Paul Turton:
Daniel Wild is the Deputy Executive Director at the IPA and joins me now. Daniel, good morning.
Daniel Wild:
Morning. Good to be with you.
Paul Turton:
Tell us about your survey firstly.
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. So as you outlined, we commissioned a polling firm to undertake this survey for us on the attitudes of Australians to migration. And you’ve outlined a headline number, which is close to 80% of Australians said they want it to be below 100,000 a year.
Now, to put that in context, the average net intake under this federal government has been over 400,000 per year. So we’re talking about a pretty big cut to the levels.
Now, the other thing to remember is there’s broad support across the community. So every single demographic that we surveyed, whether it’s by income, by education attainment, supported cuts, as did first-generation migrants. So these are people who were born overseas and have migrated to Australia. Above 75% also said that they wanted it to be below 100,000. So this is something that the community as a whole is really getting behind.
Paul Turton:
Did you quiz them on why, Daniel, or is it just to get that raw number?
Daniel Wild:
No. Look, we didn’t go into those details in this particular survey, but there are a couple of things to mention. One, obviously it’s partly about values. So we did ask a question about, do you believe that migrants, in essence, should assimilate to Australian values? So you’ve got strong majorities that are getting behind that.
The other thing that you’ve rightly identified is the housing affordability issue, which parlays into a whole range of other matters. For example, access to social services and so on.
Now, obviously the migration intake is not the only cause of the housing affordability challenges. There are many others as well. And I certainly don’t blame the migrants themselves because we are the greatest nation on earth. Of course, you’d want to come here. So I don’t blame them, but clearly the lack of planning has played a key role, and Australians are saying, “Look, let’s get the infrastructure in place before we bring more people in.”
Paul Turton:
You mentioned that the support for cuts seems to span all demographics, including first-generation migrants. Are there any groups that believe that we should have current migration levels?
Daniel Wild:
Not on a net basis. Only sort of Greens voters were close to suggesting that they wanted to basically have an increase to the level. So I think regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, it’s pretty clear that the intake has been too big and too fast. So even if you take people who identify as Greens voters, only 23% overall have said that they want up to 300,000 per year. So even on those who are typically more in favour of a larger programme, even they’re suggesting that it’s gotten a little bit out of hand.
Paul Turton:
Daniel, can I just flesh out this issue about people no longer recognising the country that they grew up in? Is that a feeling that’s held by first-generation migrants as well? In other words, they came to Australia for a specific lifestyle, and they can see some of the aspects of that deteriorating?
Daniel Wild:
Yeah. It’s a really interesting question because you mentioned baby boomers earlier on in your introduction, and sometimes these attitudes are associated with those in an older age demographic because they remember the “good old days.” But this has been shared across the spectrum.
So I’ll just give you the numbers here on first-generation migrants. You’ve got about 40% who have said that they no longer recognise the country they grew up in, which is a pretty significant number because, don’t forget, these are people that have moved here within the last generation. Some of them have moved here within the last 5 or 10 years, and even they’re saying they don’t recognise the country that they grew up in.
You’ve also got about 45% of those aged 18 to 24. I found this really fascinating. So even those in the younger age cohort, you’ve got almost half of them saying that they don’t recognise the country that they grew up in either.
So when you look at the attitude of first-generation migrants, I think what’s driving this is: “What kind of future will my children have?” A lot of them moved here to get away from some of the challenges in other countries, but what they’re finding when they come here is that they’re seeing warning signs of the economy: “How’s my kid going to get a job, get a house, get ahead in life?” So I think that’s what’s driving some of that sentiment.
Paul Turton:
How will you use the data, Daniel? How would you be leveraging it? What’s your plan?
Daniel Wild:
Yeah, look, it’s basically to inform debate. So we’re obviously putting it out into the media and to policymakers. We were in Canberra a couple of weeks ago to give them a briefing on this matter. And our goal is really just to make sure that people understand what the community thinks about this issue. And the reason this is important is because migration has been a massive part of our national success story, certainly since the end of World War II, and we wouldn’t be the country that we are without the migration that we’ve had. They’ve helped build up our economy, made massive contributions to our way of life, but we know that trust has plummeted in our migration programme.
And so if people lose trust in that, it means that it’s not going to be successful and there’s no buy-in from the community, then we’re going to have further division in our society. So I just want to make sure that there’s an understanding by policymakers on all sides of the spectrum that we really need to get this right.
Paul Turton:
Daniel Wild, I appreciate you sharing your perspective. Thanks for coming on.
Daniel Wild:
My pleasure. Thank you.
Paul Turton:
Daniel is Deputy Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs with a perspective there.
This transcript with Daniel Wild talking on Mornings with Graeme Goodings FiveAA from 19 March 2026 has been edited for clarity.
