The Minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke, addressed the National Press Club on 17 September 2026 and set out how the government intends to bring migration numbers down (National Press Club · the Hon Tony Burke MP). A media release on the same day carried some detail the speech did not.

If you are in the middle of a plan, one measure matters more than all the rest.

Bottom line up front: most international students and graduates will no longer be able to bring family as secondary applicants. People already in Australia with family on their visa are not affected, and exceptions remain for students from Pacific and ASEAN nations and for postgraduate study. Almost none of this has commenced. We are still waiting on when each change starts and on the detail of how each will work, and until that arrives nobody can tell you which version of the rules your application will be assessed under.

The numbers behind it

Net overseas migration was 292,100 for the year to March 2026, down from 309,500 the year before, which the minister put at 47 per cent below the post-pandemic peak. Population grew by 392,700 over the same period, to 27.9 million (Australian Bureau of Statistics · overseas migration).

The targets are 245,000 for 2026-27 and 225,000 a year from 2027-28. The government says it is already tracking below its forecast for this year.

Two things the minister said about the shape of it are worth repeating, because they explain why the package looks the way it does. The changes were settled inside government by February 2026 rather than in response to recent political pressure. And asked what deeper cuts would do, he said they would “trash our medical system, trash our aged care system and not get the construction workers in to build the homes that would actually help with the problem”.

He also drew a line I was glad to hear drawn. Visa-hopping, meaning moving between visas and using appeals to stretch a stay beyond what the original visa intended, is the target. Ordinary progression is not: student to graduate visa to a skilled visa to citizenship is a legitimate path and was described as such.

Students and graduates

Most students and graduates will no longer be able to include secondary visa applicants, which in plain terms means a partner or children (Home Affairs · Student visa subclass 500).

Three qualifications on that, and they matter:

  • People already in Australia with secondary applicants are not affected.
  • Exceptions remain for students from Pacific and ASEAN nations.
  • Exceptions remain for postgraduate study, which the briefing I have seen frames as PhD level. If you are looking at a master’s, do not assume you are covered until the instrument is published.

On course transfers, a genuine student will still be able to apply for a new visa to move up the qualification scale, bachelor to master’s for instance. Moving to a lower tier provider will need a new visa application. That is not actually new: it already sits inside policy and condition 8202.

One thing that did not change, and it is worth knowing before anyone abandons a plan over the headline. Asked directly whether he had projections for a fall in international student numbers, the minister said the planning levels are unchanged, meaning the number of applications the department expects to process is the same. He acknowledged that refusal rates have risen for applicants from some countries, but put that down to closer checking of whether an applicant can genuinely afford the course, rather than to any cut in places. His stated test for the sector was that what it sells should be “an education, not a migration outcome”. So this is a change to who you can bring, not a change to how many students Australia intends to take.

Working holiday makers

This is the one that will reach the largest number of people who write to me.

A ballot is being introduced for second and third year visas (Home Affairs · Working Holiday visa subclass 417, Work and Holiday visa subclass 462).

  • Year two is capped at 45,000 places, down from 57,000 this year.
  • Year three is capped at 5,000 places, down from around 31,000 this year.

Read the second number again. That is roughly five in six places gone.

The regional work requirement does not change. You will still be expected to complete 88 days for year two and six months for year three, and then take your chances in a ballot on top. My work and holiday visa checklist still describes how the visa itself works, but the extension maths in it changes if these caps land as stated.

Processing returns to normal pace for applicants who have already met the regional requirement. British applicants are the exception. They are not required to do regional work under the free trade agreement, and their processing will stay slower deliberately, to deal with the growth in that group from a pre-COVID low of around 17,000 to about 80,000 onshore now.

Visitor visas

A No Further Stay condition, condition 8503, will apply to all future visitor visa grants. That blocks most onshore applications, with protection visa applications the exception (Home Affairs · Visitor visa subclass 600).

Visitor visas already granted, and people already in Australia holding one, are not affected.

The reasoning given is that it makes things fairer across countries by reducing the number of people arriving as visitors and then lodging onshore, partner visas being the common example, and that it should make the genuine temporary entrant test easier to satisfy because a visitor will be leaving when the visa expires.

There is a genuine upside buried in this, and it is the only clearly good news in the package. Offshore partners should find it easier to be granted visitor visas for extended periods, so they can be with their partner in Australia while a partner visa runs.

Skilled visas

A new points test is coming, with more weight given to housing and construction trade qualifications. Qualified tradespeople in high demand areas will score points broadly comparable to a university qualification. If you hold a trade rather than a degree, that is a real shift in your favour, and it is the first one in a while.

On processing priority, agriculture, resources and fisheries move up the queue. Worth noting the mechanism: in the Q&A the minister described this as a new Ministerial Direction replacing Ministerial Direction 119, not an amendment to it, so expect a new instrument with a new number rather than a revised MD 119. Construction and teaching were mentioned too, though those already sit within MD 119 alongside healthcare.

