Net migration averages 1,100 per day under Albanese government

This week’s official quarterly population data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) confirmed that net overseas migration (NOM) continues to run hot under the Albanese Labor government.

While NOM fell to 301,000 over the 2025 calendar year, that result was still 37,600 more than the single highest year under a Coalition government – i.e., 263,400 in the year to June 2017:

In fact, over the first 3.5 years of the Albanese Labor government, an unprecedented 1,414,400 net migrants arrived in Australia.

This equated to just over 1,100 net migrants landing in Australia each day over Labor’s first 3.5 years in office:

By comparison, 610 net migrants arrived in Australia over the previous Coalition term (excluding the pandemic border closure) and 617 per day under the ‘Big Australia’ Rudd/Gillard Labor government.

The pre-Big Australia governments of Howard (407 per day) and Hawke/Keating (256 per day) saw roughly one-quarter to one-third as many migrants arrive in Australia per day as the current Albanese Labor government.

The claim that Australia is merely ‘catching up’ for the pandemic’s lost migration also holds little weight, as NOM has easily surpassed the pre-pandemic trend:

There are nearly 300,000 more migrants in Australia today than there would have been had the pre-pandemic trend in NOM continued.

This massive overshooting of NOM helps to explain why Australia’s rental market has tightened so aggressively, resulting in substantial rental inflation.

Running such high migration into a supply-constrained housing market was always a recipe for disaster.