At 31 August 2026 there were 2,878,973 people in Australia on temporary visas. Take out New Zealand citizens, visitors and crew, and 1,825,403 remain. Bringing that number down is only half a plan. The other half is what Australia does with the gas, coal and minerals it already has, and that is the Nationals' argument to make. This week, in one seat in central Queensland, the two halves met.
What happened in Capricornia?
Michelle Landry has held the seat of Capricornia for the LNP since 2013. On Friday she said she will retire at the next election.
That opens the door for the Nationals leader, Senator Matt Canavan, to move into the lower house. The ABC reports he is likely to be the LNP candidate in 2028, though he would not confirm it.
Whoever runs will face One Nation, which has been polling strongly. Pauline Hanson has said she is looking at opening an office in Yeppoon.
Why does one seat in Queensland matter?
Because Capricornia is the whole country's choice in one electorate.
The seat is huge, about 90,000 square kilometres. It runs from Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast out to parts of the Bowen Basin coalfields. It is where a lot of the wealth the rest of Australia lives on is dug up, grown and shipped.
It is also where the Nationals and One Nation are now chasing the same voters. Are those two parties rivals, or the core of the next government? Capricornia will help answer that.
What do we get if the intake comes down?
A migration argument that only says "fewer people" is half finished. The half that matters to most people is what comes next.
Australia sells enormous amounts of gas, coal and minerals to the world. Norway put its oil money into a national fund that now pays its people back. Australia has no fund built from its resources.
There is another way to grow the economy besides adding more people. It is to make each worker more productive, with cheap power and more processing done here. That is the Nationals' ground, and they should own it.
Is anything changing on gas?
A little. On 14 October the federal government put laws to parliament for a Domestic Gas Reservation Scheme.
The idea is simple. Companies exporting gas would have to supply some of it to Australian customers, so households, factories and businesses can get the energy they need.
There is a real argument about how it should work. Deakin University law professor Samantha Hepburn sets out the debate over whether it targets the whole market or particular exporters. But the principle is the right one, and it is a Nationals principle: Australian gas should power Australia first.
What has AI got to do with a mining seat?
More than you would think. AI runs in data centres, and data centres run on huge amounts of electricity.
The Treasurer told investors in Sydney this week that $278 billion of foreign investment has been approved so far this year. Data centres for artificial intelligence have been a big part of that, according to the ABC.
Here is why that matters to Capricornia. Whether the computers Australia relies on are owned here, or rented from overseas companies, depends a lot on the price of reliable power. That is our view, not an official forecast. But the country that has the gas should be the country with the cheapest power to run its own computers.
So a resources seat and the AI economy are the same story. Cheap power at home is what would let Australians own the machines instead of renting them.
Won't One Nation and the Nationals just split the vote?
They might. In a seat like Capricornia that is a real risk, and it helps nobody to pretend otherwise.
On her way out, Landry warned voters against turning to One Nation. A retiring member is entitled to say that. But a long fight between the two parties is the surest way to hand seats to a government neither of them wants.
The answer is not for one to beat the other. It is a coalition that is honest about where the voters have gone.
Who should lead it?
One Nation, with the Nationals and the Liberals beside it.
One Nation is the only party with a numbered plan to bring the intake down. It would cut the temporary migrant population by 750,000 over three years.
The Nationals bring what One Nation needs alongside it: the case for cheap energy, for processing more at home, and for the regions that create the wealth getting a fair share of it. The Liberals have moved toward a lower intake too.
Put the three together, with One Nation at the head rather than as a junior partner, and you have both halves of the plan in one government.
Capricornia will be fought in 2028. The best result is not one conservative party beating the other there. It is the two of them working out how to govern together.
For the numbers behind the intake argument, see our page on the temporary visa population.