Prime Minister Scott Morrison will cut the number of migrants coming to Australia, declaring the "roads are clogged" and buses, trains and schools in Sydney and Melbourne "are full".
In a dramatic shift in rhetoric as cabinet plots a new population policy, the Prime Minister predicted the impending changes would lower the annual immigration target from its cap of 190,000.
"Population growth has played a key role in our economic success. But I also know Australians in our biggest cities are concerned about population," Mr Morrison said.
"They are saying: enough, enough, enough.
"The roads are clogged, the buses and trains are full. The schools are taking no more enrolments. I hear what you are saying. I hear you loud and clear."
The Prime Minister - who as treasurer under Malcolm Turnbull strongly pushed back against calls from Tony Abbott and other MPs to slash new arrivals - on Monday night noted "community sentiment" towards migration must be considered in addition to the economic impacts.
Mr Morrison will ask state premiers to create their own population plans and will discuss the issue with them at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting on December 12.
"The old model of a single, national number determined by Canberra is no longer fit for purpose," Mr Morrison said.
"My approach will be to move away from top-down discussions about population to set our migration intake caps. I anticipate that this will lead to a reduction in our current migration settings."
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian wants to halve the state's migration intake, while new figures show Melbourne is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.
The Coalition believes it can revamp the current migration settings to better disperse new arrivals in regional areas. While the annual intake will be lowered, the changes may see the government increase the proportion of skilled migrants coming to Australia at the expense of others.
"Far too often, planners have treated population as one amorphous blob," the Prime Minister said. "But that doesn't work for Australia. We're too big and diverse."
Mr Morrison ruled out calls to force permanent migrants to resettle in regional areas - an idea floated by some MPs that would almost certainly face a constitutional challenge.
Citing the mining boom, he said the ability for migrants to move to areas where they had a good chance of finding a job was essential.
While using the speech to reassert the economic benefits of migration to Australia, Mr Morrison conceded population growth also had costs and Sydney and Melbourne had become "a victim of our success".
"Here in Sydney migrants accounted for around 70 per cent of population growth last year," he said. "This has created its own pressure points - and pressure points in population always manifest themselves in housing and infrastructure."
The Prime Minister has also indicated he will follow in Donald Trump's footsteps by refusing to sign a global covenant on migration.
The prime minister says the UN's Global Compact on Migration would compromise Australia's border security and undermine its immigration settings.
"It doesn't distinguish between those who illegally enter Australia and those who come the right way," he told 2GB radio on Wednesday.
"I would never allow something to compromise our borders, I worked too hard to ensure that we weren't in that position."
The agreement is supposed to support safe, orderly and regular migration.
Mr Morrison argued the government had already achieved these goals.
The US, Israel, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria have refused to sign the agreement.
Fairfax Media, AAP
