40 Immigration and multicultural policy

Australia has been shaped by immigration.^[1] Nearly half of today’s Australian population consists of immigrants born elsewhere or their first-generation descendants. As a consequence of its pattern of immigration, Australia is also a multicultural country. This chapter examines the policy evolution which has produced this situation. It also examines the distinctive political dynamics of the policy-making process pertaining to immigration and multiculturalism.

What’s at stake?

Immigration and multicultural policies directly shape Australia’s social composition and the social relations between and within its constituent communities. At the national level, the immigration policy settings mould the evolution of Australia’s overall ethnic character, an impact which can stir deep emotions. Over time, immigration numbers and the resultant multicultural transformation of the electorate have affected the nature of Australian political processes.

At the community level, immigration and multicultural policies shape and structure a potentially awkward social and political balance. On the one hand, there is a need to respect the diverse ethnic, cultural and religious identities with which Australians collectively now identify. On the other hand, harmonious and productive intercultural relations among Australians arguably depend on some transcendence of these particularistic identities.

While it is shaping Australian society at its broadest levels, the implementation of immigration policy is also deeply personal for those affected. People’s life trajectories are potentially transformed by the decisions emerging from the administrative process established by the policy parameters.

Characteristics of this policy domain

Probably more than in most policy domains, an appreciation of the historical evolution of immigration policy is needed for a full understanding of the challenges and dilemmas characterising today’s policy debates.

Historical context

The history of Australian immigration policy implementation is embodied in the sequence of annual ‘net immigration’ numbers, encompassing more than a century and a half, reported in Figure 1. ‘Net immigration’ here means the number admitted to Australia each year less the number recorded as emigrating out of Australia in the same year.

The sequence in Figure 1 begins in the early 1860s, a period when a ‘White Australia’ policy was becoming established. Until the late 1940s, periods of substantial net immigration were episodic and intermittent. These immigrants came almost entirely from the British Isles, including Ireland, and can be described in ethnic terms as Anglo-Celtic. They and their descendants overwhelmed the Indigenous population and established the basic political institutions and processes which Australia still features.

There were some exceptions to the Anglo-Celtic predominance (such as German and Italian immigrants), but the most notable perceived challenge was the arrival of a significant number of Chinese during the goldrushes of the 1850s. It was this challenge which led the Australian colonies, and from 1901 the new Australian government, to formalise the so-called White Australia policy. The policy precluded immigrants from Asia and later proscribed the continued use of indentured Pacific Islander labour. Various motivations explain why the White Australia policy was adopted; these include the protection of wages and working conditions from the potential impact of low-wage competition as well as a racist or ethnocentric distaste for population diversity.^[2] The United States, Canada and New Zealand, likewise emerging as prominent immigration-based ‘new world’ nations, adopted similar policies.

Significant change began in the late 1940s. The Chifley Labor government, followed by supportive Coalition governments thereafter, embarked on a mass immigration program that transformed Australia. The change instigated in the late 1940s is clearly visible in Figure 1 as an immigration surge that continues today. Britain was no longer the exclusive source; the new immigrants also came from a wide range of European countries, beginning with post-War refugees from Eastern Europe, followed by substantial numbers from Northern Europe and later Southern Europe (most notably, Italy and Greece). From the mid 1960s, the admission of small numbers from Asia signalled a quiet abandonment of the White Australia.^[3]

The change instigated in the late 1940s is clearly visible in Figure 1. Since then, with some fluctuations, immigration levels have been substantial. They have increased further in the 21st Century, experiencing an extraordinary but temporary cessation during the 2020–2021 pandemic period followed by a recovery so strong that it triggered concerns about its sustainability.

The modern immigration regime

In 1973, the Whitlam Labor government formally discontinued the White Australia policy.^[4] It also instituted a new domestic policy of multiculturalism which, overturning a rhetoric of assimilation which had accompanied the post-1940s ethnic diversification, celebrated Australia’s growing cultural diversity.

