Labor ‘at odds’ on migration after PM overrules refugee intake

Labor is denying it is in “disarray” on migration after Anthony Albanese “overruled” both his border chief and treasurer on a revised refugee intake.

The Albanese government was reportedly planning to cut the annual humanitarian intake from 20,000 to the historical baseline of 13,750 next financial year.

That cut was in line with the federal budget’s net overseas migration target of 225,000 by 2027-28, which relied on humanitarian visa cuts.

But the Prime Minister ruled out any changes to the 20,000 intake on Thursday just hours after Mr Burke’s office had confirmed the cut.

Coalition frontbencher Ted O’Brien said on Friday it was “up to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, and the Home Affairs Minister to explain why they seem to be at odds”.

“I think Australians across the board recognise that the Albanese government has lost control of Australia’s borders,” he told ABC’s Radio National, adding that Labor’s “immigration policies are in disarray”.

Mr O’Brien, the opposition foreign affairs spokesman, was tight-lipped about the Coalition’s own designs for migration but said numbers would be pegged to housing.

“It is absolutely unfair for us to be inviting people to Australia without houses for them,” he said.

Greens senator David Shoebridge came at the issue from a different angle but agreed it was hard to see consistency when the public was “getting within less than 24 hours two totally different messages out of the government”.

“Minister Burke wouldn’t have presented those savage cuts unless he’d been through a process, and then it’s turned on its head by the Prime Minister in less than 24 hours,” he told the ABC.

“There’s no principle behind what Labor’s doing here about helping people fleeing conflict, about meeting our international commitments.

“It’s the 24-hour news cycle, watching how a handful of MPs are reacting, the community response.

“That’s what produces this flip within 24 hours – an utter lack of principle.”

But ministers rejected there was any confusion within the Albanese government, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying “we have a very balanced policy”.