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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, following Pauline Hanson’s declaration that our society should be “monocultural”.

After collapsing below zero during the Covid lockdowns, annual migration growth sprang back to as high as 556,000 in late 2023.

Since then, net overseas migration (Nom) has tracked steadily down – a fact the government has been keen to emphasise amid repeated attacks from the Coalition that Labor has failed to bring the numbers of arrivals back to “sustainable” levels.

In a statement following the release of the data, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said “the facts clearly show that net overseas migration is coming down under Labor”.

The May budget had forecast Nom – the difference between the number of migrants arriving and leaving – would drop to 295,000 people in this financial year; to 245,000 in the next; and 225,000 in 2027-28.

But Terry Rawnsley, a senior economist at KPMG, said “the nation looks to have settled into a new normal level of net overseas migration of around 300,000 people per year”.

That would be about 25%, or 50,000, above historical levels, with the increase explained by strong migration into Queensland and Western Australia.

“The sunshine state is bringing in 75% more people from overseas than before Covid, while on the west coast there has been a 250% increase,” Rawnsley said.

“These large increases are reflective of the two states’ strong economies. Both are having to tap overseas workers to fill the jobs their economies are creating.”

In contrast, net overseas migration into NSW and Victoria is back to pre-pandemic levels, he said.

Despite the bulge 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 mid-year budget and before the global health crisis.

But Jonno Duniam, the shadow immigration minister, said annual net overseas migration of 301,000 was “still far too high”.

“Particularly at a time when Australians are struggling to find a home, rents remain under extreme pressure and public infrastructure and services are badly stretched.”