Liberal Party migration scare campaign built on the wrong data

Dr Abul Rizvi writes that “exploding” immigration claims collapse under scrutiny as misuse of ABS PLT data fuels a misleading political narrative about Labor policies.

THIS IS BREAKING NEWS media release titled ‘While standards are falling, immigration figures are exploding under the Labor Party’The Liberal Party once again argues that immigration levels are increasing because standards are falling. So is any of this true?

Liberal Party says:

ABS data published today reveals 1,154,000 permanent and long-term arrivals to Australia by February 2026.

In 2026, we see the highest annual arrival levels recorded in fifty years.

Permanent and long-term departures in the same period amounted to only 675,000, resulting in net permanent and long-term arrivals of 479,000.

Under the Labor Government, net permanent and long-term arrivals have increased and are consistently running between 400,000-500,000 per year, with only this high level showing signs of stability.

A few other people pointed out the same numbers.

For example, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson reportedly:

‘…’shocked’ by record-breaking immigration figures after Anthony Albanese promised drastic cuts.’

Institute of Public Relations (IPA) did same argument. Sydney Radio shock jock Ben Fordham It goes further and says that based on Permanent and Long-Term (PLT) Arrivals in February, we were receiving 3,400 immigrants per day. This means that 1.24 million immigrants arrived in 12 months.

The first step in understanding these claims is the writings to various think tanks and media outlets warning about the misuse of PLT data, as well as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABSs) also has a persistent notice on its website stating:

‘Overseas arrivals and departures (OAD) data, including permanent and long-term movements, should not be used as a measure of overseas migration. These data do not reflect the ABS’s official definition of migration and may lead to erroneous interpretations. For example, while permanent and long-term arrivals of OAD may be increasing, actual overseas migrant arrivals may be decreasing over the same period.’

It’s not that the Liberal Party, One Nation, the IPA and Ben Fordham were unaware of the ABS warning. Some attacked ABS for issuing the warning (e.g. anti-immigrant site macrobusiness) and argued that the ABS was trying to censor them. Even after it became clear that the ABS was right to issue the warning, the misuse of PLT movement data continued.

I published this article in September last year and called on these organizations to apologize to the ABS when net migration data for the March quarter 2025 was published; these data showed that net migration for that quarter was well below net PLT. Of course, there has been no apology, but the abuse continues and appears to be increasing.

The main problem is combining PLT data with clear migration data. The two can be very different. As a general rule, PLT, particularly in the March quarter, tends to be significantly higher than net migration in that quarter, while it tends to be lower than net migration in the December quarter. This is because in the December quarter we saw a large number of long-term and permanent migrants (particularly students) leaving Australia at the end of the academic year and returning at the beginning of the year.

However, because these people will usually have already been counted in net migration when they first arrive, they are not counted in net migration if they leave in the December quarter (so PLT is lower in the December quarter) or return in the March quarter (so PLT is higher in the March quarter). See Table 1.

The use of PLT in February is particularly misleading. The arrival of 3,400 immigrants a day at Fordham in February is completely wrong. Fordham may or may not have been aware that he was misleading his audience. But he probably doesn’t care. The Liberal Party and One Nation may not care either. The political opportunity to mislead Australians about immigration could be huge.

Net migration has fallen from a peak of 540,000 in 2022-23 to around 305,000 in 2024-25. This was largely due to the tightening of standards since the change of government in May 2022. It was very low standards in May 2022 that led to a net migration boom in 2022-23; Opposition Leader’s Angus Taylor refuses to accept.

Net migration, which was 81,642 in the September 2024 quarter, stopped falling at 87,821 in the September 2025 quarter. Net migration in the December 2025 quarter is likely to be higher than 63,894 in the December 2024 quarter.

However, it is also possible that the result for the March 2026 quarter will be lower than the 109,134 for the March 2025 quarter. This is due to further tightening of policy regarding students (increased rejection rates), provisional graduates (doubling the application fee) and study visas (increased scrutiny of the candidate position).

If this tightening is maintained, net migration in 2025-26 will be lower than in 2024-25, rather than higher and explosive as the Liberal Party claims in its press release. However, it will be above the Treasury’s estimate of 260 thousand.

Without further tightening, net migration will not fall below the Treasury’s forecast of 225,000 for 2026-27. We will have more information on this in the upcoming budget.

So the truth of the matter is this:

net migration booms in 2022–23, largely due to policies the Coalition Government introduced before May 2022;
Labor was too slow to tighten policy and so net migration remained high for longer;
Net migration is not “exploding” in 2025-26 and will not be anywhere near the 400,000 to 500,000 figure that the Liberal Party and One Nation are trying to suggest;
visa standards have not “shifted” and are significantly higher today than in May 2022; And
These will need to be increased further if the net migration forecast of 225,000 in 2026-27 is realised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=todXoLC8ADM

Doctor Abul Rizvi He is an independent Australian columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.

Support independent journalism Subscribe to IA.