- More immigrants than expected for 2024-25
Australia’s immigration levels are expected to continue rising at a higher level than previously predicted, calling into question Labor’s promise to curb population growth.
The Treasury’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook forecasts 340,000 migrants will arrive in Australia in 2024-25.
This is significantly higher than the level of 260,000 forecast for this financial year in the May Budget.
“Outflows are expected to increase during 2024-25, although at a slower pace than anticipated in the Budget,” the Treasury said.
But even those upwardly revised forecasts could end up being a long way off, with 448,090 migrants arriving in Australia, permanently and long-term, in the year to October.
This net figure, taking into account departures, was closer to the record entry of 548,800 in the year to September 2023, and was also higher than the level of 445,600 for 2023-24.
The large influx of international students is putting pressure on rents in Australia’s big cities.
The flood of migrants arriving in Sydney is also causing a huge exodus of residents from Australia’s most expensive city to southeast Queensland, driving up house prices even further.
Australia’s immigration levels are expected to continue rising at a higher level than previously forecast, calling into question Labor’s promise to curb population growth (pictured, Sydney’s Pitt Street shopping centre).
The budget update included the arrival of 255,000 migrants in 2025-26, and the Treasury’s December forecast was unchanged from May.
But even this figure would be higher than the levels of the 2007 mining boom, when 244,000 migrants moved to Australia.
It would also be more than double the 106,425 admitted in 2004.