Overseas migration is “central to keeping kitchens open” at Australia’s pubs and restaurants, a Senate inquiry into Australia’s migration system has been told.It comes as fault lines begin to show in the Coalition’s hard-line stance on migration after Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan blasted his own party for blaming Australia’s economic woes on migrants.The Senate inquiry was told how 41 per cent of the Australian Hotels Association and Accommodation Australia workforce were on some sort of visa – and in some venues the figure could be as high as 75 per cent of staff.“That’s the clearest possible sign that migration is not peripheral to hospitality. It’s central to keeping kitchens open,” Australian Venue Co. chief people officer Rachel Checinski told the inquiry.“In pubs and hospitality, migration is what keeps the doors open while we build the next generation of local talent.”Ms Checinski said the impact on migrants was not just economic. “Many of the people that come to us on temporary visas integrate really well,” she said.Accommodation Australia national policy director Jenny Lambert said it was “hard to find an Australian willing to learn how to do a bacon and egg”.She said net overseas migration was a poor indicator of work needs, as “every migrant number just gets lumped in together”.“It’s all very well to say reduce migration, but which part of migration are you going to reduce?” she said.“Because, if you reduce skilled migration, industries like ours would be devastated.”She said the hospitality industry created more than 100,000 jobs in the past 12 months, “at the same time, the government support for our industry has dropped”.Ms Lambert said the incentives paid to employers of cooks would halve from January 1. “In fact, we’ve actually seen in the budget only last week that for large employers, that’s going to be eliminated entirely for cooks and chefs,” she said. “So, the apprenticeship numbers are substantially falling. The number of people studying are falling, but our needs are urgent. “We really need to fill those gaps that are created not just by those changes to apprenticeship incentives but also by many years of emphasis on doing higher education over vocational education, doing STEM, versus service industries like ours.”Australian Restaurant and Cafe Association chief executive Wes Lambert said only 2500 apprentices and trainees in the year to September completed a Certificate 3 for commercial property. “Skilled migration is not a substitute for local jobs, nor is it a shortcut around workforce development,” he said.“Our position is straightforward, Australia needs a smarter skilled migration framework, one that is faster, more responsive, regionally aware, integrity driven and better aligned with workforce shortages, housing capacity and long-term productivity goals.”Mr Lambert said the industry accounted for 14 per cent of all skilled visas in Australia, including 9.33 per cent going to chefs. Pushback from LiberalsOpposition Leader Angus Taylor last week announced a Coalition government would strip millions of permanent residents of welfare payments, including JobSeeker and Youth Allowance.Speaking to ABC’s Radio National on Tuesday, Senator McLachlan said the party’s use of terms such as “mass migration” stoked unnecessary division and was not reflective of core Liberal Party values.“I think the use of the (term) ‘mass migration’ is not acceptable. It creates anxiety and fear in the community,” he said.“That is not the Liberal way. We are a party of the centre-right that was founded on core foundations of care for the individual and wanting them to meet their aspirations, and that includes compassion and humility.”Senator McLachlan further criticised Mr Taylor and the wider party room for tying the intake of migrants to the nation’s housing supply pressures.“We cannot continue to blame migrants for the problems of our economy,” he said.“It‘s unfair to tie housing supply problems to migrants. They come here, they’re skilled, they contribute … but we do want to house them.“We need the most talented people in the world to come here and enjoy their lives and eventually become citizens and contribute with their families.”Shadow immigration spokesperson Jonno Duniam said on Monday Mr Taylor’s policies were not pushing permanent residents and were reflective of a “pro-migration” stance.“This is not about punishment, but it is about trying to incentivise that pathway to Australian citizenship,” Mr Duniam told the ABC’s 7.30. “We want to preserve, for those who eventually become Australian citizens – which I hope is all of them that want to come here – the services that we provide in this country.”Mr Taylor delivered the Coalition’s budget reply before parliament on Thursday, including measures that would tie net overseas migration to housing completion and index the bottom two tax brackets at inflation.If elected, the Coalition would also lock non-citizens, including permanent residents, out of the NDIS and 17 welfare payment schemes.Mr Taylor has refused to reveal what number of new arrivals a Coalition government would accept – stating it would be tied to housing completions – but told Sky News on Sunday that it would be a 70 per cent reduction on “Labor’s peak immigration numbers” and well below 200,000.Treasury estimates net overseas migration to be 295,000 for the 2025–26 financial year.The Liberal Party has been accused of leaning on One Nation’s immigration policies as Pauline Hanson’s party experiences a surge in the polls. MP David Farley secured the first lower house seat in federal parliament for One Nation in a historic win in the Farrer by-election on May 9.