Grattan on Friday: Unless you’re Pauline Hanson, the migration debate can be a dangerous sinkhole

When, way back, the opposition started talking about cutting immigration it would have thought, on the basis of polling, that it was tapping into a vein of political gold.

But since , Pauline Hanson has taken ownership of the mine and pretty much locked it away for One Nation.

Simon Welsh, from the Redbridge Group political consultancy, says: “The Liberals talking about migration doesn’t create more Liberal voters, it creates more One Nation voters.

"Immigration offers people a simple explanation for the pressures they are feeling.

When the major parties talk about it, it validates that. [Voters] then ask, who is the strongest voice on immigration? It’s a massive strategic error [by the major parties],” Welsh says.

Also and crucially, the opposition may not have initially appreciated how a migration policy can open a political sinkhole that it’s easy to be pushed into and hard to scramble out of.

We’re seeing that this week, now Opposition leader Angus Taylor has finally released the Coalition’s plan.

One Nation and the government already had their policies out.

So Taylor appeared very much a follower rather than leader on the issue.

His policy would cut net overseas migration (NOM), currently a little under 300,000, to 100,000 in each of the first two years, rising to 160,000 by the fourth year. (NOM is “the net gain or loss of population through immigration to Australia and emigration from Australia”.) For Liberals looking to compete with One Nation, Hanson’s offering goes further, with a negative NOM initially, rising to 130,000.

The real problem for the Coalition, however, is that it is very difficult to win a policy argument where there are multiple moving parts, vocal stakeholders, many potential losers, and outcomes that rely on assumptions that may or may not stand the test of the real world.

The migration system certainly needs significant reform.

The government, which ordered a major inquiry led by former public servant Martin Parkinson that reported in 2023, should have done more years ago; instead it was playing catch up in its recently announced changes.

But whatever changes are made will have a bunch of intended and unintended (and unforeseen) consequences, triggering intense debate.