Australia’s left-wing Labor government has brought in more than 1,404,000 immigrants since coming to power in May 2022, which is about the size of Adelaide – the country’s fifth largest city.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed on Thursday 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, even though Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to lower migration during his election campaign, refusing to back the Coalition’s then-forecast of 160,000 new migrants.
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.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers originally claimed net migration would be 315,000 for the 2023-24 financial year after promising to cut immigration, but revised it to 375,000 in December 2023, and then again to 395,000 during this year’s Budget in May.
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.
Earlier this week University of Melbourne population expert Professor Peter McDonald warned against using the ABS’s net migration figures, because since the Covid period preliminary numbers had underestimated arrivals and overestimated departures.
“We must interpret what is happening in terms of the numbers of arrivals and departures, not fictitious ‘net migrants’,” he said in a paper to be published at the Australian National University Migration Hub, The Age reported.
“From this perspective, recent high levels of NOM [net overseas migration] are due substantially to the low number of departures, not the number of arrivals. Departure levels remain the same as they were when the border was closed.”
Professor McDonald said that the figured resulted in a focus on reducing arrivals, whereas he believes that departures are the “real issue” with up to 100,000 immigrants on temporary visas refusing to leave, many of whom he said were “bogus asylum seekers”.
According to ABS figures from the year to 202, natural increase, which is made up of births and deaths, was 106,400 people, up 3.4% from the previous year. There were 289,100 births and 182,700 deaths registered over the period, with births dropping 0.7% and deaths falling 2.9%.
“Western Australia had the fastest rise in population, growing 2.8% in the last year. This was followed by Victoria, which grew by 2.4%, and Queensland which rose 2.3%,” Beidar Cho, ABS head of demography, said.
Tasmania saw the least growth, with a 0.3% rise in population over the period.
Despite the record high population growth and the unpopularity of mass immigration, Opposition leader Peter Dutton on Sunday 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.
Header image: Left, Anthony Albanese panders to Hindu voters in Sydney last month. Right, Peter Dutton panders to Chinese voters in Melbourne (Facebook).
