{"id":42537,"date":"2025-08-04T09:53:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42537\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T09:53:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:53:21","slug":"australia-has-too-many-temporary-migrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/42537\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia has too many temporary migrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canada experienced a boom in temporary migrants over recent years, which helped drive up rental inflation to astonishing levels.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Canadian-rents-vs-immigration.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"512\" alt=\"Canada rents vs temporary migration\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Ben Rabidoux<\/p>\n<p>As a result, temporary migrants hit a record 7% share of Canada\u2019s population in mid-2024, which the government has promised to reduce to 5% by the end of 2027.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Canada-temporary-migrants.png\" width=\"1467\" height=\"1171\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Now spare a thought for Australia, whose stock of temporary migrants relative to the population dwarfs Canada\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>New data released by the Department of Home Affairs shows that there were a record 2,460,000 temporary visas (excluding visitors) residing in Australia as Q2 2025:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Temporary-visas-excluding-visitors.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"499\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Temporary visas on issue\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This was around 605,000 higher than the pre-pandemic level in Q2 2019 and 920,000 higher than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>As illustrated in the following chart, temporary visas as a share of Australia\u2019s population rose to a record high of 9%, up from 7% before the pandemic and 6% a decade ago:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Temporary-visas-population-1.png\" width=\"589\" height=\"380\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Temporary visas % of population\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Bridging visas (+189,700), graduate visas (+137,100), and skilled employment visas (+117,000) have driven the surge in temporary visa holders since the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Change-in-temporary-visas.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"467\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Change in temporary visas\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The following chart plots the change in visas related to international students\u2014i.e., student visas (592,300), graduate visas (228,900), and bridging visas (369,600)\u2014which are each tracking at or near record levels:<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Temporary-visas-by-component.png\" width=\"586\" height=\"402\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>If the Canadian government considers the proportion of temporary migrants at 7% to be excessive and seeks a reduction to 5%, what does it say about Australia\u2019s immigration system?<\/p>\n<p>Australia\u2019s 9% share of temporary migrants is far too high and a reduction to 5%\u2014the same as Canada\u2019s target\u2014would require the number of temporary migrants in Australia to be slashed by around one million, from 2.4 million to 1.4 million.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, the \u2018Big Australia\u2019 loving Labor government and growth lobbyists would never support such a reduction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada experienced a boom in temporary migrants over recent years, which helped drive up rental inflation to astonishing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-42537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}