The May federal budget projected that Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) would grow by a record 400,000 in 2022-23, followed by 315,000 NOM in 2023-24:
Source: 2023 Federal Budget
In turn, Australia’s population was projected in the budget to grow by 524,000 in 2022-23 followed by 455,000 growth in 2023-24:
Source: 2023 federal budget
Immigration influencer, Abul Rizvi, regularly derides others for lacking knowledge on immigration. He also likes to play the “racism” card against those calling for lower levels of immigration (for example, see here, here and here).
Interestingly, Rizvi in July 2020 predicted that Australia’s NOM would not exceed 200,000 in a year this decade:
Immediately following the 2023 federal budget, Rizvi claimed the NOM forecasts were overly optimistic:
He repeated this claim in June:
In July:
And in August:
This week’s national accounts suggested that Australia’s population had grown by more than 620,000 in the 2022-23 financial year, blowing apart the federal budget’s projection:
Source: Cameron Kusher (PropTrack)
The ABS’ population clock also suggests that Australia’s population has already grown by 459,000 this calendar year, with nearly four months still to go:
This suggests that Australia’s population will grow by more than 600,000 this calendar year, again blowing away the federal budget’s projections.
Abul Rizvi has rubbished the ABS national accounts population figures, claiming they are way too high.
On Wednesday, Rizvi tweeted that the figure doesn’t make sense given net permanent and long-term movements in 2022-23 were 353,670:
Rizvi doubled-down on Thursday, claiming the ABS population clock is a “gimmick”:
Therefore, Australia probably isn’t experiencing a per capita recession, according to Rizvi:
Rizvi’s whole argument is based on one piece of ABS data: the monthly net permanent and long-term arrivals stats, which typically correlated strongly with the quarterly NOM:
However, Rizvi has ignored other data pointing to stronger immigration and population growth.
For example, the ABS’ monthly visa data shows a net 502,000 people arrived on visas (excluding visitors) in the year to July, driven by a 297,000 net student visa arrivals:
The Department of Home Affairs’ temporary visa data also shows a record influx (excluding visitors) of around 600,000 temporary migrants between June 2022 and July 2023:
Curiously, Rizvi noted this influx of temporary migrants earlier this week:
I am surprised that Rizvi is so adamant that the ABS’ population estimates are wildly overstated, given this data.
While there are certain to be revisions, as there always are, it is looking likely that the nation’s NOM and population growth will exceed the federal budget’s already turbo-charged projections.
