Mimicry loses voters twice

Mathias Cormann, Australia's longest-serving finance minister and now the OECD's secretary-general, is preparing a mathias cormann populism warning for mainstream parties: adopting populist economics such as migration caps to answer cost-of-living grievances will not work. In an address to the Centre for Independent Studies on Saturday night, he will argue productivity is the only way to reliably lower living costs.

His warning lands as One Nation, which campaigns largely against immigration, has climbed since the 2025 federal election to a 25% primary vote in the latest Guardian Essential poll, overtaking the Coalition on 22%.

Cormann will tell the audience that mainstream parties which answer a populist surge by borrowing its economics do not win their voters back - they lose twice, first to the populists and then to the centre.

A migration debate to answer, not dodge

He does acknowledge the pressure. More Australians than at any point in the past 20 years say the migration intake is too high, with many tying that concern to housing. But he will criticise arbitrary migration caps imposed without regard to their effects on business, hospitals, aged care or universities.

The answer, he will argue, lies elsewhere:

• •housing supply
• •infrastructure
• •services
• •the composition of the migration intake

OECD research across Australia's regions supports the case, he will say: where more migrants settled, employment among Australian-born workers grew faster, with no measurable effect on their wages.

Demography and the contradiction

Migration also carries a structural weight. Without it, Australia's working-age population would shrink while the number of older people grows. Cormann will say an ageing country that cuts its working-age population while promising higher spending on health, care and defence has produced a contradiction, not a plan.

No populist shortcut

Tariffs come in for the same treatment. Cormann will say tariffs - imposed by US president Donald Trump and proposed by One Nation - would fail to lower living costs and could raise them for farmers, miners and builders.

There is, in his telling, no populist shortcut through tariffs, caps and state banks; only an economy that produces more, competes harder and grows faster than its costs. Anyone selling a quicker route, he will say, is selling a poorer country.

That is Cormann speaking ahead of Saturday night, when he will argue the way to defeat populism is to fix the problems feeding it: deliver homes, lower energy costs, real wage growth and a credible budget, and the populist tide recedes.