Walls Closing In: Albanese Under Siege From Every Direction

Anthony Albanese intervened late Thursday to kill off a plan to cut the annual refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,750, overriding his own Immigration Minister Tony Burke in a bid to head off a damaging internal Labor brawl. The decision further scrambles the government's already tangled efforts to reduce net overseas migration to 225,000 by 2027-28, a target enshrined in the May budget. It's a rare public humiliation of a senior cabinet minister by his own PM.

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