WeRise · Policy platform
Immigration & Asylum
Key findings
- 29.1%Nearly three in ten Australians were born overseas at the 2021 Census – the highest share in more than a century. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics · Census of Population and Housing: Australia · 2021 []
- 185,000 placesAustralia’s 2025–26 permanent Migration Program is planned at 185,000 places; this is a visa-program ceiling, not a count of net migration. Source: Department of Home Affairs · Migration Program planning levels · 2025 []
- 20,000 humanitarian visasAustralia granted 20,000 humanitarian visas in 2024–25, including 15,999 offshore grants and 4,001 onshore grants. Source: Department of Home Affairs · Australia’s Offshore Humanitarian Program 2024–25 · 2025 []
- 123.2 million peopleBy the end of 2024, 123.2 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by persecution, conflict, violence or human-rights violations. Source: UNHCR · Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024 · 2025 []—
Part 01
The Case for Change
Why Immigration & Asylum matters
Movement is normal. Neglect is a choice.
Australia needs migration policy that plans for people, protects rights and refuses to turn public failures into migrant blame.
Australia is already a country shaped by migration. At the 2021 Census, 7.7 million people – 29.1% of the population – were born overseas, while almost half of Australians had at least one parent born overseas.1 This is not an exception at the edge of national life; it is the nation’s lived reality. It brings languages, relationships, enterprise, skills and links to the wider world. But successful migration is not created by arrivals alone. It depends on whether people can find a home, use public services, work safely, learn English if they choose to, reunite with family and become secure members of the communities where they live.
The public argument is damaged when separate measures are blurred. The permanent Migration Program is a planned number of visas – 185,000 places in 2025–26 – whereas net overseas migration is a population-flow measure that includes temporary arrivals and departures.2,3 Treating them as interchangeable makes serious planning impossible. It also makes it easier to blame migrants for housing shortages produced by years of inadequate social housing, slow planning, weak renter protections and infrastructure investment that has failed to keep pace with need.
A rights-based approach is also an economic one. The Migration Review found that complex and prolonged temporary status can leave people vulnerable to exploitation and deny employers the stability they say they need.10 The Fair Work Ombudsman continues to identify underpayment and coercion risks for migrant workers, particularly where visas are tied to employers or workers fear that speaking up will jeopardise their status.12 A fair system gives workers clear rights, safe reporting channels, portable visas where appropriate and realistic pathways to permanence.
Australia’s protection obligations are not optional. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its Protocol require protection against return to persecution, while domestic law must provide decisions that are timely, reviewable and humane. The 2024–25 Humanitarian Program provided 20,000 visas, including 15,999 offshore grants and 4,001 onshore grants.4 That contribution matters, but it sits against global forced displacement of 123.2 million people at the end of 2024.5 Australia should do more through planned resettlement, family reunion, regional cooperation and practical settlement support.
None of this requires pretending there are no trade-offs. Population growth changes demand for homes, classrooms, GP appointments and transport. The answer is to plan and fund capacity transparently, publish the assumptions and coordinate Commonwealth, state and local government action. Australia can be both welcoming and organised. In fact, it has to be: a system that is neither humane nor planned will lose public trust and leave migrants, refugees and established communities carrying the cost of government failure.
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Part 02
Evidence and Experience
Immigration & Asylum: what other countries show
Other democracies show the choices are real
Canada · New Zealand · Germany · United Kingdom
No overseas model can be copied wholesale. Countries differ in geography, labour markets, constitutional systems and migration histories. But four comparisons are useful for Australia: Canada’s multi-year immigration planning and settlement funding; New Zealand’s community-based approach to many immigration cases; Germany’s large-scale refugee reception and integration investments after 2015; and the United Kingdom’s formal alternatives to detention.
Together they show that planning, employment support, local settlement capacity and case management can reduce uncertainty and improve outcomes. They also show that scale without housing, administrative capacity and public communication can strain trust. The lesson is not “open” or “closed” borders. It is competent, rights-based administration supported by housing, services and labour standards. 13,14,15,16
Canada · 2024–2026 Immigration Levels Plan
Annual permanent-resident admissions targets under a published three-year plan; federal settlement funding for eligible newcomers through language, employment, community-connection and needs-assessment services. The 2024–2026 plan set annual admissions targets of 485,000 for 2024 and 500,000 for both 2025 and 2026 before subsequent policy recalibration. 13
- Published multi-year targets make the policy assumption visible to provinces, municipalities and service providers. 13
- Canada links settlement programming to language, employment and community connection rather than treating visa grant as the endpoint. 17
- Canada subsequently reduced planned permanent admissions in its 2025–2027 plan, illustrating that transparent recalibration is possible when housing and service capacity change. 18
- Canada’s experience also demonstrates that high migration targets without enough housing supply can become politically and socially destabilising. 18
Australia should publish rolling, integrated migration-and-capacity plans that explicitly link visa projections to housing completions, education, health, transport and local-government settlement capacity. Targets should be adjustable, but adjustments should be transparent rather than politically improvised.
