The government will keep the permanent migration level for 2025-26 at 185,000, the same level as the previous financial year.

Immigration Minister Tony Burke announced the figure amid a fresh divisive debate about immigration, intensified by the weekend marches calling for lower numbers.

Neo-Nazis were prominent, especially in Melbourne, while on Tuesday self-identifying Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell interrupted a news conference by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan.

Burke said the announcement followed consultation with the states and territories which “recommended maintaining the size and composition of the program, with a focus on skilled migration”.

This figure is distinct from Net Overseas Migration (NOM), the overall measure that includes students and temporary workers. The NOM jumped dramatically after the end of COVID, and the government has been actively reducing it, including by limits on overseas students.

The NOM peaked at 538,000 in 2022-23. For the 12 months to December 31 2024, the NOM was 341,000. That was 37% down compared to the peak.

For the December quarter 2024, the NOM was 68,000. This was the lowest December quarter since December 2021 when border restrictions were lifted.

Student NOM arrivals in the December quarter 2024 (22,000) were 10,000 fewer than the December quarter 2023 (32,000) and have fallen below pre-pandemic levels.

In caucus the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was shocked to see people at the rallies openly in uniform.

But he made it clear that not all who turned up at the marches were extremists.

“We need to make sure we give people space to move away and not push them further down that rabbit hole,” he said.

“A lot of these fears are being reinforced online, and we have challenges with polarisation.”

He said he would be meeting during the day with leaders within the Islamic community, and stressed how important it was for everybody to be reaching out to different communities.

Immigration expert Abul Rizvi, a former senior immigration official, told The Conversation that over recent years both major parties had been reluctant to explain immigration policy to the Australian people.

This had left a vacuum and that was now being filled by extremists such as the Neo-Nazis and others. But they were a small portion. The government needed to be talking to “middle Australia, who just wants to know that immigration is being managed in the national interest”.

The government is about to release the report from the envoy to combat Islamopbobia, Aftab Malik An earlier report came from the envoy to fight antisemitism, Jillian Segal; it received a mixed reception and the government is yet to give its response to her recommendations.

Meanwhile. the opposition has decided to press for a very brief Senate inquiry into the government’s agreement with Nauru to send the large cohort of former immigration detainees there.