WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Immigration this year is 80,000 above government forecasts.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. The figure is calculated by comparing actual migration data with forecasts for the 2026/27 year, which hasn't begun yet.
AAP FACTCHECK - Opposition Leader Angus Taylor's claim that this year's migration rate is running 80,000 ahead of a government forecast is misleading.
He reached the figure by comparing the actual net migration rate for the 12 months ending September 2025 with a government forecast for the 2026/27 financial year - a period that does not begin until July.
When comparing net migration with forecasts for 2025/26 - which experts said was a more reasonable comparison - it is 51,000 higher than predicted, or 36 per cent less than Mr Taylor's claim.
"The standards are too low, the numbers are too high," Mr Taylor said when speaking to the media on April 22.
"This year alone, 80,000 more than the government's own forecasts," Mr Taylor said.
He made a similar claim during an interview on the ABC's Insiders program on April 26.
"Just on the current run rate, we're running at about 80,000 a year above Labor's own targets," Mr Taylor said (timestamp 5 minutes 21 seconds). "Every budget has been wrong."
Net overseas migration (NOM), the difference between those arriving in the country to live and those leaving, is the measure of migration published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The government publishes two annual NOM forecasts: one in the May budget and an updated forecast in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), typically released in December.
When asked for evidence for his claim, Mr Taylor's office told AAP FactCheck it was based on comparing the latest actual NOM data for the year to September 2025, which was 311,000, against the 2024 MYEFO forecast (page 39) of 225,000 for 2026/27.
The difference between the two figures is 86,000.
The government's migration forecasts are produced by financial year, meaning a direct comparison for the 12 months to September 2025 is unavailable.
The 2026/27 forecast used by Mr Taylor covers a year that doesn't begin until July 2026.
By contrast, the MYEFO forecast (p36) for 2025/26 was 260,000, meaning net migration over the year to September 2025 was 51,000 higher than predicted.
Alan Gamlen, a migration expert at the Australian National University (ANU), said Mr Taylor's claim relies on an invalid comparison between net migration in two separate financial years.
"It's dodgy," Professor Gamlen told AAP FactCheck. "[The 2025/26 forecast] is the one they should be comparing it with."
Migration expert Abul Rizvi said using the 2026/27 forecast is not best practice for such a comparison and the 2025/26 year is more reasonable.
In particular, he said policy settings, including higher offshore student visa rejections and a doubling of graduate visa application fees, would be reflected in the 2026/27 forecast, but not captured in the 2025 data.
"Policy settings at present should be the basis for comparison," Dr Rizvi said.
However, he said the government's migration forecasts are not very reliable and fail to accurately account for factors like departures, leading to sizeable underestimates.
Peter McDonald, an emeritus professor in demography at ANU, said Mr Taylor's choice of figures meant he is "comparing the past with the future".
But he told AAP FactCheck that the onus is on the government to explain how migration will fall to the levels they've forecasted.
The official NOM figures have routinely come in higher than budget forecasts since COVID-19, exceeding predictions for the three years between 2021/22 and 2023/24.
This has occurred under both the former coalition government and under Labor.
While the 2024/25 NOM forecast of 335,000 in the May 2025 budget (Table 2.2, p43) was 29,000 higher than the actual result for that year, this occurred after it was significantly upgraded.
The two previous budgets forecast NOM would hit 260,000 in that year.
Similar forecast upgrades were included in the most recent 2026/27 budget on May 12 (Table 2.2, p62).
The 2025/26 forecast increased from 260,000 to 295,000 and the 2026/27 forecast was raised from 225,000 to 245,000, according to federal budget papers.
Mr Rizvi said the government has routinely assumed larger numbers of departures than what has occured, largely because migrants have applied for new visas once in Australia.
"You can't just assume that because a person's visa is expiring that they will depart," he said.
Prof Gamlen said forecasting NOM rates after the pandemic had been difficult because it depended on many factors, including the behaviour of Australian and New Zealand citizens.
"Net migration is very hard to forecast and impossible to control at any time," he said.
"We are still in the fairly close wake of the biggest disruption to human migration and mobility of all kinds in the history of this planet."
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