After well over a decade of engaging in a quiet bipartisan endorsement of Australia’s high immigration intake, Labor has finally broken with the Coalition to call for immigration to be cut to safeguard the wages and living standards of households.

For years Australian’s have overwhelmingly opposed high immigration rates as congestion and overstretched health/education systems became regular occurrences in most of our major cities.

Now with the economy heading into at least a harsh recession and possibly a depression, Labor has seen the writing on the wall immigration needs to be cut.

This is not the first time Labor has seen the necessity and political mileage in significant cuts to the rate of net overseas migration.

During the time of the Hawke/Keating government and the recession we had to have net overseas migration was slashed by almost 80 per cent from its 1988 peak of over 172,000 to just 34,900 in 1993.

With unemployment expected to remain above 11% into the new year according to an analysis done by NAB, it’s highly likely there will be widespread support for Labor’s new stance on immigration.

This policy change by Labor represents the most significant issue the Morrison government may ever have to deal with. If it doesn’t respond with a similar commitment of its own, it faces a potential revolt from within the party room over the protection of economic outcomes for both rank and file members and everyday Australians.

More than that it faces losing key centrist swing voters to Labor’s shift towards a policy platform that better represents the viewpoint of the citizens of Middle Australia.