New Zealand · 2018–present community assessment and case-management settings
Community-based management and support for many people whose immigration matters are being resolved, rather than routine reliance on detention; reporting and case-management conditions are tailored to assessed risk. New Zealand’s Immigration Act framework provides for detention only where legally justified, with community management used for many visa and protection cases. 14
- New Zealand’s statutory approach requires detention to be justified rather than automatic. 14
- Community-based arrangements can preserve family and community ties while immigration matters are resolved. 14
- The model still requires lawful decision-making, caseworker capacity and independent oversight; community placement alone does not solve backlog or trauma problems. 14
- New Zealand is a relevant comparator because it combines geographic isolation with common-law institutions and a modern refugee-protection framework. 14
Australia can replace the presumption of detention with a presumption of community case management, retaining detention only where an individualised, evidence-based risk test is met and subject to regular review. This is a rights and administrative-quality reform, not an absence-of-borders proposal.
Germany · 2015–present refugee reception and integration programs
Federal and Länder-funded reception, language and integration courses; recognised refugees can access integration-course structures administered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. Germany received large numbers of asylum applicants from 2015; integration-course policy has served large cohorts of migrants and refugees. 15
- Germany’s rapid reception response showed that wealthy states can scale protection quickly when crisis demands it. 15
- Integration courses combine language learning with civic orientation. 19
- Employment outcomes improve over time but are shaped by language acquisition, qualification recognition, gender, health, location and labour-market conditions. 15,19
- Large intake without sufficiently fast housing, administrative and local-service capacity created avoidable pressure and political backlash. 15
Refugee resettlement must include funded English learning, qualification recognition, trauma-informed healthcare, school support and local housing pathways. A visa without an integration offer is incomplete public policy.
United Kingdom · 2011–present Alternatives to Detention programme
Time-limited, community-based casework and practical support delivered with civil-society partners for people at risk of immigration detention. The programme has operated in phases with several hundred participants; independent evaluation has examined engagement, wellbeing and case-resolution outcomes. 16
- The programme uses case management and practical support rather than detention as the default engagement mechanism. 16
- Independent evaluation reported improved understanding, trust and engagement for participants, while noting limits in scale and the continuing coercive context of the wider system. 16
- Alternatives to detention require legal advice, housing stability and caseworker capacity; they are not simply cheaper reporting requirements. 16
- Small pilots cannot by themselves establish national cost savings, but they provide a tested service design for further evaluation. 16
A national alternatives-to-detention program should be independently evaluated, include legal and social support, and publish outcomes such as case resolution, compliance, wellbeing, family stability and cost. Australia should not claim savings until its own program is measured.
Part 03
Costs and Trade-offs
The cost of Immigration & Asylum
Plan the capacity, not the panic
Migration has costs where governments fail to build; it also produces workers, taxpayers, entrepreneurs and communities.
A serious migration policy must distinguish fiscal flows, population demand and distributional effects. There is no honest single “cost of migration” number: outcomes vary by visa type, age, earnings, family composition, use of services, local housing markets and the time horizon used. Migrants pay taxes and fill jobs, but population growth also requires public and private investment in homes, transport, classrooms, health services and settlement support. The relevant policy question is whether governments plan those investments, not whether newcomers should be blamed for their absence.
The Commonwealth’s 2023 Migration Review argued that Australia needs better connections between migration planning, skills, infrastructure and settlement.10 Treasury’s Intergenerational Report similarly treats population, participation and productivity as interacting drivers of long-run fiscal capacity, not as a simple debit-or-credit account.20 For this first dossier, WeRise should not publish a net fiscal claim without a dedicated, transparent model. Costing should be developed as a next-level paper with Treasury-style assumptions, distributional analysis and state/local infrastructure agreements.
The immediate fiscal case for reform is therefore administrative and service-based: fund timely decisions, settlement and labour enforcement; reduce expensive harm caused by prolonged uncertainty and detention; and require population-linked infrastructure contributions and planning. The ledger below is deliberately a research agenda, not a fabricated budget.
