Prime Minister Scott Morrison is planning a new policy statement on population including measures to encourage migration to regional Australia, sparking a debate over how to curb the intake without hurting economic growth. The new survey shows a narrow majority of Coalition supporters want fewer migrants, with 54 per cent saying they want “a little or a lot” cut from the annual intake compared to only 44 per cent of Labor voters who say the same. Support for an increase in the intake is 23 per cent across all respondents with the strongest backing from Greens voters, where support is 51 per cent. Loading Another 29 per cent want the intake to remain at its level today, a position backed by a slightly higher proportion of Coalition and Labor voters.

Asked about the way the government was handling immigration policy, 64 per cent said they were dissatisfied and 29 per cent said they were satisfied. The result reflected party loyalty, with 70 per cent of Labor voters saying they were dissatisfied with Coalition government policy, but it also showed the government did not have strong majority satisfaction among its own support base. While 48 per cent of Coalition voters said they were satisfied, 44 per cent said they were dissatisfied. Mr Morrison and his ministers have repeatedly signalled they want to encourage migrants to head to regional Australia but are yet to spell out how they would do so, amid warnings that employers need access to workers in the cities.

In his latest move on migration policy, the Prime Minister announced over the weekend that he wanted to make sure “Australian workers are filling Australian jobs” using an employment service to find locals to help farmers with their harvests. National Farmers’ Federation president Fiona Simson slammed the idea as a “shallow” policy to tackle a serious shortage of workers on farms, calling instead for a new agricultural visa to allow workers from overseas. “The government’s announcement to ‘examine options if needed’ simply treats farmers with contempt,” Ms Simson said. Immigration Minister David Coleman is understood to be looking at visa changes to allow more farm workers, with options including an increase in Pacific Islanders or longer visits for travellers on working-holiday visas. The Australian population grew by 380,700 people in the year ending March 2018, with net overseas migration accounting for 236,800.