Australia is considering a migration policy shift unprecedented in its history: deliberately reducing net overseas migration below zero over an extended period. Historically, the nation has only experienced net migration declines during major crises such as economic depressions, world wars, and pandemics, rather than through intentional government policy.

Periods of negative net migration have coincided with severe disruptions. The economic depression of the early 1890s led to net migration falling below zero on average for about 15 years until 1906. Similarly, during the World Wars, troop movements out of the country contributed to population outflows. The Great Depression of the early 1930s, marked by unemployment rates as high as 32% in 1932, also drove net migration into negative territory. However, there has never been a deliberate effort by the Australian government to reverse migration flows intentionally.

Mark Cully, an economist and author of *Waves of Plenty: Immigration and the Making of Australia*, described such a policy as “unprecedented.” While migration intake has been scaled back at times in the 1970s through the 1990s, permanent migration numbers have never been pushed to zero or below. Even Canada, which is currently implementing significant changes to its immigration system, has not experienced a sustained net migration reversal.

The proposal to engineer a sustained net migration decline comes from Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation party. Hanson has pledged to enact this policy for three years if elected, arguing that it would help reduce housing costs amid growing public dissatisfaction with mainstream political parties and economic pressures.

One Nation’s economic team projects that their plan, which includes reducing the number of temporary migrants by 766,000 over three years, would lower rental inflation by approximately 6.5%. This translates to an average weekly saving of $54 for renters after three years, based on modeling reportedly derived from previous Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) research. From this perspective, the policy could appear economically beneficial to tenants struggling with rising housing costs.

Peter Tulip, co-author of the referenced RBA research and currently chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, described One Nation’s projections as “not implausible and unreasonable” given the scale of the proposed changes. However, Tulip cautioned that a sharp decline in migration would likely bring significant negative consequences. These include substantial losses to export earnings, particularly in the education sector, which relies heavily on international students, as well as diminished government revenues.

The debate highlights a tension between addressing short-term economic and housing affordability concerns and maintaining the long-term economic benefits that migration has historically supported in Australia. As the country weighs its options, the implications of reversing net migration remain a subject of considerable discussion among economists and policymakers.