Nearly half a million people entered Australia in a single year, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament the numbers were falling. The gap between promise and reality keeps growing.
An analysis from the Institute of Public Affairs found that net permanent and long-term arrivals hit 57,270 in January alone. Over the 12 months ending in January, 494,540 people entered the country, as Breitbart reported. Those arrivals declared they intend to stay 12 months or longer.
That is a record. And it landed while Albanese’s left-wing Labor government was publicly pledging to cut back on fresh arrivals.
Earlier this month, Albanese stood in Question Time and claimed net migration numbers had fallen 40 percent in a year. IPA senior fellow Dr. Kevin You called that claim flatly misleading.
“Recent claims that net overseas arrivals are coming down seek to mislead Australians into thinking that there are fewer migrants in the country than before. This is false. The number of migrants in Australia is still growing to record levels month after month.”
The distinction matters. A government can claim the rate of growth has slowed while the total population of migrants keeps climbing to new highs every month. Voters living through serious housing shortages and a cost-of-living crisis care about the actual number of people competing for homes, jobs, and services, not a statistical sleight of hand.
Dr. You did not mince words about the government’s credibility.
“The number of people coming to settle in Australia reached record highs, as the size of Australia’s migrant population is growing larger than ever. The Albanese government has been unable or unwilling to genuinely reform our migration system.”
He described the government’s promise to cut migration as being in “absolute tatters.”
Migration has dramatically risen since borders reopened after the pandemic. The surge has been primarily driven by temporary migration and international students. Australian Bureau of Statistics data show current trends with:
None of this happened by accident. Governments set visa policy. They decide how many student visas to issue, how many temporary workers to admit, and how aggressively to enforce departure requirements. When the numbers explode, the government owns the result.
The Albanese government’s spin echoes a tactic well known to American observers. When left-wing leaders face record migration numbers, they redefine the metrics rather than change the policy.
The Biden White House deployed the same playbook. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre once insisted that migrants were not simply “walking across the border,” even as the New York Post reported that Fox News’ Peter Doocy pushed back, noting thousands crossed daily and tens of thousands a week never turned themselves in. Border arrests that year were on pace to top 2 million.
The consequences of that American surge are still playing out. AP News reported that roughly 230,000 migrants came through New York City alone since spring 2022. About 50,000 remain housed in some 200 temporary sites, down from nearly 70,000 last January. The city recently closed the Floyd Bennett Field tent complex in Brooklyn, relocating about 2,000 residents.
When governments refuse to control arrivals, cities and taxpayers absorb the cost, a dynamic exposed in a House report on Biden-era migrant programs that allegedly created barriers to deportation.
Mass migration doesn’t just strain budgets. It strains vetting systems. The larger the flow, the harder it becomes to screen every entrant, a reality underscored by the case of a Lebanese-born attacker who entered the U.S. on a spouse visa and later carried out a violent assault on a Michigan synagogue.
Australia’s challenge is the same in principle. When nearly half a million people arrive in 12 months, the system’s capacity to vet, house, and integrate them is tested beyond design.
The Institute of Public Affairs analysis puts hard numbers behind what Australian voters already feel. Housing costs climb. Services stretch thin. And the government responds by massaging statistics in parliament.
Albanese’s Labor government promised reform. It delivered record arrivals. Those two facts cannot coexist.
When a government tells you the flood is receding while the water keeps rising, the problem isn’t the water. It’s the government.
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