Australia’s migration targets will remain unchanged despite violent protests demanding the nation’s permanent intake be slashed.
The permanent migration program intake for 2025/26 will be set at 185,000 people, the same as the previous financial year.
But the government has been criticised for delaying its decision to announce what the intake rate would be, with the opposition saying Labor failed to address areas of concern about migration.
The announcement of the intake levels follows anti-immigration rallies attended by thousands of people in capital cities across Australia on Sunday.
The decision to keep migration numbers on hold followed talks with states and territories, with a focus on skilled migration, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the government needed to get the balance right on population growth with strains on housing and workforce shortages.
“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.”
But opposition immigration spokesman Paul Scarr said the government’s decision to unveil the updated target more than two months into the financial year was an “unacceptable” delay that showed Labor had no plan.
“There is no explanation regarding how this announcement of the permanent migration intake reflects the very real pressures facing modern Australia,” he said.
“Families are struggling to find a home, communities are feeling the strain and the cost of poor planning is being carried by every Australian.”
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.
Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, who addressed a rally in Melbourne and was shown in footage attacking an Aboriginal camp, crashed a press conference being held by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday.
He continued to shout about Australians being denied the right to protest as he was led 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.
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.
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