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Albanese vows to cut Australian migration after rise fuels support for populist One Nation

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has seized on comparatively high recent net migration as the cause of a housing shortage

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Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese holds a press conference on Saturday. Photo: AFP
Agence France-Presse
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday migration levels were reducing, responding to an opinion poll showing a right-wing populist party ahead of governing Labor.

Support for the One Nation party was 31 per cent, ahead of Labor on 30 per cent, a Newspoll aurvey published in The Australian newspaper on Monday showed.

Albanese’s net approval rating has sunk to its lowest level since the 2022 election at minus 24, with 36 per cent of Australians satisfied with his performance, 60 per cent dissatisfied and 4 per cent uncommitted, according to the Newspoll survey.

We will reduce the net overseas migration over the next couple of years down to 225,000
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
The poll of 1,240 people is the second major survey to show anti-migration One Nation in a leading position.
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It echoes a Redbridge Group/Accent Research survey in the Australian Financial Review last week that showed Pauline Hanson’s party climbed above Labor in a nationwide opinion poll for the first time.

The surge comes amid growing voter frustration over cost-of-living pressures, higher interest rates and a budget that many Australians say has done little to ease household strain.

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One Nation’s anti-immigration and economic nationalist message has been pitched at rural and regional Australia, with the party claiming its first ever elected seat in the lower house of parliament in a recent by-election for the seat of Farrer, a rural electorate in the southwest of New South Wales state.

A campaign cut-out depicting One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is displayed outside a pre-polling centre ahead of the Farrer by-election in Corowa, Australia, on May 6. Photo: Reuters
A campaign cut-out depicting One Nation leader Pauline Hanson is displayed outside a pre-polling centre ahead of the Farrer by-election in Corowa, Australia, on May 6. Photo: Reuters
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