It was the Fraser Coalition government from 1976 which elaborated the aspirational notion of multiculturalism into a range of policies supporting ethnic communities.  This period also saw the formalisation of the immigration policy regime which, in essence, still prevails today.

This regime involves selection criteria which do not formally discriminate on the basis of race or national origin. It encompasses three principal selection categories permitting immigrant admission on the basis of occupational skills (measured by a ‘points test’ scoring such factors as qualifications, English language proficiency and age), family connections (mainly admitting the spouses, fiancées and dependent children of Australian residents) and humanitarian considerations (including refugees as narrowly defined under international conventions and others deemed in humanitarian need). This formally non-discriminatory and category-focused immigration system has now been in place in Australia for more than 50 years.

Family and occupational immigration

Figure 2 charts how categorical preferencing within the immigration program has played out over recent decades. It reveals that immigrants admitted on the basis of a family connection predominated during Labor’s lengthy period in office under the prime ministerships of Hawke (March 1983 to December 1991) and Keating (from then until March 1996). The Howard Coalition government, in office from March 1996, at first lifted the proportion admitted on the basis of occupational skills to about equal prominence as those with family connections. Then a decisive relative shift took place, preferencing applicants in the occupational-skills category. That decisive relative shift, consistent with a neoliberal policy emphasis on promoting economic growth and investment, has been maintained ever since (aside from the exceptional pandemic-affected year of 2020–21). It survived the replacement of the Howard Coalition government by, successively from late 2007, the Rudd–Gillard–Rudd Labor governments, the Abbott–Turnbull–Morrison Coalition governments, and (since May 2022) the Albanese Labor government.

While the key structure of an immigration policy regime based on occupational and family categories have now been in place for about fifty years, it has developed over those years into a complex operation.  There are multiple visa subcategories governed by complicated legislation supplemented by a ‘web of regulations and policy advice manuals’.^[5] The regime has long featured some internal inconsistencies, such as admission within the occupation-related admission categories of principal visa-holders’ partners who are not themselves tested for their employability prospects.^[6] Administrative backlogs in dealing with visa applications are common.  Many applicants remain on ‘bridging visas’ while their longer-term status is being determined.^[7] The system does not seem successful in feeding sufficient numbers of employable immigrants into sectors such as construction and aged-care afflicted by evidently chronic labour shortages.^[8]

Some reconsideration of aspects of the regime seems likely. A 2023 independent review commissioned by the Albanese Labor government described the operation of the immigration program in unflattering terms: ‘not fit for purpose’, ‘broken, ‘unstrategic’, ‘complex’, ‘expensive’ and ‘slow’.  It argued that ‘[w]hile some complexity is inevitable, the design of the system … is overly complex and its operations opaque’.^[9]

Government ministers concurred with the review’s characterisation of a ‘broken’ system featuring ‘too many back doors and side doors into the system, undermining the system’s integrity’.  A new Migration Strategy, released in December 2023, represented the Albanese Government’s ‘commitment to getting our system back on track’ and, in a clear reference to the remarkable post-pandemic surge of arrivals, ‘to returning migration levels back to normal’.^[10]

Humanitarian immigration

Figure 2 reveals the maintenance since the mid-1980s of a ‘humanitarian’ intake in the range of 11,000 to 20,000 per annum. (The 2020–21 intake again features an exceptional and temporary break). The humanitarian program looks relatively small in comparison to the family and occupational skills categories, and over time represents a diminishing proportion of the total immigration numbers.

The humanitarian program has two main components. There is an offshore component under which resettlement in Australia is offered to refugees and others with a humanitarian case located outside Australia. An onshore component provides for claimants determined to be refugees after arriving in Australia on a valid visa.

In comparison to other countries’ involvement in international efforts to resettle those stranded in refugee camps around the world, the Australian humanitarian program is one of the more generous.^[11] However, this record contrasts markedly with the harsh regime applying to asylum seekers endeavouring to enter Australia and claim refugee status outside the parameters of the humanitarian program. This is despite the numbers of such claimants being relatively low compared with the numbers seeking to enter other target countries such as in Europe.

