The Albanese government’s plan to slash net migration to 260,000 this financial year is no longer achievable, according to one migration expert, with the rate of decline so far this financial year just over a quarter of what was projected.
On Wednesday the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that from July to October 2024 there were 150,530 more long-term or permanent arrivals than departures.
Abul Rizvi, a former deputy immigration secretary, said that was a decline of just 12% compared with the same period last year (171,580) – when a decline of 40% or more was required to hit treasury’s forecast.
“It’s not going to happen – they won’t catch that up,” Rizvi told Guardian Australia.
Rizvi predicted a “very embarrassing” few days for the government, with data on Thursday expected to show the 2023-24 net overseas migration forecast was “missed by a long, long way”.
“In next week’s [mid-year economic and fiscal update] they’re going to have to revise the net overseas migration projection upwards very significantly.”
In May, Labor’s budget projected net migration would fall from 528,000 in 2022-23, to 395,000 in 2023-24, then 260,000 in 2024-25.
While a missed target is embarrassing for Labor ahead of the 2025 election, the population boost could help Australia avoid a quarter of negative growth, after an anaemic GDPrise of 0.3% in the July-September months.
The government can also point to the Coalition and Greens’ decision to block its proposed power to cap international students as a cause for continued arrivals.
But Rizvi said population growth would add little to GDP per person given it was largely “driven by people getting fairly low paying jobs”, including international students and backpackers in industries like agriculture and hospitality.
Rizvi said international student flows were “trending down” after arrivals “plateaued” but departures had “not increased at the rate they were forecasting”.
In May the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, promised a 150,000 cumulative cut to permanent migration over four years, and to reduce net overseas migration from 260,000 a year to 160,000.
On Sunday, Dutton appeared to walk away from the latter commitment, although his office insisted it still applied.
The Coalition has linked its proposed cuts to migration – which will lengthen wait times for family visas and reduce the skilled intake – to house prices and rental affordability.
In a further sign migration will be used as a political football ahead of the 2025 election, former prime minister Tony Abbott wrote on Wednesday that migration often “strains social cohesion”.
In remarks originally delivered at the Danube Institute-Heritage Foundation forum in Washington, Abbott said that “irregular migration has to be stopped, preferably with ‘dreamers’ [a term referring to those in the US lacking legal immigration status] swiftly and safely returned to their place of origin”.
Rizvi said Australia had a “departures problem”, with many people staying longer than expected: about 750,000 international students, 240,000 temporary graduates, 50-60,000 people on temporary skilled visas, 20,000 on Covid visas and 30-40,000 seeking asylum.
Although the number of people illegally overstaying their visa, 75,000, was “bigger than normal”, Rizvi said the vast majority were “not doing anything illegal, they’re merely looking for every possible method of extending their stay”.
In November the Albanese government passed a trio of migration bills with Coalition support, including powers to require unlawful non-citizens to cooperate with measures to deport them and to pay third countries to take non-citizens from Australia.
