Q: I wanted to go to the migration figures that came out the other day showing net overseas migration down to 380,000. Your Budget says next financial year that will fall to 260,000. And then after that down to 225,000 for the next few years. How will that drop be achieved? Given that Peter Dutton is suggesting he’ll go further, is it possible or even desirable from your point of view?

Jim Chalmers:

First of all, it’s not clear to me what Peter Dutton is saying. He’s made an announcement, walked it back and then denied he walked it back and let’s see what he says about that tomorrow night. More substantially, what you’re seeing in those migration numbers which you refer to is we are expecting the continuation of what has been now a very clear trend.

We had the post-COVID spike in might Craig, as those numbers recovered, and we have been managing that down over time to the levels that you rightly identify from the Budget last night. The forecast for net overseas migration in the year were broadly what they were in the midyear update. That is a combination of two things. It’s part of the normalising of the scheme after the big post-COVID spike and also partly because of the efforts that we have put into managing those levels.

Now, what I’ve tried to do – I think I’ve done it in this room in front of all of you before, but on every occasion, yourself and others, have asked me, you know, we want to make sure that we manage down net overseas migration and do it in a considered and methodical way which recognises that there are genuine economic needs for migration as well. You won’t solve, for example, a housing shortage without sufficient workers, mostly by training them but there’s also a role for migration. We’re managing it down in a considered and methodical way. There’s a role for migration in our economy and the best way to set policy is not to dial up division like our political opponents try and do.