'David Farley's right': migration concern for regions

Regional workers should be prioritised as part of migration targets, a Labor MP says, as fresh polling indicates the issue has prompted a surge of support for One Nation.

Pauline Hanson's party has been under pressure to provide clarity on their migration targets, after One Nation MP David Farley claimed it would include an extra 100,000 people annually, on top of the 130,000 it had already committed to.

The overall number would be about 5000 migrants more than the estimated 225,000 people under Labor's federal budget forecast.

The comments prompted an intervention from Senator Hanson on social media, stating the party remained committed to a 130,000 person a year target.

But Labor MP Dan Repacholi said concerns from the One Nation MP about migrants working in regional communities not being impacted by migration policy changes were valid.

"David Farley's right, we do need to make sure that we're looking after people in rural and regional Australia," he told Nine's Today program on Tuesday.

"We need to make sure migration is at the right numbers. Because we need to make sure that we're getting the fruit off the trees, we're getting the grapes picked in both of our areas, and we're making sure that we're filling these jobs.

"We have thousands and thousands of jobs around the country that aren't being filled right now and we need to make sure we're doing that."

An Utting Research poll in Nine newspapers surveyed 1000 One Nation supporters and showed immigration was the top concern for voters who had switched allegiances to the minor party.

The poll found 91 per cent said the country was heading in the wrong direction, with 39 per cent of those saying immigration was the main reason for it.

It's above the 35 per cent who blamed cost-of-living issues for why the country was going down the wrong path, followed by politicians and government at 32 per cent and the economy at 26 per cent.

The coalition has yet to indicate a number for what it wants the annual net overseas migration target to be, only indicating the figure would be tied to housing completions.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the coalition's target would likely be under 200,000 people annually.

"It's got to be a number that we can deal with. What I can say is it'll be substantially below the numbers we have seen in recent years," he told Seven's Sunrise.