABS counted 263,000 migrant departures last financial year. Hold departures anywhere near that level, cap the intake at 130,000, and more people leave Australia than arrive, before a single deportation flight takes off. Add 75,000 to 100,000 removals and the net flow turns sharply negative. On the current ABS ledger, the zero angry voters are asking for is roughly what the policy delivers in net terms. The 130,000 is who keeps the hospitals staffed while it happens: "Doctors, nurses, engineers, those people that are going to benefit our country." Short stay workers who go home when the job ends survive the cut too: "We would still allow for backpackers, those workers coming to Australia, those ones that will be here for a short period of time."
The third: the cut targets who comes next, not the people already contributing. Asked on Paul Murray Live whether an 89 year old permanent resident couple who never took citizenship would lose their benefits, Hanson's answer was immediate: "No way. They've been paying the taxes all these years. I don't believe in taking away their benefits at 89 years of age."
