Australia’s left-wing Labor government has broken yet another immigration promise by massively revising its latest net overseas migration forecast.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers in May claimed net overseas migration would be limited to 260,000 in the 2024-25 financial year, but said in the mid-year budget update on Wednesday that it now forecast growth of 340,000.
Mr Chalmers repeated an excuse he gave in September about last financial year’s forecast of 395,000 – which was revised upwards three times before being dwarfed by the actual figure of 446,000 – and blamed the blow-out on immigrants refusing to leave.
“It’s coming down slower than was anticipated in the budget really for one reason, and that’s because there have been fewer departures,” Mr Chalmers said.
“People are hanging around for longer and that’s meant that the number is coming down more slowly.”
Labor now predicts net overseas migration will fall to 255,000 in 2025-26 and 225,000 for the next two years after that.
Shadow immigration minister Dan Tehan said Labor had “consistently overshot their migration forecasts because of their failure to manage immigration” while shadow treasurer Angus Taylor the influx of migrants had come without supporting infrastructure or housing.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese originally promised to lower migration during his election campaign, refusing to back the Coalition’s then-forecast of just 160,000 new migrants, but since being coming to power in May 2022 he has been responsible for the arrival of more than 1.4 million immigrants – enough to fill the city of Adelaide.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released last week showed that during the last financial year 666,800 people immigrated to Australia, down 9.8% from last year’s figure of 737,200, the highest two years on record.
That means that more than one in 20 people living Australia on June 30 this year arrived since Labor was elected, a total of 1,404,000 immigrants in just over two years.
When departures are taken into account, net migration last financial year was 445,600 to June 2024, and 518,100 to June 2023 for a total of 963,700, far exceeding Labor’s budget forecasts, while opinion polls from throughout the period show that most Australians want immigration reduced.
In July Mr Albanese announced a target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – 20,000 a month – in order to solve the housing crisis created by his immigration policy, but has never met monthly targets.
In October, for example, 15,498 new dwellings were approved for construction, 4,502 fewer than needed.
Despite the record high population growth and the unpopularity of mass immigration, Opposition leader Peter Dutton last week backtracked on a promise to cut migration, refusing to recommit to previous target and saying the Coalition would not set a new one until after the next election, due by May 2025.