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| National integrated migration, housing and infrastructure planning unit | Cost to be modelled | Commonwealth-state planning, public forecasts and local capacity agreements; no defensible cost published in this dossier. |
| Expanded humanitarian settlement, English-language and employment supports | Cost to be modelled | Should be costed by cohort and service pathway, including state and local delivery. |
| Faster primary protection decisions, merits review and legal assistance | Cost to be modelled | Administrative investment intended to reduce backlogs, uncertainty and downstream crisis costs. |
| Community-based alternatives to immigration detention | Potential saving – requires Australian evaluation | International evidence supports case-management models, but Australian savings must be independently measured against actual detention and support costs. |
| Stronger migrant-worker enforcement and visa portability reforms | Cost to be modelled; potential recovered wages and compliance revenue not yet quantified | Enforcement cost and benefits should be assessed with Fair Work Ombudsman data and labour-market modelling. |
| Net cost estimate | Not yet publishable | A credible net estimate requires program parameters, demographic assumptions, infrastructure commitments and independent fiscal modelling. |
The strongest objections to Immigration & Asylum
1.
“Higher migration worsens housing affordability.” This concern has a real basis where housing supply and infrastructure fail to keep pace with demand. Migration adds demand in particular places and periods; denying that is not credible. But attributing the housing crisis to migrants alone ignores land-use settings, years of underinvestment in social housing, construction capacity, tax settings, investor demand and planning failure. The response is not an automatic visa cut nor an unlimited intake: it is transparent population planning tied to real dwelling, infrastructure and rental-security commitments. Any future WeRise intake proposal should publish those assumptions.
2.
“Migration suppresses wages.” The effect is contested and depends heavily on sector, skill level, labour-market conditions and worker bargaining power. Temporary migration can create wage risk where workers are tied to an employer, lack information or fear visa consequences. This is an argument for union access, enforcement, wage-theft penalties, portable pathways and careful shortage testing – not for treating migrants as the cause of employer misconduct. The evidentiary limitation is that national averages can hide acute sectoral harm; policy should track occupation and locality data.
3.
“Humane asylum policy invites irregular arrivals.” States have legitimate interests in orderly borders and in discouraging dangerous journeys. The question is which measures are lawful, proportionate and effective. Indefinite or routine detention carries severe rights costs and should not be normalised without individualised necessity. Community alternatives must be designed with credible case management, workability and transparent outcome measures. This dossier does not claim that all deterrence is ineffective; it argues that punishment cannot substitute for timely, fair administration.
4.
“Australia cannot solve global displacement.” Correct. The scale – 123.2 million forcibly displaced people at the end of 2024 – far exceeds any national resettlement program.5 But inability to solve the entire problem is not a reason to make a negligible contribution. Australia’s role should combine an appropriately funded humanitarian intake, regional diplomacy, development and climate action, conflict prevention, family reunion and support for multilateral institutions.
5.
“Integration fails when communities are not prepared.” This is a serious concern. Settlement outcomes can be poor where housing is unaffordable, services lack interpreters, qualifications go unrecognised or racism is tolerated. The answer is not to leave people in temporary insecurity; it is to fund settlement as public infrastructure, involve receiving communities and measure outcomes honestly. Cohesion cannot be demanded from newcomers while institutions provide no route to belonging.
Part 04
The Australian Design
How Immigration & Asylum would work in Australia
A planned welcome, not a managed backlog
Federal migration powers must be matched by local housing, services, rights and belonging.
The Commonwealth controls visas, citizenship, border administration and refugee protection, while states and territories carry much of the practical settlement load through schools, hospitals, transport, housing systems, policing and local service networks. Local governments often manage the immediate neighbourhood effects – libraries, community facilities, information services and local planning – but have the least fiscal capacity. A WeRise model would make those responsibilities explicit.
First, the Commonwealth should publish a rolling five-year migration-and-settlement plan alongside the permanent program. It should distinguish permanent visas, temporary visas, net overseas migration and humanitarian admissions; identify likely settlement locations; and publish linked housing, infrastructure and service assumptions. The 185,000-place permanent program should be governed through public capacity tests rather than arbitrary annual politics.2
Second, Australia should reduce “permanent temporariness.” The Migration Review documented visa complexity and insecure status as systemic problems.10 People who fill enduring labour needs, live lawfully in Australia and meet clear requirements should have transparent pathways to permanence. Temporary visas should not be a device for creating a second class of workers. Employer-sponsored workers need safe pathways to report exploitation, stronger labour inspection and visa settings that do not make a single employer their gatekeeper.
Third, asylum decisions should be prompt, lawful and individually assessed. Detention should be a genuine last resort, based on demonstrated necessity, subject to judicial oversight and regular review. Community-based case management, housing support, legal assistance and work rights are more consistent with dignity and with a system that expects people to remain engaged while cases are resolved. Australia should establish an independent evaluation framework before claiming fiscal outcomes. 8,16
Fourth, humanitarian resettlement should be planned as a whole-of-government investment. The 20,000-visa 2024–25 program is a baseline, not a moral maximum.4 Expansion should be phased with funded settlement services, English-language learning, qualification recognition, trauma-informed health supports and agreements with receiving communities. Family reunion should be treated as an integration policy as well as a humanitarian one.
