The biggest strategic mistake in politics is letting another political party set the terms of debate. This is especially true when the party setting the debate is deeply ignorant of Australia’s structural realities and is driven primarily by a series of reactionary emotions.

The rise of One Nation as a major political force in Australia has not only created deep problems for the Liberal and National parties as One Nation cannibalizes their electoral bases, but it has led the current federal Labor government to make a number of decisions around Australia’s migration program that undermine the country’s capabilities. 

To placate those drifting off toward One Nation, the government saw a couple of easy targets in international student and working holiday makers to signal that it was “doing something” about immigration. 

Labor has raised the cost of student visas to the highest in the world, with a 252 percent increase in just over two years. It has also tightened international student visas by restricting family members accompanying students and requiring new visas when students change courses or institutions. It has also increased financial-capacity requirements and scrutiny of applicants’ intentions. 

Some of this is in response to genuine problems within the system, namely exploitative education providers. Yet the crackdown has created a refusal rate of around a quarter of all applicants, with a particular focus on refusing Indian and Nepalese students. It has also sent an unwelcoming message to international students that is discouraging applications – something the government has now acknowledged. 

The university sector has highlighted that these measures will cost an estimated $1.4 billion over three years. Universities argue that these restrictions threaten an already fragile funding model. Successive federal governments have underfunded higher education, with real government funding per domestic student falling around 6 percent since 2017. Universities have consequently become reliant on international student fees to subsidize domestic teaching and fund research not covered by government grants. International students now account for just over a quarter of university revenue, and falling enrollments threaten cuts to research programs, academic positions, and infrastructure. Universities warn this will weaken Australia’s research capacity and international competitiveness.

The same ill-thought out response to international students has also guided Labor’s desire to restrict Working Holiday Maker visas. Under changes announced by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke in September, second-year working holiday visas will be capped at 45,000 places, down from approximately 57,000 people who qualified in the previous year. Third-year places will fall from around 31,000 to just 5,000. 

The Working Holiday Maker scheme has been used by Australia to fill labor shortages in agriculture and horticulture, where seasonal harvesting requires a large number of workers for short periods. The scheme allows young people, typically from Europe, North America, and East Asia, to gain a second and third year work visa if they complete 88 days of work in a rural or regional setting. This has now become an essential component of Australia’s ability to feed itself and its agriculture export market. 

Working holiday makers provide a particularly useful form of labor as without major life ties in Australia they can move quickly between regions and work for short periods as different crops become ready for harvest. This flexibility matters. Fruit especially cannot wait for a workforce to become available. Neither can grain harvests. When the crop is ready to pick, farms need lots of available hands at short notice. 

The Working Holiday Maker scheme is also essential to the revitalization of smaller towns and rural areas that struggle to retain younger people, who tend to chase opportunities in cities. Beyond this, participants in the scheme are exactly the kind of migrants Australia should be targeting – young, well-educated, adventurous, and initiative-showing. Many have the ability, given their countries of origin, to integrate into Australian society very easily. Retaining as many as possible after three years should be the Australian government’s objective. 

One Nation’s persistent advocacy for substantially lower – or “net negative” – migration has created a political environment where migration numbers have become a test of government resolve. Rather than explaining to the public that Australia’s below replacement level birthrate combined with many industries’ reliance on international students or migrant labor make this irresponsible, the Labor government has decided to submit to One Nation’s premise.

The problem is that One Nation lacks the knowledge of how the country actually functions to make credible policy recommendations. The party itself doesn’t actually want to take on the responsibility of governing, but it wishes to be a permanent agitating force, amplifying grievances and using this to bend other parties to their will. Yet when the government allows such a party to set the rules of the game they themselves become detached from the practical responsibilities of governing.