Since 2024, the federal Opposition has repeatedly claimed that the Labor government is prioritising yoga teachers over construction workers in the skilled migration queue.
On 17 September 2026, speaking at the National Press Club, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke pushed back.
"It is absurd," he said — "among the silliest of all" the arguments currently running in the migration debate.
His two key numbers:
- Construction workers brought in under this government: tripled, from 4,500 to 15,000.
- Yoga teachers brought in under this government: zero.
The figure, he noted, is "constantly out there and so demonstrably wrong."
What the official data shows
The Australian Associated Press (AAP) newswire fact-checked the claim in August 2026 against figures from the Department of Home Affairs. The finding:
Only four yoga instructors have arrived in Australia on skilled visas since 1 July 2022.
For context, that figure may include coaches of other sports such as basketball or cricket — it is not a clean count of yoga teachers alone. Either way, it sits somewhere between zero and four across more than four years, against thousands of construction workers in the same period.
The four-year window matters. The yoga-instructor occupation was added to the temporary skilled visa program in 2022, under the Morrison government, as part of a trade agreement with India. Places under that program are reserved for Indian nationals. So the category exists because of a Coalition-negotiated trade deal — not a Labor visa policy.
Why this argument is hard to kill
Burke's own framing of the situation is the most useful part of his remarks:
"It's a tiny argument, but it is so constantly out there and so demonstrably wrong, it gives an indication as to how a debate like this can just run out of control."
That is the structural problem. A claim does not have to be true to be politically useful. It has to:
- Sound plausible to a voter who is not tracking visa categories. A housing crisis makes any "they're prioritising X over tradies" framing emotionally legible.
- Travel cheaply. A short slogan fits on a poster, a tweet, a 30-second TV grab. The correction is longer, drier, and has to begin with the words "actually, Jobs and Skills Australia…"
- Stick to a real anxiety. Australia's housing supply is a genuine and growing problem. The "yoga teachers vs tradies" line borrows the credibility of that problem without having to engage with the actual causes — land-use zoning, construction productivity, interest rates, local council approvals, immigration of construction workers (which, as Burke noted, is up sharply).
Once the framing is in circulation, every official rebuttal has to compete with the next news cycle. The slogan moves at the speed of a politician's social media account. The fact-check moves at the speed of a fact-check publication.
What is true, and what is still being argued
Verifiable:
- Yoga instructors were added to the skilled visa list in 2022 by the previous government, under the Australia–India trade deal.
- Since 1 July 2022, no more than four people have entered Australia on a skilled visa under that occupation code, per Home Affairs data cited by AAP.
- The current government has increased construction-worker skilled migration from 4,500 to 15,000.
Still being argued:
- Whether the occupation list itself is well-calibrated to Australia's labour-market needs.
- Whether the housing shortfall is primarily a migration issue at all, or primarily a domestic construction and planning issue.
- Whether the four-figure figure is even meaningful given how few people it represents.
Closing thought
The yoga-teacher line is a small, falsifiable claim that has become a durable political artefact. It is small because four people over four years is, as Burke said, absurd. It is durable because it sits on top of a real, painful, slow-moving problem — a housing market that is not building enough homes for the people who live here.
The lesson is not about yoga teachers. It is about how cheaply a slogan can outrun a fact-check, especially when the slogan points at an anxiety the country already feels.
Sources:
- SBS News — 'Absurd': Yoga teachers become an unlikely flashpoint (17 Sep 2026)
- AAP fact-check, August 2026 — Department of Home Affairs data
- Tony Burke, National Press Club address, 17 September 2026