Mr Abbott also hit out at the Turnbull government and Labor Party for being afraid to talk about the issue. But Treasurer Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have quickly pushed back against the former Liberal leader's analysis, with Mr Morrison saying a cut to the annual planned migration intake would harm the federal budget. Mr Morrison also said the social and economic issues Mr Abbott raised were separate to the level of permanent migration. "I can understand why people would be superficially attracted to this idea that if you lower the level of permanent immigration that that will have that impact, but let's just think it through," Mr Morrison told 3AW. "If you take this proposal, this is what it means. You'd have to drop [the intake] by 80,000. The hit to the budget of that would be about $4 billion to $5 billion over the next four years."

Treasurer Scott Morrison has hit back at former prime minister Tony Abbott. Credit:Andrew Meares Mr Morrison said the reason for population growth was temporary migrants and the government had taken steps to address that, including a clampdown on foreign worker visas. "But a permanent cut to the permanent intake, it's very hard to look at the data and see that that's actually the problem," he said. Mr Morrison also said the migrant intake was at similar levels when he was immigration minister in the Abbott government and questioned Mr Abbott's mention of ethnic crime. "If the suggestion is that immigrants cause crime, I don't know if I agree with that," Mr Morrison said.

Illustration: Matt Golding "Because when you look at the figures, the level of unemployment amongst migrants who come to Australia is no greater. In fact, in many cases, it's less. And when you go to second generation...the education attainment level of the children of migrants is higher than the broader population. "The real issue here is that when wages are flat and when people are feeling the pinch, people will line others up for being the reason for this." He suggested more Australians "would have been feeling the pinch" if the economy had not been boosted by migration over the past four to five years. In a later press conference, Mr Morrison added that demand-driven skilled migration helped meet shortages in important sectors of the economy, warning that cutting those migrants could be "cutting off your nose to spite your face".