In the late 1970s, Australia’s acceptance of Indo-Chinese ‘boat people’ had signalled a decisive end to the old White Australia policy.^[12] Over time, however, political tolerance for the management of undocumented asylum seekers arriving by sea waned, especially as it began to be associated with organised ‘people smuggling’ networks.

The Keating Labor government in 1992 initiated the mandatory detention of asylum seekers after facing a resumption of maritime arrivals largely driven by events in Cambodia. A new flow of arrivals (sourced mainly from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq) began in the 1999–2000 period under the Howard Coalition government. Campaigning for re-election in 2001, Prime Minister Howard capitalised on his government’s refusal to accept a vessel, the Tampa, which had been diverted to Australia by asylum-seekers. These asylum-seekers were sent into detention, notably in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, instituting an offshore processing regime which has continued, with some fluctuations, thereafter.

The Rudd Labor government, elected in December 2007, initially suspended the mandatory detention of maritime asylum-seekers. However, it later reintroduced mandatory offshore detention following a surge in maritime arrivals, including an extraordinary tally exceeding 25,000 arrivals in 2012–3, with many others tragically drowning at sea.^[13] The Rudd and Gillard governments grappled with the cruel conundrum around what Prime Minister Rudd described as ‘our responsibility as a government … to ensure that we have a robust system of border security and orderly migration on the one hand as well as fulfilling our legal and compassionate obligations … on the other’.^[14]

The Abbott Coalition government elected in September 2013 election launched Operation Sovereign Borders under which unauthorised boats were intercepted at sea and not permitted to enter Australian waters. Operation Sovereign Borders continued through the succeeding Coalition governments headed by Turnbull (September 2015 to August 2018) and Morrison (from August 2018). It has been maintained by the Albanese Labor government since May 2022.^[15] While the arrangement with Papua New Guinea ceased in late 2021, Nauru continues to host asylum-seekers sent there by Australia and to accept new arrivals. Nauru has also agreed to be a destination to which Australia can deport several hundred people whose visas have been cancelled on so-called ‘character’ grounds such as criminal conduct.^[16]

Temporary immigration

The fraught politics around mainstream immigration and asylum-seekers has been amplified by the substantial increase in what is termed ‘temporary immigration’. The Albanese government’s 2023 review of the migration program was particularly critical of how this substantial increase has been managed, describing it as ‘the greatest reform challenge’ facing immigration policy.^[17]

Three principal categories of temporary immigrants are of particular interest:

• International students have become a prominent feature of the Australian education systems, most notably in the university and vocational education sectors.
• Temporary skilled immigrants are admitted to work in what are supposed to be specific occupations or positions where employers find it difficult to recruit locals.
• Working holidaymakers are typically young adults permitted to undertake short-term paid work (such as seasonal work in regional horticulture).

Figure 3 shows the substantial and increasing (except for the pandemic period) scale of temporary immigration across these categories over recent decades. There is a connection between the temporary and permanent intakes; more than half of permanent visas in recent years have been granted to applicants already in Australia as temporary immigrants.^[18]

Temporary immigration has attracted some political controversy. Some critics are concerned about its claimed impact on the integrity of, and job competition within, the Australian labour market; they might be assured by a Productivity Commission finding that ‘recent immigration has had a negligible effect on the labour market outcomes of the local labour force’.^[19] Some analysts are uncomfortable with temporary immigrants, who contribute to the economy without immediate citizenship rights or pathways, being treated in effect as ‘not quite Australian’.^[20] There have been claims that the temporary skilled program too readily overlooks the availability of qualified local recruits and/or an undesirable under-investment in the education and training which would support an upskilled local workforce.^[21] There are claims of the exploitation of temporary immigrants employed in the horticultural, hospitality and other industries.^[22]

The possibility of remaining in Australia after graduation (ideally by transitioning from temporary to permanent immigrant status) is evidently a major motivation for international students to choose to study in Australia. Those who manage to stay are nonetheless ‘less likely to secure employment in their field and at their qualification level and earn less than domestic counterparts’.^[23]

