Follow the day’s news live Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast One Nation visa numbers ‘plucked out of thin air’, says Hume While they might not agree on exactly what migration policy Australia should have, the government and opposition are on a brief unity ticket this morning in arguing that One Nation’s temporary visa plan would destroy the economy. Simply saying we’re going to have negative migration for a number of years, negative nom, well, that would be a real shock to the economy, and it would make all Australians poorer. My concern here is that these numbers have simply been plucked out of thin air that there isn’t any modelling behind them. We’ve been talking about migration, from the moment that Angus Taylor became the leader … Work has been going on to the background, but it’s so important to get this right, because sending the country into recession means that all Australians pay the price. It simply can’t be a slogan, you have to do the work behind it. Pauline Hanson said a few weeks ago, she didn’t care what the impact of her migration policy would be on business, but this is just another level entirely. This is going to smash industries like construction. It would devastate the health sector and aged care and disability. Continue reading...