Violent protests calling for the national migrant intake to be curbed have failed to make an impact, as key immigration figures reveal Australia’s migration numbers will remain at current levels.
The permanent migration program intake for 2025/26 will be set at 185,000 people, the same as the previous financial year.
The announcement of the intake levels follows anti-immigration rallies attended by thousands of protesters in capital cities across Australia on Sunday.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the decision to keep migration numbers on hold followed talks with states and territories, with a focus on skilled migration.
Health Minister Mark Butler acknowledged many Australians held legitimate concerns following a spike in immigration numbers post-COVID, saying the government needed to get the balance right on population growth amid housing strains and workforce shortages.
Pandemic-era border closures caused the net overseas migration figure to plummet.
When borders reopened, an influx of international students caused the net increase to surge to a record high of 536,000 in one year.
Numbers had fallen since and Mr Butler said the rate would continue to come down to normal levels.
“I think there is a real tension between recognising that there are real pressures on our housing system and other parts of the economy,” he told Nine’s Today Show on Tuesday.
“While also, I know intimately, recognising we’re really struggling to get the workers we need to deliver the hospital services, the aged care services and build the houses we need.”
Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, who addressed the rally in Melbourne and was shown in footage alongside black-shirt clad people attacking an Aboriginal camp, crashed a press conference being held by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday.
He shouted about Australians being denied the right to protest as he was escorted away by police officers.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the prominence of neo-Nazis at the rallies needed to be confronted.
“We have to make sure we give people space to move away and to not push them further down that rabbit hole,” he told a Labor Party room meeting in Canberra.
“A lot of these fears are being reinforced online and we have challenges with polarisation.”
Independent senator David Pocock and former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi said the government had left a vacuum for unsavoury elements, including neo-Nazis, by failing to show leadership and properly explain its immigration plan to the public.
The rallies have been widely condemned because of the presence of neo-Nazis, but politicians including One Nation senator Pauline Hanson and Queensland MP Bob Katter joined marchers.
While only a small contingent of the people who showed up identified as white nationalists, terrorism expert Levi West said there was an overlap that extremists could exploit.
“A rally that has a presence from a group like the neo-Nazi organisation presents a prime opportunity for recruitment,” said Dr West, a research fellow at the Australian National University.
“People whose grievances are potentially based in conspiracy theory or misinformation can quite easily be drawn towards the simplicity of the ideas that are embedded in neo-Nazi ideology as providing some sort of solution or solace for the thing that they feel a grievance about.”
Simon Welsh, director of research at pollster Redbridge, said surveys and focus groups were picking up concerns among the general public about the size of Australia’s migration intake, in the context of the housing affordability crisis.
“But there is some important nuance here,” he told Sky News.
“There’s this sensitivity to the idea of politicians using (immigration) as an excuse to not do proper reform on issues like housing or on health and education.”
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