Multiculturalism

The cultural diversity driven by Australia’s immigration program over recent decades is readily apparent, particularly in the major metropolitan regions. As of 2024, more than 31 per cent of the Australian population had been born elsewhere. Nearly half have at least one parent born overseas. While Australia’s colonial origins continue to be reflected in England remaining the largest single country of origin of today’s immigrants, England is now almost matched by India, with China being the third-largest origin country.^[24]

Increasing cultural diversity is also revealed in Australia’s religious profile. Whereas in the late 1940s nearly all Australians professed affiliation with some version of Christianity, the proportion identifying as Christians in the 2021 Census had fallen to just 44 per cent. While nearly 40 per cent of Australians now profess no religious affiliation (another radical change from the late 1940s), around 10 per cent (and nearly 41 per cent of immigrants arriving in the five years leading up to the 2021 Census) identify with non-Christian traditions.^[25]

The evolving immigration policies and programs over the past few decades have mostly been characterised by a reasonably firm, though occasionally unsteady, bipartisan support from the two major party groupings: Labor and the Coalition. A similar combination of substantial consensus interspersed by occasional vacillation has characterised the ongoing acceptance of multiculturalism as the policy framework for managing Australia’s immigration-driven ethnic diversity.

There has long been some ambiguity about the degree to which multiculturalism has been intended to promote greater social cohesion and integration or for maintaining cultural diversity and empowering cultural minorities. In general, the bipartisan position has favoured social cohesion and integration.^[26]

The Fraser Coalition government (December 1975–May 1983) set in place much of the national administrative and institutional infrastructure for multicultural policies. Later, under the Hawke Labor government in 1989, a National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia identified three justifications for multiculturalism: its respect for cultural identity, its alignment with social justice and its utilitarian virtues in facilitating economic efficiency. Importantly, the document also specified ‘limits’ which, in effect, asserted the necessity for a set of common values within ‘an overriding and unifying commitment to Australia’.^[27] This kind of careful specification of both the claimed virtues and the necessary limits of Australian multiculturalism has enabled the concept to adapt and survive ever since, the 1989 statement continuing to be acknowledged under successive governments at the national level.^[28]

Perhaps the most serious challenge took place during the period of the Howard Coalition government (1996-2007). The Howard government seemed to downplay the terminology of multiculturalism  and emphasised instead terms like ‘social cohesion’ and ‘citizenship’.^[29] Late in its final term, it introduced a ‘citizenship test’ under which immigrants seeking Australian citizenship would need to demonstrate a ‘working knowledge of the English language’ and ‘an understanding of basic aspects of Australian society, our culture, and our values and certainly some understanding of our history’.^[30] Many years later, long retired from office, Howard himself continued to express discomfort with multiculturalism used as a political expression.^[31] Yet the Howard government’s policy documents also mirrored the Hawke Labor government’s in balancing the celebration of diversity with the affirmation of common values, suggesting that multiculturalism survived the Howard government ‘in practice if not in name’.^[32] Nearly twenty years later, a reaffirmation of multiculturalism is embodied in the report Towards fairness: A multicultural Australia for all presented to and endorsed by the Albanese Labor government in 2024.^[33]

Policy development and political debates around immigration and multiculturalism are shaped by a range of policy actors.

Political parties

Policy convergence and bipartisanship, rather than partisan conflict, have mostly characterised the role of the major political parties within this policy domain. There have been instances where this major-party bipartisanship has wavered a little or where alleged differences have been exaggerated for tactical advantage (such as arguments about which side has been tougher or more effective on ‘border protection’ or which has been best equipped to temper the post-pandemic surge in immigration numbers).

