Australia currently has the highest share of temporary migrants and international students as a percentage of our population in the advanced world.
The latest temporary visa data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that there were a record 2,460,000 temporary migrants in Australia (excluding visitors) in Q2 2025.
This figure was up a whopping 750,000 from when Labor came to office in Q2 2022. It is also 550,000 higher than the pre-pandemic peak under the former Coalition government.
The percentage of Australia’s population on temporary visas has also risen to a record high of 8.9%. This figure is up from 6.6% when Labor came to office in Q2 2022 and from 7.4% at the beginning of the pandemic.
The latest Department of Home Affairs data also shows that there were 821,000 people in Australia on either a student or graduate visa in Q2 2025. This figure was only a whisker below the 2024 all-time high and 166,000 above the pre-pandemic peak under the former Coalition government.
People on student and graduate visas comprised 3% of Australia’s population—almost one in 30 people—as of Q2 2025. This was up from 2.6% at the pre-pandemic peak and double the 1.5% share in 2012.
Meanwhile, the number of migrants sitting in “limbo” on bridging visas surged to a record high of 370,000 in Q2 2025, a significant share of whom are former international students that have challenged the expiry of their visas and have appealed to the Administrative Review Tribunal.
Australia’s student visa system has long been a source of rorting, which has badly harmed the integrity of the migration system and eroded pedagogical standards.
This damage includes mass cheating scandals among Australia’s universities:
Academics working at Australia’s universities being precluded from failing poorly performing international students due to concerns about harming university revenue:
Leading Australian universities holding tutorials in other languages:
Many bogus ‘ghost colleges’ have also been set up as migration schemes.
Despite these obvious failings, the Albanese government last week announced that it has raised the planning level for international students by 25,000 to 295,000 for 2026.
“The 2026 National Planning Level manages growth in international education in a sustainable way”, the media release claimed.
The government also announced that it would dumb down the visa system by weakening English-language requirements.
“On Tuesday, Assistant Immigration Minister Matt Thistlethwaite ordered the minimum test mark for someone to have “functional” English skills be lowered for some exams prospective migrants can take to prove their proficiency”, The Australian reported. “It was the first time in 10 years the minimum scores had been updated”.
“When contacted for comment, the government did not say why it had made the changes”.
“For the Test of English as a Foreign Language, administered by US nonprofit Educational Training Service, the mark requirement was dropped from 32 out of 120 down to 26. For the Pearson Test of English, administered by education publishing company Pearson, the mark requirement dropped from 30 out of 90 down to 24”.
Migration agents have hailed Labor’s changes as “great news” on TikTok, reported Frank Chung from News.com.au.
“If you are planning to study in Australia, this news is for you”, one said. “Stay informed, stay ready. Things look very positive for international students moving forward”.
Another agent said the announcement “clearly shows that Australia remains committed to valuing international students and is focused on creating new opportunities for them”.
“This is the right time to apply for a student visa to Australia”, a third agent declared.
Salvatore Babones, associate professor at the University of Sydney and author of the 2021 book Australia’s Universities: Can They Reform? labelled the international education sector a “racket”.
He noted an “emerging phenomenon” of increasing dropout rates as international students “recognise you can get in on a university visa and switch”.
“This is the new scam”, he said.
“We have many universities, mostly regional, that have dropout rates of [more than] 50% after the first year”.
“That makes it very clear that international students are not applying to these universities for the purpose of studying in Australia, they’re applying for the purpose of getting into the country, after which they can apply for a different visa”, Babones said.
“They can easily get a bridging visa and then get a visa to study at a cooking school or a language school, and then you can stay in Australia almost indefinitely”.
In February, before this year’s election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC’s Q&A that the government was cutting immigration and relieving pressure on the housing market by reducing international student numbers.
Albanese noted that the student visa system was being “abused”.
That statement by Anthony Albanese was a bald-faced lie. Instead of closing the rorts, Labor has lifted the volume and dumbed down standards.
As a result, Labor will deliver a larger, lower-skilled, and more temporary migration program.
