The Albanese government has quietly slashed a key migration avenue by half in what one expert has suggested is a “political ploy” to throw a spanner in the works for One Nation and the Nationals.
Annual permanent migration program levels for 2026-27 published last week revealed permanent skilled visas for regional Australia would be cut from 33,000 in 2025-26 to 14,110 in 2026-27.
The surprise cut, made seemingly without any official explanation, came as the government announced a raft of visa changes in last Tuesday’s budget aimed at “boosting productivity” by “better selecting migrants and recognising their skills”, including a crackdown on surging numbers of backpackers in favour of fast-tracked overseas tradies.
The overall permanent migration program will be set at 185,000 places, with 132,240, or about 71 per cent, allocated to the skill stream.
The total skilled migration number was largely unchanged, with the places cut from regional areas shifted to the skilled independent, employer and state and territory-nominated programs.
“The government would say skilled independent visa holders perform much better in the labour market and they earn much higher incomes, therefore we’ve increased them and reduced the regional category — but that’s been true for decades, so why change now?” said Dr Abul Rizvi, former deputy secretary of the Immigration Department.
“I cannot work out the rationale for it other than this is some sort of political ploy. They know this will mean complaints from regional organisations, councils, businesses. Is that a political ploy to force regional Australia to complain about the cuts and see how the Nats and One Nation respond?”
Regional Australia is facing a growing disconnect between voters and its institutions.
It’s the regions where the surging anti-immigration party enjoys the strongest support, while at the same time, businesses and local governments in those areas are the ones crying out most strongly for more immigration.
“Long term it will always be the regions [needing the most immigration] because the regions have a median age of 42 and metropolitan areas have a median age of 36,” said Dr Rizvi.
“That means the regions are losing young people and those young people are moving to metropolitan Australia. It’s been migration that has helped the regions keep the median age from growing even faster. You go to a regional town like Albury, you will find a phenomenal number of migrants working in a large number of jobs. They would struggle to survive without those migrant workers.”
Dubbo mayor Josh Black warned slashing regional visas could worsen existing skills shortages.
“It would depend on what areas they’re in, there’s a whole long list of occupations that qualify for these visas,” Cr Black told news.com.au.
“They’re all different around the countryside but it could lead to a shortage of certain skill types in certain areas.”
Cr Black is chair of Regional Capitals Australia (RCA), a peak body formed in 2012 to represent 51 regional hubs including Geelong, Wagga Wagga and Townsville.
RCA has long called for urgent reforms to immigration settings to better funnel new arrivals to regional areas.
“Regional areas rely on targeted skilled migration to fill our skills gaps,” Cr Black said.
“That’s especially sewer and water engineers. If it wasn’t for sewer and water engineers from the Indian subcontinent I think councils in western NSW would struggle to supply services to residents and ratepayers. In aged care, a lot of the workers are Filipinos. Regional areas now rely on migrants to provide services, that wasn’t the case 20 or 30 years ago.”
A Home Affairs spokeswoman said in a statement to news.com.au, “The migration program is focused on attracting and retaining highly skilled migrants and those already contributing to the Australian economy.
“There are a range of visa options available to attract migrants to live and work in regional areas, in addition to the regional category, including temporary and permanent employer sponsored visas, skilled independent visas and the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme.
“The Working Holiday Maker program also has incentives for visa holders to travel and work in regional areas.
“While the number of visa available in the regional category have reduced, the employer sponsored category has increased and is available to all Australian employers, including those based in regional Australia.
“In addition, the Commonwealth has been working with states and territories on Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMAs) that can play a critical role in ensuring migration continues to serve the needs of regional Australia.”
Migration Institute of Australia chief executive Peter Van Vliet warned the move could leave some regional employers struggling to fill critical workforce gaps.
“Particularly those smaller businesses in regional Australia, will find it harder to attract people,” he told NewsWire.
“We know that migrants are attracted to the big cities with the big jobs, which is important, but equally we know that means regions miss out.
