Labor’s first federal budget, released in October 2022, projected net overseas migration (NOM) of 470,000 over the first two years (FY 23 and 24).
Source: October 2022 Federal Budget
Instead, Labor delivered around one million NOM over two years, more than doubling its prediction.
On Tuesday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) announced monthly net long-term arrivals data, which shows that immigration remains strong, albeit has declined from peak.
The table below shows that in the first eight months of 2024, Australia attracted an unprecedented 358,964 net permanent and long-term arrivals. This was nearly 5,000 higher than the previous year’s record arrivals and around 115,500 higher than the same period in 2019.
The May federal budget estimated that NOM would be 395,000 in 2023-24, which has been obliterated, before declining to 260,000 in 2024-25, which has also begun poorly.
Source: May 2024 Federal Budget
Separate temporary visa data from the Department of Home Affairs remained red hot in August:
The number of international student enrolments also soared by 120,000 in the year to July to a record high of 944,000:
The only positive is that monthly net arrivals have moderated since March compared to the previous year, as shown in the table above. However, every month this year has recorded higher net arrivals than the corresponding months in 2019.
Given that net overseas migration has repeatedly overshot projections, the Albanese government cannot be trusted to manage immigration.
