The new age of immigration politics
Whether you agree with it or not, Peter Dutton’s reported push to cut the Australian immigration intake makes political sense. He is not the first conservative Liberal politician to take a stand on immigration, and given the growing importance of the issue to the Liberal base, he certainly won’t be the last.
A brief history of immigration politics in Australia
The current debate around immigration in Australia is often traced backed to Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech to the Senate in 1996. Hanson courted controversy with her claim that Australia was being, “Swamped by asians,” but was unable to turn her infamy into political success. After winning almost 9% of the Senate vote in the 1998 Federal election, her One Nation Party disintegrated, leaving them with no Senators by 2005.
In the mean time however, Hanson’s politics had become outdated. Opposition to asylum seekers arriving by boat had become the new game in town. By taking a clear stance against any resettlement of asylum seekers, the Liberal party gained a potentially decisive advantage in a 2001 Federal election it was predicted to lose. After that, the question of immigration lay dormant, with only the occassional flare up surrounding the Liberal’s offshore detention policy. By the time of the 2007 election, ‘boat people’ were no longer a concern to many Australian voters, and Kevin Rudd won a landslide victory in an election largely fought on other issues.
Labor won the 2007 election during a brief moment in which immigration had fallen off the political agenda. But six years later, they lost government in an election where debates about immigration were unavoidable. For voters in 2013, Labor’s fateful decision to scrap, and then bring back, the offshore detention of asylum seekers was high on their list of concerns. Even though some of their candidates were a little confused about how it would work, Tony Abbott’s infamous promise to, “Turn back every boat,” helped carry the Liberals into power. True to their word, since 2013 the Liberal government has made efforts to turn back every boat that arrived, leaving Labor in opposition with no choice but to fall into line.
The more things change…
The important thing to note about this history is that, throughout it all, an uneasy bipartisan consensus remained around the largest part of Australia’s immigration regime: the 186,000 immigrants¹ who arrive each year under Australia’s skilled and family visa programs. There was a good reason for this. Both parties believed that immigration was crucial to Australia’s economic prosperity. For all his public opposition to boat arrivals, Howard presided over a near doubling of the Australian visa system intake.
Now however, this shaky bipartisan consensus may be about to collapse. While support for reducing the immigration intake is no higher than it was in 1998, support for maintaining current levels has fallen, as this Australian Electoral Study (AES) chart from 2016 shows. Over time, and especially since the 2013 election, opinion on immigration has polarised. Whereas previously immigration opponents were dispersed between both parties, nowadays it’s an issue that is increasingly split along party lines. In particular, it seems that the nationalist sentiment stirred up by the Liberal Party’s opposition to to asylum seeker arrivals in 2013 has now become a key component of their support.
This trend becomes especially evident if you break down the AES immigration attitudes graph (above) along party lines. In the chart below, I’ve graphed the percentage of Liberal or National Party (LNP²) identifiers among those who favour reducing, maintaining and increasing immigration, in 1996 compared to 2016.
Back in 1996, despite the fact that a sizeable portion of the population favoured decreasing immigration, only 44% of those favouring reduced immigration identified with the Liberal or National Party. This was only slightly higher than the rate of LNP affiliation amongst the population at large, which the 1996 AES measured at around 37%. By the time of the 2016 election a majority of those favouring reduced immigration levels identified with the LNP. At the same time, LNP support among those favouring increased immigration seemed to fall, from 27% in 1996 to 15% in 2016⁴. Interestingly, this was the case even though immigration was not a key election issue in 2016. In light of these changing attitudes, Dutton’s restrictionist stance on immigration is likely to appeal to a significant proportion of the Liberal base.
On the other side of the political spectrum, these changes in the immigration debate pose further problems for the Labor party. Ever since their opposition to boat arrivals lead to them leaking votes to the Greens in the 2001 election, Labor’s attempt to appeal to both sides of the immigration debate has seen them suffer politically. Quite plausibly, Labor could follow in the footsteps of the New Zealand Labor Party, and propose a slight decrease in total immigration levels, all while increasing the share allocated to humanitarian visas. On the other hand, even this compromise might not placate both sides of the party.
A new era
Given the relative success of Australia’s large-scale yet tightly controlled immigration regime, it can be easy to feel as if we’re immune from the heated debates over immigration levels that have come to define elections around the world. But this feeling is misguided. From the US, to the UK, to France, the distinction that was once drawn between fiscal and cultural conservatism has become untenable. In fact it seems, opposition to government spending and opposition to immigration are increasingly linked, making anti-immigration sentiment more essential than ever to conservative parties. In this context, Peter Dutton’s attempts to expand the scope of the immigration debate are at once telling, and predictable. While he may seem out of step with his party for the time being, his interventions are just the latest indicator that a new era in the immigration debate has landed on Australian shores.
¹ This number is the source of significant debate, and varies based on which type of visas are included in the total count.
² Not to be confused with the Liberal-National Party (LNP), which is the united Queensland branch of the Liberal and National parties.
³ Based on responses to the question: “Do you think the number of migrants allowed into Australia has: gone (much) too far, is about right, or has not (nearly) gone far enough?”
⁴ We should be careful drawing conclusions from this particular figure however: because only a tiny number of AES respondents in 1996 favoured increased immigration levels, it’s hard to be sure of the exact rate of LNP support in this group over time. Similar issues with tiny sample sizes make it hard to know the precise effect of pro- and anti-immigrant minor parties on the immigration debate.
