One Nation Promises to Cut Migration Intake to 130,000 per Year

While the centre-right Coalition continues drafting its official position on migration, One Nation’s Pauline Hanson has already laid down her marker: that permanent intakes should drop to roughly 130,000 a year.

That’s a deeper cut than the 185,000 the Labor government is implementing.

“I’m not saying no migrants. We need migrants to come into the country,” the conservative-leaning minor party leader said on Nov. 18.

But she argued arrivals must be dramatically reduced until the nation “gets its house in order.”

Hanson pointed to net flows to make her case, claiming Australia records “up to 200,000 people that leave the country” each year, meaning “you can replace those.”

The priority, she said, should be essential skills, not broad intake.

“We have skills and services that we definitely need in Australia, by all means, bring in those migrants,” she told ABC RN Breakfast.

Rising frustration among callers to her office was driving the urgency, she added.

“They can’t get housing; they can’t afford housing. They can’t get rent. You do not keep flooding the country with migrants into the country. And don’t tell me that they are skilled migrants.”

She pointed to 2023 as an example: “In 2023 we have 740,000 came into the country. Of that, only 51,605 actually were skilled migrants. And of that, only 1,800 in the construction industry.”

As per latest ABS data, new migration figures show inflows have normalised after the pandemic-era slump.

Australia recorded 2.1 million arrivals and 1.82 million departures in the year to October 2025—numbers close to pre-COVID patterns.

A recent Newspoll found 64 percent of voters want fewer migrants, making it one of the most dominant political topics.

A day earlier, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley announced the Coalition had begun shaping its own migration platform, promising to show “how a future Coalition government would tackle the issue.”

On whether both permanent and temporary migration categories would be tightened, Ley said, “Both the numbers need to be lower.”

Government Stands Firm

Meanwhile, the Albanese government kept the migration cap at 185,000 for the 2025–26, unchanged from last year.

“Consultations recommended maintaining the size and composition of the program, with a focus on skilled migration,” said Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke.

“The department had already been processing visa flows at that level, he added, and “there has been no disruption to the delivery of the program.”

One Nation’s Rising Appeal

One Nation has enjoyed its strongest polling numbers in its 28-year-old history as older Liberal-National Coalition voters drift away from Ley’s leadership.

Support has surged to 15 percent in recent Essential and Newspoll surveys—up from 6.4 percent at the last election.

Redbridge, YouGov, Resolve and Roy Morgan all put One Nation in double digits, placing it ahead of the Greens in several measures.

A YouGov breakdown found that of the voters who have abandoned support for the Coalition since the May election, 54 percent now plan to vote One Nation.

“They tend to be older, a third of those are 65 and older,” YouGov’s Keshan Daftari told AAP.

“It’s basically a protest vote against their own party … capturing the Coalition despondency and drop-off.”

One Nation spokesman Richard Henderson said the party’s membership had grown rapidly in recent months, allowing the party to establish new branches nationwide.

He said branches were now opening in Albury—Ley’s own electorate—as well as in traditional Nationals strongholds such as Tamworth and Wagga Wagga. The party is also actively fundraising to launch an Australian Capital Territory branch.

Hanson Courts Barnaby Joyce

Amid the reshuffling on the right, Hanson confirmed she is actively pursuing former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, who has recently severed ties with his party.

“Of course, I want him on board. I won’t deny that,” she said.

Hanson said discussions had dragged on because she was overseas, but she now planned to “cook him dinner and have a good chat with him.”

When asked what she intended to pitch, she was characteristically direct:

“Well, I’m going to have a good talk with him about whether his prospects will be better with One Nation, because with the National Party on about 4 or 5 percent at the moment, I think 18 percent looks a lot more healthy to him.”

Despite the Coalition abandoning its net-zero target, Joyce has not committed to staying.

He told the Sydney Morning Herald he hadn’t been invited by Pauline Hanson but was open to meeting her. Joyce said One Nation’s record 18 percent polling mattered less to him than party principles.

AAP contributed to this article.