Opposition leader Peter Dutton has been slammed by anti-immigration voters after revealing a foreign student cap only slightly lower than a Labor scheme he rejected last year.
Mr Dutton today unveiled plans to limit international students to 240,000 per year, saying he wanted to “make sure that we can get young Australians into houses”.
The cap is about 11% smaller than Labor’s proposed 270,000, which Mr Dutton promised to support before backflipping in November, a day after his immigration spokesperson dined with migration and education agents in Sydney.
Speaking at a housing site on Sunday morning, Mr Dutton said Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s cap was “no plan at all” and said the Coalition policy would reduce rents.
“If you’ve got 42 international students for every one student unit being built that has a huge impact, and Australians know it,” Mr Dutton said.
“When you look at the price of the cost of rents over the last couple of years, they’ve skyrocketed under this government, and in big part that’s been because of Mr Albanese’s Big Australia policy.”
On X he wrote: “We will cap international student numbers and reduce permanent migration by 25 percent – freeing up nearly 40,000 homes in the first year.”
But Mr Dutton’s voter base were not impressed with the proposal, and came after similar criticism of the same 25% earlier in the week.
Those are rookie numbers. How’s about 95 percent? pic.twitter.com/omLEfiNbom
— Senator Babet (@senatorbabet) April 6, 2025
“Net ZERO 5 years. 25% is a bandaid for 2 years Peter and you know it. Stop gaslighting voters,” said popular Libertarian political commentator Mickamious on X.
“We’re going to need you to do better than that,” said conservative pundit Kobie Thatcher.
United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet responded with a Wolf of Wall Street meme gif, writing: “Those are rookie numbers. How’s about 95 percent?”
“You’re making this promise because you recognise there’s a crisis. This figure is nowhere near good enough. We’re at the end of our rope. We want a solution not a bandaid,” said a large X account.
“Need to go harder Mr Dutton. Have you not noticed? None of them are from Anglo countries. They are all 3rd worlders, and we will end up the 3rd world if it’s not stopped,” said yet another upset voter.
Mr Dutton’s foreign student cap will be directed at Australia’s largest Group of Eight universities, where students will have visa application fees raised from $1,600 to $5,000. Those at other universities will be charged $2,500.
Universities will be allowed to enrol 115,000 students, while the remaining 125,000 will be allowed into private and vocational colleges.
But immigration expert Abul Rizvi told The Sydney Morning Herald the policy would do nothing to increase education quality, and favoured the “sectors where the biggest rorts take place”.
Last year 150 “ghost colleges” – fake schools in the private and vocational education sector that take fees from international students who never attend classes but work full-time instead – were shut down by the government, and 140 more were sent warning notices.
Mr Dutton’s comments came after it was revealed that the Chinese wife of his migrant services spokesman owns a 50% stake in a migration agency that has brought in tens of thousands of immigrants.
Jason Wood’s Hong Kong-born wife Judy Cheung-Wood is a co-director and co-owner of Melbourne-based company Ferntree Migration, along with Former Victorian state Liberal MP-turned immigration lawyer Cathrine Burnett-Wake.
Ferntree Migration promotes itself as able to overturn visa refusals, help clients get student visas in record time, and negotiate the tribunal process, stating on its website it has helped get more than 23,400 visas approved, and “changed the lives” of over 77,900 people.
A Liberal spokesperson said Mr Wood had no involvement in the business and no conflict of interest.
Mr Dutton is on record saying he wants higher numbers of Indian migrants, promised a migration agent he would look at bringing back a controversial “golden visa” used by wealthy immigrants to purchase permanent residency, and bragged about how many migrants arrived while he was Home Affairs Minister.
Header image: Left, right, Mr Dutton pandering to Indian immigrant voters (Facebook, X).
