One Nation's 750,000 Cut to Temporary Migration: What the Plan Says

Pauline Hanson wants to cut the number of temporary migrants in Australia by more than 750,000 over three years. That is the core of the One Nation plan now under examination in Canberra, after former deputy secretary of the immigration department Abul Rizvi said enforcement alone would cost the budget "many, many billions" to implement The Guardian.

The cut would fall on international students and family members of skilled migrants, the two temporary groups Hanson has named as targets. Hanson claimed the policy would reset Australia's immigration system and help ease pressure on housing The Guardian. This is a cut to the total number of people here at one time, not just a lower yearly intake. It means fewer new visas granted, plus non-renewals and removals at scale. Think of the total as water in a tank, and the yearly intake as water coming through the tap.

One Nation has committed to net-negative migration One Nation. That is the current wording of the policy. Hanson had previously put a net migration target at 130,000, in comments reported on 22 August ABC. Net-negative migration means outflows exceed inflows for a period, which is a tighter setting than a positive planning level. In simple terms, it means more people leaving than arriving.

The enforcement part of the plan would give unlawful non-citizens, people without a valid visa, three months to leave Australia voluntarily before enforcement options would be pursued. There would be no general amnesty. People who did not leave would face immigration enforcement and a lifetime ban on returning to Australia.

One Nation's policy is based on 80,000 unlawful non-citizens in Australia. Department of Home Affairs data, as of July, put a related but different caseload at 110,898 individuals not granted a protection visa who were yet to be deported, including people on bridging visas and others seeking judicial or administrative review. A bridging visa allows a person to stay lawfully while a decision or review is under way. Unlawful non-citizens, bridging visa holders with lawful status while review is on foot, and refused protection applicants awaiting removal are not the same population, and they do not carry the same legal avenues or removal prospects.

The policy also sets new consequences for overstaying. People found to have overstayed visas for more than one month would face an automatic three-year ban. Anyone overstaying for six months or longer would face a lifetime ban.

Rizvi compared Hanson's plan to enforcement activities by Donald Trump's administration, which has a budget of US$170bn.

The broader context here is the cost and work behind large-scale removal. Mass removal uses detention capacity, charter and escort operations, litigation, compliance staffing and cooperation from other countries. Costs rise once fewer people leave voluntarily and contested cases make up most of the caseload. A three-month voluntary departure period depends on incentives, documents, cooperation from countries of return, and belief about what follows. Where many people still have review rights or protection claims to be finalised, removal cannot simply be scheduled. Files must be worked, decisions must survive appeal, and travel documents must be secured.

In my view, the overstay rule is a blunt tool with little room for case-by-case consideration of overstay reasons, compliance history or later eligibility. It is also where Hanson's housing claim meets a Budget test. The claim is that cutting migration eases housing pressure. Rizvi points to a different pressure, on the Budget and on Home Affairs capability. Canberra has heard promises of fast, large-scale removals before, and they tend to run into the Administrative Review Tribunal backlog, the courts, and the slow work of getting returns cooperation. That does not make the policy impossible. It makes it expensive and slow, which is Rizvi's point.

Looking at what this means for the policy debate, the questions for One Nation are the usual ones for a cut of this size. How is the 750,000 made up across student, family and other temporary groups year by year. What share of the unlawful caseload can actually be removed within three years once bridging and review cases are excluded. What compliance workforce and detention footprint is priced in, and over what forward estimates, the Budget forecasts for coming years. Until those details are published, "many, many billions" is an expert warning rather than a competing costing, but it is a warning from someone who ran the system.