Australian net overseas migration falls to lowest level since 2022 – but the Coalition says that’s still too high

Despite the increase in net overseas migration over the past few years, Australia’s population in mid-2025 was still about 350,000 less than Treasury predicted in the December 2019 midyear budget. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Net overseas migration added 301,000 people to Australia’s population last year, the lowest increase since mid-2022 but still above the pre-pandemic pace.

The new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics come amid an increasingly fraught political debate around immigration, after Pauline Hanson’s declaration that Australian society should be “monocultural”.