{"id":744774,"date":"2026-06-18T16:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744774\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T16:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:01:09","slug":"australian-net-overseas-migration-falls-to-lowest-level-since-2022-but-the-coalition-says-thats-still-too-high-australian-bureau-of-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744774\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian net overseas migration falls to lowest level since 2022 \u2013 but the Coalition says that\u2019s still too high | Australian Bureau of Statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Net overseas migration added 301,000 people to Australia\u2019s population last year, the lowest increase since mid-2022 but still above the pre-pandemic pace.<\/p>\n

The new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics come amid an increasingly fraught political debate around immigration, following Pauline Hanson\u2019s declaration that our society should be \u201cmonocultural\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After collapsing below zero during the Covid lockdowns, annual migration growth sprang back to as high as 556,000 in late 2023.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Since then, net overseas migration (Nom) has tracked steadily down \u2013 a fact the government has been keen to emphasise amid repeated attacks from the Coalition that Labor has failed to bring the numbers of arrivals back to \u201csustainable\u201d levels.<\/p>\n

Chart showing year-on-year net overseas migration<\/a><\/p>\n

In a statement following the release of the data, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers<\/a>, said \u201cthe facts clearly show that net overseas migration is coming down under Labor\u201d.<\/p>\n

The May budget had forecast Nom \u2013 the difference between the number of migrants arriving and leaving \u2013 would drop to 295,000 people in this financial year; to 245,000 in the next; and 225,000 in 2027-28.<\/p>\n

But Terry Rawnsley, a senior economist at KPMG, said \u201cthe nation looks to have settled into a new normal level of net overseas migration of around 300,000 people per year\u201d.<\/p>\n

That would be about 25%, or 50,000, above historical levels, with the increase explained by strong migration into Queensland and Western Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sunshine state is bringing in 75% more people from overseas than before Covid, while on the west coast there has been a 250% increase,\u201d Rawnsley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese large increases are reflective of the two states\u2019 strong economies. Both are having to tap overseas workers to fill the jobs their economies are creating.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, net overseas migration into NSW and Victoria is back to pre-pandemic levels, he said.<\/p>\n

Despite the bulge in net overseas migration over the past few years, Australia\u2019s population in mid-2025 was still about 350,000 less than Treasury predicted in the December 2019 mid-year budget and before the global health crisis.<\/p>\n

Chart showing Australia’s predicted and actual population<\/a><\/p>\n

But Jonno Duniam, the shadow immigration minister, said annual net overseas migration of 301,000 was \u201cstill far too high\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cParticularly at a time when Australians are struggling to find a home, rents remain under extreme pressure and public infrastructure and services are badly stretched.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Net overseas migration added 301,000 people to Australia\u2019s population last year, the lowest increase since mid-2022 but still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-744774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744774","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=744774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}