Opposition pushes back on higher skilled-migration target amid population debate

Australia’s debate over the size and shape of next year’s migration intake intensified on 26 July after the federal Opposition’s Home Affairs spokesperson, Senator Jonno Duniam, rejected calls from business groups to lift the cap on skilled visas. Speaking to SBS Hindi, Duniam said the Coalition accepts that “Australia does need skilled migrants”, but argued that the government should focus first on matching migrants to clearly identified shortages and on restoring confidence in the visa system. The comments come as Treasury projects net-overseas-migration to ease from last year’s record 518,000 to around 260,000 by mid-2027, a trajectory the government says is necessary to take pressure off housing and infrastructure. Industry bodies—including the Business Council of Australia and the Tech Council—have countered that tighter visa settings risk prolonging skills gaps in critical sectors such as construction and cyber-security. Duniam signalled that a future Coalition government would tighten labour-market testing, increase regional weighting in the points test and “do more to ensure employers aren’t using temporary visas to suppress wages”. That stance draws a clearer policy line with Labor, which last December outlined a new three-tier visa framework designed to fast-track high-earning talent while imposing higher English-language and salary thresholds on other streams. For multinational employers, the Opposition’s intervention means uncertainty is likely to persist well into the 2027 election about Australia’s overall skilled-visa ceiling, processing priorities and compliance burden. Mobility managers should continue scenario-planning around multiple quota levels, ensure labour-market-testing documentation is watertight and monitor forthcoming parliamentary inquiries that could reshape the Migration Act.