“And this visa, including the 491 and 494 subclasses that sit behind those numbers, is specifically designed to ensure that migrant workers stay in regional Australia.
“There’s an incentive for them to stay for three years if they want to get permanent residents.
“None of the other visa programs have that incentive.”
Mr van Vliet said the impact on regional Australia would essentially “halve the workforce supply available to them”.
“It’s not a great outcome,” he added.
Last Tuesday’s budget came on the heels of One Nation’s historic win in the regional NSW seat of Farrer just days earlier.
One Nation’s David Farley, a 69-year-old agribusiness figure from Narrandera, defeated popular independent Michelle Milthorpe and Coalition candidates Raissa Butkowski and Brad Robertson to clinch the seat in the by-election triggered by the exit of former Opposition leader and long-time Farrer MP Sussan Ley.
Mr Farley held a double-digit lead within two hours of polls closing, aided by the Coalition’s decision to preference One Nation over Ms Milthorpe.
One Nation’s win breaks the Coalition’s 77-year hold on Farrer, a sprawling rural seat which stretches along the Victorian border in southwestern NSW, taking in Albury, Griffith, Leeton, Deniliquin and Wentworth.
He won in a landslide, taking more than 57 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote after a campaign focused heavily on water, agriculture and regional frustration.
Darren de Bortoli, managing director of Australia’s famous de Bortoli wines, told news.com.au in Griffith the by-election result would be a “fresh start” for the region.
Mr de Bortoli has been outspoken in his desire for change and firmly believes in fighting back against “the gross incompetence and gross stupidity” he sees in politics today.
“Our former Liberal leader Sussan Ley was up to her neck in this disaster. She had to go, she was going to be a disaster for us,” he said.
Mr de Bortoli also spoke proudly of the “successful” diversity of the town, which he believes underpins much of the region’s historical success.
“We have a very successful, multicultural, assimilated population in Griffith and we require immigration, so that’s the great oxymoron with One Nation,” he said.
“It’s not going to go down well for One Nation if this area starts to hurt due to lack of immigration.”
But not all residents are celebrating One Nation’s landslide win.
Local teacher Sarah, who has lived in Griffith since 2007, described the result as “horrendous” and said people aged 60 and over had “a lot to answer for”.
“I was very surprised about the recent result, I thought we were a lot more moderate than that,” she told news.com.au.
“They forget we’re a multicultural society. The things that work for [One Nation] don’t necessarily work in a community like this.
“What they stand for doesn’t represent what we are as people.”
Sarah believes the vote came down to a “a general lack of understanding about how politics and policies work” within the community.
“The White Australia policy was in the past,” she said.
“The new wave of kids and generations aren’t like this. They will be the ones embracing climate change, migration and Welcome to Country. There are too many old white men ruling the world.”
In Dubbo, Cr Black said the town of roughly 50,000 had transformed into a “vibrant multicultural community”.
Cr Black said Dubbo Regional Council was now welcoming 400-500 new Australians a year at around six citizenship ceremonies — up from roughly a dozen new citizens annually just a few years ago.
“Dubbo’s a very different place compared to 42 years ago when my family moved here,” he said.
“You see that just walking down the street. People come from everywhere but [those from the] Indian subcontinent are the dominant group — Nepalese, Indian, Bangladeshi — it’s amazing. “Once you start to get a certain number of people then it’s more attractive for [others] to come and bring their skills here, bring their family and make Dubbo their home.”
Dr Rizvi said the disconnect over immigration in the regions echoed Japan’s experience.
“The Japanese had this for decades — they knew they couldn’t keep going with the population ageing as fast as it was,” he said.
“The Japanese government knew, they’re good at maths, but they couldn’t implement an immigration policy because the Japanese, and particularly the Japanese in the regions who were ageing like buggery, just said, ‘No, we’re not going to have migrants, we’re going to die’.
“Fundamentally that was the choice. Regional Japan is gradually just dying out.
“There are people who would rather die than have a migrant.”
