In February 2024, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released data on the number of overseas arrivals to and departures from Australia up to and including the month of December 2023. Analysis of the new data on net permanent and long-term arrivals, as well as other existing data, identifies concerning trends in Australia’s present migration policy settings:

• The 2023 calendar year was the first in history where Australia welcomed more than one million long term and permanent arrivals, at 1,091,210. By way of comparison, it took Australia ten years for the one-millionth post-Second World War migrant to arrive in Australia in 1955.
• Net permanent and long-term arrivals in 2023 totalled 447,790, the highest on record. The second highest net arrival year was 2008, at 327,680, approximately one-quarter less than what occurred in 2023.
• The share of the Australian population born overseas is estimated to now be at a record 31 per cent. According to comparable data from 2020, Australia’s overseas born population is higher than other nations in the Anglosphere: New Zealand is at 29 per cent, Canada at 21 per cent, the United States at 15 per cent, and the United Kingdom at 14 per cent.

The authors of this report argue that immigration policy should be adapted to align with Australia’s level of public infrastructure. In other words, governments must have policies in place to support an intake of people into the country, which is consistent with the provision and development of schools, roads, hospitals and housing, to accommodate an optimum and desirable level of migration that is capable of being broadly supported by the community.