A practical timeline is: publish the planning framework and begin detention-law reform in year one; establish workforce-protection and settlement agreements in years one to two; and implement phased humanitarian expansion and transparent annual reporting from year two onward. The detailed numbers should follow consultation and independent costing, not rhetorical targets.
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Part 05
People and Transition
Who Immigration & Asylum affects
Belonging is public infrastructure
The people who move, the communities that receive them, and the workers asked to make the system function.
The direct beneficiaries of reform are migrants, refugees, people seeking asylum and families separated by visa systems. But the beneficiaries are wider: employers gain more stable workforces, communities gain residents able to participate fully, unions gain a more enforceable labour floor, and public institutions gain clearer population planning. In 2021, 29.1% of Australians were born overseas; immigration policy therefore affects an enormous share of households directly and nearly every community indirectly.1 []
Case study
A qualified nurse arrives on a temporary visa, works in an understaffed regional service and wants to settle. Under a poorly designed system, visa uncertainty and employer dependence can make it risky to question unsafe workloads or underpayment. Under a fair system, the nurse has a credible path to permanence, portable work rights, qualification support and a community where housing and services were planned before recruitment occurred.
Case study
A family seeking protection lives for years in uncertainty while its case moves through an overloaded system. Children change schools, parents cannot plan work or housing, and the family’s health deteriorates under prolonged insecurity. A timely, reviewable decision process with community case management does not predetermine the outcome; it ensures that the process itself does not become punishment.
Those harmed by the status quo also include long-term residents who are told to compete for scarce housing and services instead of receiving the investment their communities need. This is the central political risk: when planning fails, people experience scarcity and understandably demand answers. Reform must meet that demand honestly – by building homes, services and transport – not by assigning collective blame to people who have little control over the system that admitted them.
Opposition will come from different directions. Some groups oppose higher migration on population, wage, environmental or social-cohesion grounds; others oppose restrictions that would reduce access to low-cost, insecure labour. A credible WeRise approach must reject xenophobia while taking planning, labour standards and local capacity seriously. “Welcome” without resourcing is not solidarity; neither is “control” without legality and dignity.
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Part 06
Related policies
Immigration & Asylum sits within a wider set of WeRise policies.
- Country & Culture: more WeRise policies in this pillar
- WeRise: all 29 policies across seven pillars
Notes
Sources and Supporting Documents
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. Census of Population and Housing: Australia, 2021 – Cultural diversity. ABS. 2022. abs.gov.au
- Department of Home Affairs. Permanent Migration Program planning levels. Australian Government. 2025–26. immi.homeaffairs.gov.au
- Australian Bureau of Statistics. Overseas Migration, Australia. ABS. Latest release. abs.gov.au
- Department of Home Affairs. Australia’s Offshore Humanitarian Program 2024–25: At a glance. Australian Government. 2025. homeaffairs.gov.au
- National Museum of Australia. White Australia policy. National Museum of Australia. Accessed 2026. nma.gov.au
- Australian Human Rights Commission. Immigration detention. AHRC. Accessed 2026. humanrights.gov.au
- Department of Home Affairs. Review of the Migration System: Final Report. Australian Government. 2023. immi.homeaffairs.gov.au
- Fair Work Ombudsman. Visa holders and migrants. Australian Government. Accessed 2026. fairwork.gov.au
- Australian Government Treasury. 2023 Intergenerational Report: Australia’s future to 2063. Commonwealth of Australia. 2023. treasury.gov.au
- UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2024. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2025. unhcr.org
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. An immigration system for Canada’s future. Government of Canada. 2023. canada.ca
- OECD. International Migration Outlook 2024. OECD Publishing. 2024. oecd.org
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Settlement services for newcomers. Government of Canada. Accessed 2026. canada.ca
- Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan. Government of Canada. 2024. canada.ca
- Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). Integration courses. Government of Germany. Accessed 2026. bamf.de
- Refugee Council of Australia. Statistics on refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. RCOA. Accessed 2026. refugeecouncil.org.au
- Grattan Institute. The housing supply challenge. Grattan Institute. Accessed 2026. grattan.edu.au
- Immigration New Zealand. Our role in the immigration system. New Zealand Government. Accessed 2026. immigration.govt.nz
- UK Home Office. Evaluation of the Alternatives to Detention Pilot. UK Government. 2021. gov.uk
Record