Updated ,first published
Pauline Hanson has deleted a social media post containing her immigration targets from just five months ago, plunging One Nation into a deeper state of confusion as its MPs contradict themselves and each other over the party’s signature policy platform.
Hanson posted on X on Sunday to say her party’s policy was to cut net overseas migration to 130,000 people a year after Farrer MP David Farley cast doubt on that target in a Sunday interview by saying it would inevitably be higher.
New England MP Barnaby Joyce then backed Hanson on Monday morning, insisting the 130,000 net migration figure had been long-standing One Nation policy. “We’ve been saying that all along,” Joyce told Sunrise. “It’s 130,000 net overseas migration.”
But One Nation’s public statements, including Hanson’s, contradict that claim and it was only defined as One Nation policy last week, when Joyce said 130,000 was a “net” figure.
Before that, Hanson had said the figure would be significantly lower. The One Nation leader has deleted a post on X she made on March 1 this year containing the lower target, which now conflicts with her most recent position from this weekend.
In the deleted post, Hanson said One Nation was targeting a 130,000 cap on migrant arrivals. She said that would be compared with migrant departures, which had been 230,000 last year, to arrive at the net overseas migration figure. With those figures, NOM would be minus 100,000.
The policy Hanson confirmed on Sunday would mean about 230,000 more people coming to Australia than her post from March.
One Nation’s website still contains the previous policy, saying it would cap the number of visas granted each year to 130,000 – a metric that would lead to either zero or negative NOM depending on how many people left the country each year.
The party has been forced to clarify its position after the latest curveball was thrown over the weekend, when MP David Farley told the ABC that migration numbers under One Nation would be “not too different” to Labor’s.
Farley suggested that was because One Nation had promised to quarantine certain visa classes – the Pacific Australian Labour Mobility scheme and aged care nurses – from its target. He said it meant the overall migrant influx would technically be significantly higher than 130,000 when those people were counted.
The major parties have been grappling with how to neutralise One Nation’s campaign to clamp down on immigration without restricting crucial workforce numbers, harming the economy, or offending migrant communities.
As One Nation ties itself in knots, the Coalition also vowed to protect backpackers from its visa cuts as the parties battle for Australia’s regional electorates.
Opposition home affairs spokesman Jonno Duniam on Monday ruled out slashing working holidaymaker numbers to bring down immigration levels, despite data showing they made up 17.5 per cent of the net migration figure in 2024-25.
“I don’t envisage we’ll be cutting those at all,” Duniam told Radio National on Monday. “We are not going to be heading down the path of trying to tackle that group because they’re not the big problem.”
Nationals leader Matt Canavan has also claimed working holidaymakers are not driving high migration numbers.
However, working backpacker numbers reached new highs in both 2024 and 2025, driven by Morrison government changes that expanded eligibility for workers, particularly British nationals who no longer had to complete regional work to stay longer in the country.
Latest government data from June 30 this year shows this trend has continued: there were 225,648 working holidaymakers in the country at the end of the financial year, which is the highest June data on record.
Housing spokesman Andrew Bragg earlier this month conceded that reality, when he pointed to backpackers as a potential way to reduce overall migration to about 180,000 – comments for which he has been counselled by party leadership.
But the Nationals, who are on the front lines of battling One Nation for regional seats, don’t want working holidaymakers or those arriving under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme to be limited because they provide essential labour inflows for farms and manufacturers.
Duniam said the Coalition wanted to make sure that its migration policy filled skill shortages, and that backpackers and PALM participants had minimal impact on net overseas migration.
Pauline Hanson has also said she does not want to touch those visa classes, and would instead focus on international students, temporary graduates and their dependents.
Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy said One Nation’s migration “policy incoherence” proved the minor party was not fit to govern.
“We had two different [One Nation] figures yesterday contradicting themselves about what their actual position is,” Conroy told Radio National.
Labor has also been agonising over how to lower migration, and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke pulled a keynote speech this month over cabinet concerns that the policy details were not ready.
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Natassia Chrysanthos is Federal Political Correspondent. She has previously reported on immigration, health, social issues and the NDIS from Parliament House in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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