One Nation’s promise to slash migration to 130,000 a year has come apart on live television. The party’s newest MP admitted the real figure is actually higher than what Labor is forecasting, built on the Pacific and working holiday-maker visas that keep North Coast farms staffed through picking season.
David Farley, the One Nation member for Farrer who clinched Sussan Ley’s old seat from the Coalition at a by-election earlier this year, told ABC’s Insiders the party’s policy was that the “true” net overseas migration figure strips out categories such as Pacific scheme workers, aged-care staff and other in-demand skilled migrants.
“We’ve got to get in control of immigration,” Mr Farley said. “At the moment, immigration is in control of us.”
Mr Farley said the demand-driven visas that “drive our economy” would not be counted in that 130,000 figure that the party has brandished as core policy for months.
“If you take the PALM program in itself, that’s about 40,000 a year,” Mr Farley said. “You take the skilled aged care nurses, probably 68 to 70,000 a year. Then you come down into the technical sides of mechanics and engineering, again there are quite some numbers there, plus backpackers as well.”
“So you’re looking at 130,000 plus a minimum of 100,000 on these rotating programs,” he said. “The 130,000 is what we call the ‘true’ NOM.”
That puts the real total at a minimum of 230,000, some 5,000 higher than Labor’s own budget forecast of 225,000. So instead of ‘slashing’ migration, the party’s policy is to increase it.
“The raw number is not too different to what the government’s talking about, but I think the big difference is we’re focusing on what are the skills we need as a nation and where we need these migrants to be,” Mr Farley said.
“We don’t need them in the great urban metroplex,” he said. “We need them out to be productive, working in agriculture, engineering, mining, and so on.”
Local farms rely on the same PALM scheme and working holiday-maker visas Mr Farley wants carved out of the headline figure, and he talked up the programs benefits.
“When it comes to picking fruits and harvesting crops, we need dexterity and flexibility in the system. Managed properly, it works well.”
He said aged care was also heavily reliant on migrant labour.
“Nationwide we’re about 42 per cent of aged care nurses being migrants,” Mr Farley said. “In my electorate it’s 68 per cent. We’re talking about a system that’s critical to Australia.”
“It would harm Australia if we cut too hard, especially in those above-the-NOM numbers.”
Mr Farley’s numbers and advocacy for the need for migration in rural areas align more closely with the long-held position of Barnaby Joyce, the Member for New England, than with his own leader’s often racist public lines against foreigners. And it did not take long for Senator Hanson to seek to clarify her new MP’s remarks.
She wrote on social media that One Nation’s policy was “to cut net overseas migration to 130,000”, and that the party’s target was “less than half Labor’s current level” of about 300,000, a very different picture to the roughly 230,000 figure Mr Farley had just outlined on national television.
“Labor opened the floodgates to mass migration and has repeatedly blown its own migration forecasts since coming to government,” Senator Hanson wrote.
Senator Hanson asserted that “Short-term seasonal agricultural workers who do not meet the ABS residency test are not counted in net overseas migration. They come for limited periods, often live on farms or regional properties while they work, and return home.”
Agricultural workers who stay for more than 12 months are currently counted in the NOM.
The clash came one day after One Nation’s first newsletter to supporters declared it was “ending mass migration”.
The newsletter trumpted measures to strip Australians of their citizenship, a total ban on immigration from countries on the “do not travel” list, and targeting of the student visa system, and a crack down of abuse of the student visa system. None of the measures are likely to progress much further than One Nation campaign material.
Government frontbencher Chris Bowen said Mr Farley’s appearance showed One Nation’s tough talk was closer to Labor’s approach than the party liked to admit.
“As I watched David Farley this morning my overwhelming conclusion was he is pretty comfortable with what the government is doing,” Mr Bowen said.
“It appears to me based on what Mr Farley said that One Nation now agrees with the approach of the government. And obviously I welcome that,” Mr Bowen said.
Senator Hanson has counselled Mr Farley once before, after he broke ranks on the party’s policy against displaying Indigenous flags. Senator Hanson had a similar difficulty with Barnaby Joyce over Housing Policy, which Joyce clarified himself after stating what he believed the policy to be live on Sky News two months ago. This latest policy confusion has already begun speculation that they may not stay in One Nation for much longer.
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