Labor has spent years telling Australians it has migration under control.

Yesterday showed just how little control Anthony Albanese actually has.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's office confirmed Labor planned to cut Australia's annual refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,750.

A reduction of just 6250 places.

Within hours, Albanese killed it.

Labor MPs revolted. The Prime Minister folded.

That tells Australians everything they need to know about this government's ability to deal with mass immigration.

They don’t want to do it.

It’s as simple as that.

Labor let migration explode. Now Albanese has shown he cannot even hold the line on a tiny cut to the refugee intake for a single afternoon.

Net overseas migration hit a record 538,000 in 2022-23. Another 429,000 followed in 2023-24. Another 306,000 in 2024-25.

Even in the year to December 2025, net overseas migration was still running at 301,000.

Nearly 2 million people have come to our shores under Labor’s mass immigration program.

Housing hasn’t kept up.

Infrastructure hasn’t kept up.

Australians are paying the price.

Now Labor says it wants to get net overseas migration down to 225,000.

Why should anyone believe them?

Every year they’ve been in office, they’ve blown past their migration forecasts. They have made no changes to stop that happening again.

And now, when Burke's office proposed cutting just 6250 refugee places, Albanese couldn't make it through the afternoon before backing down.

And remember, Labor's own party platform still “aspires” to increase the humanitarian intake to 27,000 places a year.

This government has spent years running immigration at levels Australia cannot properly absorb, while rents soared, housing became harder to find, and infrastructure struggled under population growth.

Australians have been demanding lower immigration.

Labor just can’t do it.

If they cannot handle a cut of 6250, how on earth are they going to bring the wider migration program under control?

They aren’t up to the job.