The Australian Hotels Association has launched a new advertisement warning of the economic consequences of mass migration cuts, depicting a future where supermarket shelves hold rotting fruit priced at $47 per apple and aged care residents are left without carers, as all major political parties push to dramatically reduce immigration levels.
The campaign, released this week, takes a deliberately humorous tone to highlight what the AHA describes as knock-on effects that, in its view, no political party is currently addressing in the national immigration debate.
What the advertisement shows
The ad opens with a man approaching a large red button beneath a sign reading "Press button to run Australia without migrant workers." After asking "what's the worst that could happen?", he presses the button and enters an imagined Australia stripped of its migrant workforce.
The scenarios that follow are pointed. Baristas and bar staff walk out of cafes and pubs. An aged care worker tearfully says goodbye to a lonely elderly man who tells her he will miss their conversations. In a near-empty supermarket produce section, a boy asks his father if he can have the last rotting apple, priced at $47.
"Where the hell is all the fruit?" the father asks a nearby supermarket employee.
"Still on the trees," comes the reply.
AHA chief calls for honest migration conversation
AHA chief executive Stephen Ferguson said the advertisement reflects a real risk facing the Australian economy if sweeping immigration reductions go ahead without any public acknowledgement of the workforce gaps that would follow.
"I understand Australians are anxious about migration and we completely understand that," Ferguson said. "But in all the conversations going on about migration, no political party is talking about the knock-on effect of losing workers out of the economy, whether that be workers out of hospitals, aged care, abattoirs, fruit picking, across the whole economy."
Ferguson was clear that the industry's preference is always to hire locally first. "Every Australian business wants to hire Australians first," he said. "But where we don't have those workers, we've got to look to people from overseas."
He also highlighted the particular importance of working holiday makers to seasonal tourism regions, noting that temporary workers regularly fill hospitality roles in places like Cairns, Cooktown, Broome and Darwin during peak visitor periods, as well as contributing to agricultural harvests.
For more on what critics say is missing from the broader immigration debate, see Australia's migration debate is missing a crucial piece: people aren't leaving.
What the major parties are proposing
One Nation is leading the push for the deepest cuts, flagging plans to reduce immigration by 750,000 people over three years and drive net overseas migration into negative territory. The party's growing support in recent polling has pushed other major parties to harden their own positions. For a closer look at those figures, read our coverage of One Nation's migration policy and whether the numbers add up.
The Coalition has proposed cutting a third of annual overseas migration in its first year in government, reducing temporary visa holders by 650,000 over four years, halving Australia's humanitarian intake, and trimming working holiday maker visas by 23,700.
Labor is targeting a reduction in net overseas migration to 245,000 by July 2027, falling to 225,000 annually thereafter. Under its plan, working holiday makers permitted to stay for a second year would be capped at 45,000, down from 57,000, while third-year stays would be limited to just 5,000, compared with the current 31,000. Those who overstay would face detention.
The debate is unfolding against a backdrop of shifting attitudes toward recent years of record migration to Australia, with voters increasingly focused on housing, cost of living and public services. The AHA's campaign is a direct challenge to that political consensus, arguing the costs of cutting migration extend well beyond headline numbers.
