Abul Rizvi posted the below Tweet on Monday noting that international students in Australia likely hit an all-time high 700,000 in February:
This follows net permanent and long-term arrivals smashing records in January, pointing to even higher net overseas migration:
Newly released data from the Department of Education shows that there were a record 582,636 foreign student enrolments in Australia in the year to January 2024:
This represented a 53,363 increase on the pre-pandemic (2020) peak:
Official data from the Department of Home Affairs also shows that there were 337,542 student visa lodgements in the seven months to January 2024.
There were also 234,233 student visas granted in the seven months to January 2024.
Recall that the Albanese government projected that net overseas migration would fall to 375,000 over the 2023-24 financial year, down from 528,500 in the 2022-23 financial year.
However, all the migration data is pointing in the wrong direction.
The latest official net overseas migration data showed that Australia received 145,200 net migrants in the September quarter of 2023, whereas the monthly permanent and long-term arrivals data continued to increase over the seven months to January 2024.
Thus, it is highly unlikely that Labor’s 375,000 net overseas migration projection for 2023-24 will be met. Rather, a figure closer to 500,000 is looking more likely.
Accordingly, Australian renters will continue to be crushed under the endless migrant deluge, which will push more Australians into financial stress, group housing, and homelessness.
Make no mistake—the Albanese government deliberately engineered this migration boom. If you don’t believe me, read the below report from The AFR on September 2, 2022:
“Home Affairs will get a $36 million funding boost to clear Australia’s extraordinary visa backlog, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has announced, as hundreds of extra public servants are deployed to process applications”…
“Mr Giles announced at Friday’s Jobs and Skills Summit the federal government will invest $36.1 million to hire 500 surge staff over the next nine months to process Australia’s crippling backlog of active non-humanitarian visa applications, which stood at 962,000 when Labor took office in May”.
“Of the outstanding visa applications, 571,000 were for temporary visas, almost 150,000 were skilled applicants and 232,000 were family visas”.
“The funding boost is on top of the 180 additional public servants the government has deployed to process visas and 190 staff who are currently being onboarded”.
““In addition to clearing the backlog, this will help deliver the permanent migration program that my friend [Home Affairs] Minister [Clare] O’Neil just spoke to,” Mr Giles said, referring to the government’s pledge to raise the permanent migration cap to 195,000.
“The backlog will be cleared, waiting times will continue to come down,” he added.
Thus, Labor used the contrived “one million visa backlog” as an excuse to open the immigration floodgates.
As a result, countless Australians have been thrown into rental stress and homelessness.
