The conservative-leaning One Nation party has pledged to cut 750,000 temporary visa holders into Australia over a three year period, as part of a broader reveal of its migration policy.
“Families are competing with hundreds of people for rental accommodation. Patients are stuck in ambulances because there are not enough hospital beds,” party leader Pauline Hanson wrote in a statement.
“Young Australians are being locked out of home ownership while wages and infrastructure fail to keep up.”
Hanson said the number of temporary visa holders had increased from 2 million in 2022 to around 3 million in 2026.
The party says it will cut migration levels back to 2017 standards, while reducing international student numbers to 2015 levels.
“Over the three years net overseas migration will be net-negative. Following this, One Nation’s net overseas migration ceiling of 130,000 per year would remain in place,” Hanson said.
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Illegal migrants will be give three months to leave Australia, with the option of applying for another visa in future. Those who remain could be slapped with a lifetime ban from entering the country.
The One Nation leader pointed to the Canadian experience, saying cutting migration levels resulted in cheaper rents. She also said universities would still be allowed to enrol about 100,000 international students per year.
“Our new high-value postgraduate study visa will also help attract the world’s brightest minds in science, engineering and medical research, giving Australia the talent we need to compete and returning universities to their proper role as research institutions rather than visa factories.”
For businesses, the temporary skilled program will remain, as well as working holiday ones.
One Nation will maintain a bar on migration from countries labelled as, “Do not travel,” by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Further, taxpayer-funded legal aid for visa appeals will stop.
What Canada Did?
According to Statistics Canada, the nation’s non-permanent resident population peaked at 3.15 million in October 2024, but later dropped to 2.56 million in April 2026, a 19 percent reduction.
Subsequently, Canada’s rental market eased with vacancy rates rising and asking rents falling in some major cities, although increased housing supply and a weaker labour market have also contributed.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said the national vacancy rate rose from 2.2 percent in 2024, to 3.1 percent in 2025 following migration cuts.
The organisation also claims rents for two-bedroom properties fell in most major cities.
Labor, Coalition Respond
Deputy Liberal Opposition Leader Jane Hume called on One Nation to release its modelling.
“My concern with what we’ve seen from One Nation this morning is it’s simply headline number without any detail of the modelling that’s underneath it because we know that if you get your migration program wrong, well then all Australians will pay a price,” she told ABC Radio National on Sept. 14.
“Already today economists have come out and said that potentially, with the numbers that One Nation is throwing around, you could send the economy into recession and that means everybody will end up paying for a poorly thought-through migration policy.”
Labor Cabinet Minister Mark Butler said One Nation’s plan would be detrimental to businesses.
“This is going to smash industries like construction,” he said. “It would devastate the health sector and aged care and disability.”