Compliance, and what it means in practice

Stronger action is coming on an estimated 77,000 visa overstayers, returning to the pre-2015 approach of detention followed by voluntary departure within weeks. The minister was explicit that this is not intended to look like raid-style enforcement, and that the point is to change behaviour rather than to fill detention centres. Resourcing includes 100 additional compliance officers and 250 additional detention beds, possibly using a former quarantine facility in Melbourne.

He also said the mandatory cancellations introduced in 2015 changed the character of detention, and that the government does not want simple overstayers held alongside people awaiting deportation on criminal grounds.

Ministerial Direction 110, which covers character and conduct, is being updated to strengthen protections for child victims of crime and victims of family violence.

Two questions from the Q&A are worth setting out carefully, because I have now read the official transcript against the summary I first wrote from, and on both of them the summary was not right. I would rather correct myself here than leave you planning around it.

On partner visa processing times, which are long and which I am asked about constantly, nothing was announced that will shorten them. But he did answer the question. The permanent program runs to a planning level set in each Budget, demand for partner visas has risen because more Australians are meeting partners overseas, and on family migration generally he said the government is “pretty much at the limit” and that “it is difficult for waiting periods to get any longer than they now are”. The relief he pointed to is the visitor visa change above, letting an offshore partner spend long periods here while the application runs. He also volunteered, unprompted, that the non-contributory parent visa is now a 30-year wait.

On removing work rights from refused protection visa holders, he did not rule it out. I originally wrote that he had, and that was wrong. Asked directly whether those measures were still on the table, he said that some of what had been written over the previous six weeks was right and some of it very wrong, that this is a problem the government wants to solve but will insist on solving in a way “that doesn’t undermine the decency of us as a country”, and that “there are a few different ways of working through that. I’m not going to go any deeper than that.” Separately he said that dealing with claims he regards as disingenuous would need legislation. If you hold a bridging visa with a refused claim, treat this as open, not settled.

What we are still waiting on

Everything above arrived as a statement of intent in a speech and a media release. What has not been published is the part that decides applications: the commencement dates, the instruments themselves, and the transitional arrangements.

That last one is the whole question for most people reading this. If you have an offer of place and were going to lodge with your partner next month, does the current rule or the new one apply to you? Nothing announced answers that.

It is also worth being clear about the mechanism. The minister said the reforms do not go as far as he would like, and that changing the demand-driven nature of the program would need legislation. He would prefer to legislate and will keep seeking Coalition support. In the meantime he is using ministerial directions and regulation changes, which can move faster and with less warning than an act of parliament.

I wrote in August about checking the exit before you pay for the entry, and this is the clearest illustration of it I have seen in a while.

The trans-Tasman part

I work on both sides, so I read this next to what New Zealand is doing, and the two countries are walking in opposite directions.

In New Zealand, if one partner holds a student visa for a master’s or doctoral degree, or for certain level 7 and 8 qualifications on the Green List or the post-study list, the other partner can be granted a work visa allowing “any work in any occupation and any location” for the same period (Immigration New Zealand Operational Manual · WF4.1).

The children are not left out either. Dependent children of a work visa holder can be granted student visas and are treated as domestic students, meaning no foreign tuition fees at state primary and secondary schools for the period of the parent’s visa (Operational Manual · U8.20, U3.35).

There is a catch that decides which of you enrols. A student visa holder in New Zealand cannot bring dependent children at all unless they are on an approved exchange, a PhD, or a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade scholarship (Operational Manual · U8.25). So in a family the children attach to the working partner, never to the student.

I am not saying New Zealand is the answer. I am saying the same household, with the same degree and the same savings, now gets a materially different answer depending on which side of the Tasman it applies to.

Who this actually reaches

Hardest hit: couples and families who were going to fund an Australian qualification on two incomes, or on one partner working while the other studied. That plan is closing, unless you fall inside one of the exceptions.

Hit hard: anyone counting on a second or especially a third working holiday year. A ballot is not a queue you can work your way up.

Better off: qualified tradespeople in construction and housing, under the new points test. And offshore partners, who should find longer visitor visas easier to get.

Unaffected for now: people already onshore with family on their visa, students from Pacific and ASEAN nations, postgraduate candidates, and anyone holding a visitor visa already granted.

What I would actually do

Not panic, and not rush.

If you were about to commit money to an Australian course with family attached, pause the deposit, not the plan. Wait for the instrument. A week of patience costs nothing next to a refused application or a non-refundable enrolment.

If you are mid-application, check what your current visa actually allows rather than what the news says will change, and remember the carve-out for people already onshore.

And if you were weighing the two countries anyway, this is a genuine fork rather than a preference. My piece on Australia’s July changes covers what moved earlier this year, and the work visa side in New Zealand covers the other direction.

Then get an answer on your own facts. This changed the shape of a lot of plans, and the honest thing I can tell you is that it has not yet changed a rule you can read. When the dates and the detail arrive, I will write about them here.

If you want me to look at your situation, the student visa side of my practice is where this sits, and I will tell you plainly if the timing means waiting.

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