Australia’s immigration is not ‘out of control’ – it’s trending lower and has been for over a year
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Version 0 of 1. Treasury officials assume net migration to Australia will slow to 335,100 in the year to June Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The latest population numbers are out and they debunk recent claims by right-wing media and thinktanks that immigration is at “record” levels and “out of control”. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that net overseas migration, or Nom as it’s known, was just shy of 316,000 in the year to March. That’s down from about 335,000 in the year to December. Sign up: AU Breaking News email To be clear: migration, while easing, remains high compared with the roughly 230,000 annual rate in the five years before the pandemic. But this time last year, the ABS was reporting an annual Nom of 493,800, while the peak was almost 556,000 in September 2023. Clearly, then, migration is not at “record levels”, nor is it “out of control”. It’s trending lower and has been for 18 months. It’s even tracking lower than predicted in the March budget, as Jim Chalmers told journalists on Thursday. “We are now 17,000 people lower than the Treasury forecast for net overseas migration and 40% below the peak that we saw in that overseas migration following Covid”. ‘Trumpian tactics’ Abul Rizvi, a former deputy secretary of the immigration department, said the latest figures were a tonic to outlandish claims that he said were designed whip up an anti-immigration “frenzy”. Rizvi said some organisations were guilty of misusing separate (albeit related) overseas arrivals and departures figures to inflate migration statistics. “We do need to discuss immigration levels in an open, honest and transparent way,” Rizvi said. “There is a very real question of where net migration will settle under current policy settings and how that relates to the prime minister’s promise to get net migration down to pre-pandemic levels. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion “But these media outlets and thinktanks do not seem interested in an honest debate. They prefer to mislead and whip up hate.” So what now? Treasury officials assume net migration will slow to 335,100 in the year to June, before trending lower to about 262,000 in this financial year and steadying at about 230,000 annually for the rest of the decade. Is that too much migration? Too little? As Rizvi suggests, the government doesn’t seem to know, and largely accepts net overseas migration as something that happens, rather than something they plan. Certainly, our labour market has comfortably accommodated the post-Covid jump in immigration. Data released on Thursday showed the jobless rate was 4.2% in July, and has been at about those levels for 18 months. But if Nom doesn’t naturally revert back to its pre-pandemic levels over the coming couple of years, then expect to hear more about “out of control” migration. |