However, bipartisan consensus is tested from time to time. Within the Coalition parties, there can be some sentiment which is sceptical of multiculturalism and instead favours the maintenance of common values. Within the broader membership of the Labor Party, reservations about the ethics of draconian ‘border protection’ policies and empathy for the plight of affected asylum seekers are not infrequently expressed.^[34]

Minor parties and independents represented in the federal parliament offer a broader spectrum of perspectives: the Australian Greens have adopted a stance consistently favourable to higher immigration levels and sympathetic to asylum seekers while Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has consistently supported a lower intake and is unwelcoming to asylum seekers.

Public opinion

The range of views among Australian voters is somewhat more polarised but with a tendency, quite pronounced recently, to favour less rather than more immigration.

The Australian Election Study (AES) national survey is conducted to coincide with each Australian national election. Figure 4 reports the findings for each AES from the 1996 election to the 2025 election on the matter of whether respondents think the immigration levels at the time should be increased, kept the same or decreased. The ‘decreased intake’ option mostly procured the highest level of support among survey respondents and has been substantially better supported than an increased intake.

The 2022 survey was an exception to this pattern, its result possibly influenced by the significant but temporary pandemic-related drop in the immigration intake around that time. The 2025 survey, in the context of the substantial rebound in immigration numbers, produced a parallel surge in support for the ‘decreased intake’ option.

A Scanlon Foundation survey during 2025, using subtly different wording, produced a comparable result: 51 per cent of respondents thought the current immigration level was ‘too high’, 40 per cent ‘about right’ and 7 per cent ‘too low’. The same survey found strong support (accounting for 83 per cent of respondents) for the proposition that ‘multiculturalism has been good for Australia’. This suggests that respondents concerned by high immigration levels can nonetheless be comfortable with the multicultural consequences of the immigration program.^[35]

Business

Business interests have generally supported relatively high levels of immigration. It creates a larger supply of potential workers, reduces upward pressure on wages and creates a larger consumer demand for business products. During public debates in 2018 about whether immigration intakes should be reduced, the business sector’s major umbrella organisations – the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Property Council of Australia – each declared its opposition to any cuts.^[36]

Business organisations also tend to favour a relatively large occupational-skill-based intake in comparison with the family-based intake, because this can advantage them in the recruitment of staff. For particular corporations and business ventures, negotiating favourable arrangements to enable them to access temporary immigrants is also a priority.

Trade unions

The business sector’s favourable stance towards high levels of immigration might be expected to be counterbalanced by scepticism from a trade-union movement presumably focused on job protection for the current workforce. Australian trade unions have indeed been vocal critics of high levels of temporary immigration and, in relation to admission on the basis of occupational skills, have argued that it is only acceptable ‘if employers in the industry have first tested offering improved wages and conditions to attract local workers’.^[37]

However, the trade union movement has generally been supportive of Australia’s permanent immigration program. This was historically important in relation to Australia’s radical shift to mass immigration from the late 1940s.^[38] In 2018, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the union United Voice joined the Australian Industry Group business lobby in a statement declaring that ‘Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and economy’ and that ‘we … do not support any reduction to the scheme’.^[39]

Ethnic communities

Australia’s immigration program has fostered the creation of ethnic-minority communities of first-generation members and descendants. Political parties now actively court ethnic-minority communities. These communities naturally have an interest in immigration policy, especially as it applies to rights of admission for other family members, and a particular stake in multicultural policy. They do not necessarily harbour a different range of views on other immigration-related issues; for example, according to Jupp and Pietsch, ‘[s]ome polling suggests that many “ethnic” Australians were just as unsympathetic as the “Anglo” majority to asylum seekers who were perceived to be jumping the gun, especially when that affected family reunion for their own group’.^[40]

Sometimes the policy preferences arising from ethnic-minority communities are articulated through ethnic community organisations, co-ordinated nationally through the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA). FECCA and its allies were claimed to have had a significant influence over the Hawke Labor government in securing a high proportion of immigration places for family-connection applicants.^[41] If that outcome is a test of the influence of the ‘ethnic lobby’, then its influence seems to have since waned.

