WANNON MP, Dan Tehan who is also the Shadow Immigration and Citizenship minister, has claimed the Australian Government’s rate of immigration at present is too high, and its policy is a “complete mess”.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, overseas migration in the financial year of 2022-23 saw a net annual gain of 518,000 people.

Mr Tehan said to achieve this, the “government had broken more records than Ian Thorpe when it comes to issuing visas”.

He said the record scale of the government’s Big Australia by stealth was fuelling inflation, driving up rents, and straining government services.

According to answers to Senate Estimates Questions on Notice, record-breaking immigration figures in 2023 included 577,295 student visas granted, breaking the old record by 171,553.

There were also a record 125,090 Temporary Graduate visas granted, more than double the old record of 54,781, a record 140,934 COVID-19 work visas, more than four times the old record of 31,148 (and when there was no pandemic) and a record 464,539 Temporary Resident visas granted - more than double the old record of 186,148.

Mr Tehan said Australians struggling with the cost of living were asking the question, ‘Where will all these people live?’.

However, appearing on the ABC’s ‘Insiders’ on Sunday, March 3, Mr Tehan wouldn’t be drawn into specifics on what the Opposition thought the immigration numbers should be, instead said the Coalition’s policy would be announced in the lead up to the next election.

“What I can tell you … immigration is too high in this nation,” he said.

“1.6 million is too high.

“Rental vacancies at the moment, are at their lowest level ever, it’s driving up rents (and) that’s adding to inflation.

“When we have a housing crisis, when we have a rental crisis, when people can’t get in to see a doctor, when we’ve seen cuts in our infrastructure so that roads aren’t being built to deal with that population - that is too high.

“The intake of foreign students has to be reduced, absolutely.

“(But) there are a lot of conditions that you’ve got to look at - there’s a lot of policies that the Labor Party have now, in a very knee jerk reaction, put in place - I guarantee you, there will be an immigration policy (announced) … and it will be different.

“We don’t want a Bigger Australia - we want a Better Australia.

“We will announce what our Better Australia will look like in the lead up to the next election.”

Mr Tehan has been especially vocal in Parliament recently concerning the High Court decision in November 2023 that enabled detainees to be released from indefinite detention into the community including rapists and sex offenders.

He said the Opposition would have utilised a Preventative Detention Order to mitigate the potential release of detainees with criminal histories.

“The Australian community is worried,” he said.

“None of us hope for this … sadly, the reality is … and we know this from the data … there will be reoffending.

“We know that there are 37 sex offenders including child sex offenders, (and) seven murderers out in the community and yet no preventative detention order has been used to keep the community additionally safe.”