Overview
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition leader Angus Taylor met twice this week to explore a bipartisan package aimed at tightening migration rules and cutting Net Overseas Migration.
- Labor has a tightly held two-part draft bill that would require onshore asylum claims to be made within the first months of arrival and would curb automatic appeal rights for some international students.
- The Coalition wants deeper cuts and a system that ties migration to housing completions, seeking a NOM level near 170,000 while One Nation presses for about 130,000.
- State leaders and business groups warn that blunt cuts or restrictions on working-holiday visas would worsen skills shortages in construction, hospitality, farming and tourism and harm housing supply.
- No deal has been finalised, policy timing remains unclear after Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke delayed a planned speech, and Treasury still models a move toward a 225,000 NOM target for next year.