There is evidence that the same waning impact also applies to patterns of ‘ethnic voting’. The Labor Party had been quite successful during the 1980s and 1990s in disproportionately attracting voting support among members of the Italian Australian, Greek Australian and Maltese Australian communities. Labor’s relative advantage within those communities, however, seems to have declined since then.^[42]

Advocacy groups

The issues around humanitarian immigration, and particularly asylum-seekers, have mobilised an articulate, informed and often passionate network of advocacy groups pursuing what they regard as more humane policies. The scale of this sector, ranging from faith-based organisations to social-movement activists, can be gauged from the more than one hundred organisations affiliated with the umbrella Refugee Council of Australia.^[43]

A more disparate set of groups is associated with advocacy for substantially reduced immigration levels. March for Australia, an organisation whose professed aims include ‘an end to mass immigration’, organised a series of demonstrations in Australian cities throughout 2025.^[44] Some of those events were blighted by a small but visible neo-Nazi presence. Advance, a group which describes itself as ‘an independent movement that lives for mainstream Australia’ (though it has some links to prominent Liberal Party identities), has argued that ‘mass immigration is destroying the Australian way of life’.^[45]

Making immigration and multicultural policy

Each year, Cabinet determines an immigration intake target for the coming 12 months and the actual intake normally comes out reasonably close to the announced target. This is an impressive degree of precision in view of its basis in hundreds of thousands of individual applications and in view of some international evidence of other countries finding it difficult to match immigration policy intentions with actual outcomes.^[46]

In recent years, there have been formal opportunities for stakeholder input into the setting of immigration targets.^[47] The targets are then announced as a detail within the annual budget process (and implemented thereafter through administrative channels). The absence of more specific Parliamentary approval for the annual targets insulates the process a little from the scrutiny and possible controversy which might otherwise arise. It may be one explanation for how bipartisanship has been generally maintained about broad policy directions.

International and intergovernmental interactions

In a legal and constitutional sense, the arena of Australian immigration policymaking is focused at the national level. Section 51(xxvii) of the Australian Constitution gives the Australian national government clear and unambiguous authority over immigration policy. International law provides unambiguous recognition of national sovereignty in relation to the rights of countries to determine their own policies. Nonetheless, in practice, the Australian government needs to take into account both external/international and internal/domestic nuances.

National sovereignty is potentially subject to international influence if a country chooses to enter into international treaties. For example, Australia has long been a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Australia is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which governs interactions in international waters beyond the jurisdiction of Australia’s own maritime boundaries.^[48] There have been persistent claims that some of Australia’s policies and practices in relation to the interdiction of asylum-seeker boats and the indefinite offshore detention of asylum seekers violate some of its international obligations under such treaties.^[49] The only recourse, even when the complainant is the United Nations,^[50] is essentially via public condemnation and political protest.

Foreign policy and trade considerations provide another international constraint. For example, Australia’s policies and practices on maritime asylum seekers can be a particularly sensitive issue affecting its important relationship with Indonesia, from where many of the boats have departed. Australia’s immigration-driven cultural diversification can assist international trade by opening up, through detailed local knowledge and personal contacts, new export markets. International trade agreements to which Australia is a party may in turn carry obligations to grant temporary entry and employment rights to the citizens of trading partners.^[51]

An important international detail about Australia’s immigration policy is that there is no restriction on the entry of New Zealand citizens. They are not considered as part of the immigration program if they decide to settle permanently in Australia.

Turning to intra-national considerations, while the national Australian government carries unambiguous constitutional authority over immigration matters, there are considerable consequences for Australia’s State governments which are largely responsible for the provision of infrastructure and services to an expanding population. The strong tendency for immigrants to gravitate to Australia’s metropolitan centres, and especially Sydney and Melbourne, has been an important factor behind recent arguments for the intake to be reduced. Attracting or directing immigrants to regions or States within which population growth would be more welcome would help to remedy this situation. There is a well-established ‘regional’ subcategory within the occupational-skills immigration intake which favours applicants willing to reside in specified regions or States.

