05/26/2026
π LABOR'S FAILURE FILES #22 | MIGRANTS ON WELFARE SINCE 1997 AND LABOR NEVER BLINKED & THE $15 BILLION QUESTION NOBODY WANTS TO ANSWER π The Parliamentary Budget Office put it in writing. Around 870,000 non-citizens were receiving approximately $15 billion a year in Australian welfare benefits. That analysis was done in 2017. Nobody in government has bothered to update the figure since. Given that over one million additional migrants arrived under Labor alone, the current number is almost certainly significantly higher. Australian taxpayers have been footing that bill every single year and nobody in Canberra has seen fit to tell them how much it has grown.
Labor has been in government since May 2022. They never touched it. This is exactly why One Nation has been raising the alarm since 1997. Not because we are against immigration. Because we understood something both major parties refused to admit: if you run an open-door migration policy with no meaningful link between citizenship and welfare access, Australian taxpayers pay for it. Every single year. Without question. Without debate. Without a single major party willing to say it out loud.
Pauline Hanson said it in her maiden speech in September 1997 and was called a racist for it. In 2017 Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm asked the independent Parliamentary Budget Office to run the actual numbers. The answer came back at $15 billion a year to 870,000 non-citizens. Make of that what you will.
WHAT THE NUMBERS ACTUALLY SHOW
Scenario 1: Skilled or family stream permanent migrant. From day one with no waiting period they can access Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Child Care Subsidy, public schools and the NDIS. For visas granted on or after 1 January 2019 there is a four year waiting period before accessing JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Special Benefit. For visas granted on or after 1 January 2022 the four year waiting period also applies to Carer Payment, Carer Allowance and Family Tax Benefit. After 10 years of residence the age pension is available, citizen or not, regardless of whether they ever paid tax in Australia.
Scenario 2: Humanitarian or refugee entrant. No waiting period applies. Income support is accessible from day one. This is where the data gets confronting. The ABS found almost 49% of humanitarian migrants who had been here less than five years were on unemployment payments alone. Not total welfare. Just unemployment. The full picture including family payments, carer payments and disability support is higher again.
Both scenarios end at the same destination. The age pension waiting period operates differently to the NARWP and is based on 10 years of Australian residence. Citizen or not. Contributor or not.
WHAT LABOR DID INSTEAD
What Labor did during their term was preside over the highest migration intake in Australian history. Net overseas migration peaked at 556,000 people in the year ending September 2023.
From June 2022 to December 2024, more than one million net permanent and long-term arrivals came to Australia under the Albanese government. More than 1,000 people every single day. More arrivals. Same welfare rules. No review. No changes. No plan.
Under the current system, pension eligibility is based on residence, not citizenship. Live here for 10 years and you qualify for the age pension regardless of whether you ever paid tax, ever became a citizen, or ever contributed a single dollar to the system now paying you. Labor inherited that rule. Labor kept it. Labor expanded the pool of people who could access it by running the largest migration program this country has ever seen.
ONE NATION SAID THIS FIRST
One Nation has been saying this needs to change since 1997. It is in our published policy documents in black and white. "Australian benefits should not necessarily be extended to non-citizens who merely reside here." In February 2018 Pauline Hanson introduced a private member's bill in the Senate seeking to increase the waiting period for permanent residents to eight years before they could apply for citizenship. Labor said it was bad for Australia. The Greens said it was bad for Australia. The bill was voted down.
The Coalition spent years calling that position extreme. Labor spent years calling it racist. Neither of them touched the rules. Neither of them ran the numbers publicly. Neither of them had the political courage to say what One Nation said in 1996.
NOW THEY ARE COPYING OUR HOMEWORK
Last night Angus Taylor used his first budget reply speech to announce three things. New migrants would be barred from accessing welfare including the aged pension and the NDIS until they become Australian citizens. Net overseas migration would be capped at the number of new homes built in the previous year. And the NDIS would be for Australians only, grandfathered for those already on it, with migrants who become disabled while waiting for citizenship required to rely on private insurance instead.
Taylor said it himself ahead of the speech. "We have got, right now, a government that is slashing support for private health insurance for older Australians, and at the same time dishing out billions and billions of dollars to people in this country who are not citizens for welfare."
Hard to argue with that. One Nation has been saying exactly that since 1996.
Last financial year around 175,000 new homes were built in Australia. Under Taylor's plan that would be the migration ceiling. That would represent a cut to net migration of around 40% from current levels.
SBS reported that part of Taylor's motivation is specifically to "challenge Pauline Hanson's ascendant One Nation" after its win over the Liberals in the Farrer by-election. So they know exactly where this came from and they know exactly why they are doing it.
We are not precious about it. If the policy gets done, Australians win. But understand what last night actually means. Two major parties spent nearly 30 years ignoring this. One of them is now scrambling to fix it because One Nation made it impossible to ignore.
Labor still has no answer. They spent three years and a million new arrivals doing absolutely nothing about the welfare rules that apply to them.
You know what to do on voting day. Vote ON. π§‘
SOURCES:
Parliamentary Budget Office, non-citizens welfare analysis: https://www.pbo.gov.au/publications-and-data/publications/costings/welfare-payments
Parliamentary Budget Office figures reported: https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/main/noncitizens-receive-15b-in-welfare/
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Migrant Settlement Outcomes 2024: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/migrant-settlement-outcomes/2024
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Overseas Migration 2024/25: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release
Institute of Public Affairs, net migration over one million under Albanese: https://ipa.org.au/read/abs-confirms-net-migration-over-one-million-under-this-term-of-government
Migrants and social welfare in Australia, published academic analysis: https://amrcentre.org/migrants-and-social-welfare-in-australia/
Social security in Australia, residence vs citizenship rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_Australia
Hanson private member's bill on eight year citizenship waiting period, February 2018: https://www.sbs.com.au/language/punjabi/en/article/pauline-hanson-wants-migrants-to-wait-8-years-to-become-citizens/hosczgqtm
One Nation immigration policy document: https://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/policy/immig.html
SBS News, Coalition budget reply and One Nation challenge: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/migration-to-be-linked-to-housing-targets-under-coalition-plan/3jdq1ctim
Coalition welfare for non-citizens policy details: https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/9246228/opposition-pledges-to-restrict-welfare-for-foreigners/
