Oct 8, 2026 · 38 min · 10 segments
It’s been a year since Liberal MP Andrew Hastie quit Sussan Ley’s frontbench to speak his mind on migration. His decision fractured the Coalition and Ley’s ambition to woo back multicultural…
Abul RizviGuest
Paul SakkalPanelist
Natassia ChrysanthosHost
Well, how far back would you like me to go, Tas? Should we go back to the White Australia policy?
Maybe let's start with the emergence of Pauline Ha- Hanson's One Nation in political polls or, or that, that Andrew Hastie one year ago kind of bookmark, I think, is when this was probably really identified as a, as a sleeper issue.
I didn't actually mean to go this far back, and that was a, a, meant to be a bit of a gag, but it is maybe worth thinking about this because so often in politics it can feel like the first time an issue's being debated, and the historical context gets lost.
I mean, Australia famously had, or infamously had the White Australia policy, and then with the US became one of the biggest, uh, uh, hotspots for migrants post-World War II and became the modern country that we are.
But there have been outbreaks in concern about migration under various governments, under the Fraser government.
The bo- the Hawke and Keating governments were the first to bring in mandatory detention, and then under John Howard there was a famous, uh, outbreak of concern around the Tampa incident.
But the differentiating factor here perhaps, and coming to the contemporary moment, is that many of those moments were focused on asylum claims and boat arrivals, which were largely illegal arrivals.
Whereas in the last five or so years, there's bec- there's increasing concern around legal migration and what some members of the right have started to term mass migration.
When they say mass migration, that term has been used by One Nation and others on the right and arguably co-opted by people who have racist attitudes.
But there is a solid argument to say that Australia has run a very high, uh, per capita population growth program since about 2000 under the Howard government, and I feel much less qualified than you, Abel, to go through this.
And just if we go back to the start of the, the current debate, and as you point out, Pauline Hanson has been core to that, Natasia, this story starts in COVID-19 when the Morrison government really opened up our migration program to get Australians and others to come back into the country after borders were shut.
Uh, it's often forgotten that those settings did exist under the current coalition government, not this Labor government.
This led to an outbreak of concern about housing costs, infrastructure, various other problems in the economy and the society.
So there's a number of factors that have led to a elevation of this debate, including a years long inflation crisis, and now we're seeing all three political parties react to this new problem of what some have started to describe as temporary permanent migrants who are coming in on student visas and temporary graduate visas, but finding ways to stay on for a long period of time and rorting the system and creating a large group, which has now reached about 3 million, of temporary migrants who have become a much more significant part of the Australian economy and society but have no pathway to citiz- citizenship.
Well, how far back would you like me to go, Tas? Should we go back to the White Australia policy?
Maybe let's start with the emergence of Pauline Ha- Hanson's One Nation in political polls or, or that, that Andrew Hastie one year ago kind of bookmark, I think, is when this was probably really identified as a, as a sleeper issue.
I didn't actually mean to go this far back, and that was a, a, meant to be a bit of a gag, but it is maybe worth thinking about this because so often in politics it can feel like the first time an issue's being debated, and the historical context gets lost.
I mean, Australia famously had, or infamously had the White Australia policy, and then with the US became one of the biggest, uh, uh, hotspots for migrants post-World War II and became the modern country that we are.
But there have been outbreaks in concern about migration under various governments, under the Fraser government.
The bo- the Hawke and Keating governments were the first to bring in mandatory detention, and then under John Howard there was a famous, uh, outbreak of concern around the Tampa incident.
But the differentiating factor here perhaps, and coming to the contemporary moment, is that many of those moments were focused on asylum claims and boat arrivals, which were largely illegal arrivals.
Whereas in the last five or so years, there's bec- there's increasing concern around legal migration and what some members of the right have started to term mass migration.
When they say mass migration, that term has been used by One Nation and others on the right and arguably co-opted by people who have racist attitudes.
But there is a solid argument to say that Australia has run a very high, uh, per capita population growth program since about 2000 under the Howard government, and I feel much less qualified than you, Abel, to go through this.
And just if we go back to the start of the, the current debate, and as you point out, Pauline Hanson has been core to that, Natasia, this story starts in COVID-19 when the Morrison government really opened up our migration program to get Australians and others to come back into the country after borders were shut.
Uh, it's often forgotten that those settings did exist under the current coalition government, not this Labor government.
This led to an outbreak of concern about housing costs, infrastructure, various other problems in the economy and the society.
So there's a number of factors that have led to a elevation of this debate, including a years long inflation crisis, and now we're seeing all three political parties react to this new problem of what some have started to describe as temporary permanent migrants who are coming in on student visas and temporary graduate visas, but finding ways to stay on for a long period of time and rorting the system and creating a large group, which has now reached about 3 million, of temporary migrants who have become a much more significant part of the Australian economy and society but have no pathway to citiz- citizenship.
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