Debates and issues

This chapter has already canvassed a number of policy debates around immigration and multiculturalism. Here, several other controversies are discussed.

Defence and security

National security had been a foremost consideration as a justification for the policy shift in 1945 towards large-scale immigration. Australia’s relatively low population and empty spaces were regarded as liabilities for national defence: ‘populate or perish’ was adopted as something of a national slogan.^[52] As the decades passed, Australia’s defence thinking, its relationship with Asian neighbours, and the role of military technology had evolved to the point that the 1940s’ invocation of a direct link between immigration and questions of national security no longer seemed persuasive. Security considerations have re-emerged forcefully as part of recent debates about maritime asylum-seekers. A new lexicon of security-laden terminology (border protection, border security, Operation Sovereign Borders) has characterised political discourse in recent years. To some observers, this has been an over-reaction to the actual level of security threat posed by asylum-seeker vessels.^[53]

Environmental sustainability

An increasing population, and/or a rapid rate of population increase, have been argued by some to endanger the natural environment, to impact on resource depletion and energy consumption, and produce increased congestion in the urban environment. This perspective is backed by organisations such as Sustainable Population Australia, which is concerned about ‘the costs of population growth to the environment and the economy’ and rejects the ‘claim [that] any opposition to high immigration is racist and xenophobic’.^[54] It is also backed by individuals like the entrepreneurial philanthropist Dick Smith.^[55]

Nonetheless, the population restraint perspective has secured less traction among mainstream environmental lobby groups. Some years ago, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) endured internal turmoil over taking a position on the scale of immigration.^[56] It has since evidently avoided the issue; its 2025 National Agenda makes no mention of immigration or population matters.^[57]

Impact on housing

Housing affordability is a well-recognised policy challenge in Australia. There have been claims, especially amplified during the post-pandemic surge in immigration numbers, that excessive intake levels have had the effect of driving up demand for housing in a context of supply limitations with the effect of exacerbating the affordability problem.^[58] For defenders of a substantial immigration program, it should be possible for housing supply constraints to be addressed in their own right without casting immigrants as a principal cause of the problem. They note that, while temporary immigrants may have an impact on the demand for rental housing, they generally do not compete for buying houses. Many international students are housed in purpose-built accommodation and thus do not directly compete in any case with other accommodation seekers.^[59]

Social cohesion

A contrast is evident in how Australia’s recent immigration and multicultural policies have evolved. On the one hand, a generally expansive and cosmopolitan orientation predominates in the immigration and humanitarian programs and, notwithstanding recent Middle East convulsions, in domestic multicultural policies. On the other hand, a tough-minded approach continues to prevail in relation to asylum seekers arriving by sea. The two dimensions may be politically interdependent. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull argued in 2018 that ‘being in control of your borders is absolutely critical’ as ‘a fundamental foundation of our success as a multicultural society, as a migration nation as people often describe us’. ^[64]

The ambitions, challenges, contrasts and possible contradictions embedded within Australia’s immigration and multicultural policies, evolving over time and shaping the country in fundamental ways, add to the fascination and intrigue of this crucial policy domain.

References

About the authors

Andrew Parkin is an emeritus professor in Flinders University’s College of Business, government and Law. Previously, he was the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic). A national fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia, he has served as editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science, as president of the Australasian Political Studies Association and as a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts. His academic publications span aspects of politics and public policy, including immigration, housing, urban and regional governance, the Labor Party, federalism and South Australian politics. He was co-editor of nine editions of Government, politics, power and policy in Australia.

Leonie Hardcastle is a sessional academic within Flinders University’s College of Business, government and Law. Among her academic publications analysing the development and consequences of immigration policy is the book, Big picture, small picture: perspectives on Asia among Anglo-Celtic working-class Australians (2010). Dr Hardcastle has taught at the university level in international relations, Asian studies, public policy and public-sector management. She has had extensive experience as an academic manager and as an educational consultant. Dr Hardcastle has been an assessor and chief moderator for the national Public Sector Management Program.