The endless immigration lies of ANU’s Alan Gamlen

Wednesday 16 September 2026

The ANU Migration Hub’s Alan Gamlen is one of the nation’s key purveyors of immigration propaganda.

While admitting that temporary visa numbers are too high, Gamlen has lambasted One Nation’s planned cuts to temporary visa numbers back to 2017 levels, which would deliver several years of negative net overseas migration (NOM), claiming that it would wreck the economy in a similar way to the pandemic.

From The AFR’s Michael Read:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.