We put 165 years of migration data into four charts. Here's what we learned

The story of Australia since colonisation is a story of migration, and the country's immigration system is once more at the centre of heated political debate.

But how accurate are claims that immigrants are arriving in record numbers? And is this the biggest shift in the country's population ever?

This chart tracks a figure known as "net overseas migration", or NOM for shorthand.

It sounds complicated but what we're looking at is the number of people who arrive in Australia, minus the number of people who leave.

This captures the movements of everyone who comes or goes for an extended period of time, including Australian citizens.

NOM peaked between 2022 and 2023 with 538,000 people. But two years earlier, it had plummeted into negative territory for the first time in decades, with 85,000 more people leaving Australia than arriving.

The dramatic plunge and subsequent spike were caused by the global shock of the COVID pandemic and Australia's decision to effectively close its borders for nearly two years.

Let's zoom out and see how the latest peak compares with previous waves of migration.

This chart shows NOM going right back to 1860.

A quick glance tells us that our net overseas migration recently reached an all-time high.

But there's more to the story … and it's worth taking a moment to step through this history.

Of course, one of the most notable periods of migration is the British colonial period.

Although the peaks and troughs might look smaller during this time, the population actually quadruples and by 1901 it hits 4 million.

Britain has almost complete control over who is allowed to move to the colonies.

Migration slows down after Australia's Federation in 1901.

The new Commonwealth establishes an Immigration Restriction Act that will become known as the White Australia Policy.

Prime Minister Alfred Deakin in 1905 declares "the object of applying the language test is, not to allow persons to enter the Commonwealth, but to keep them out".

Then World War I begins.

Migration comes to a standstill. And not only do people stop arriving, but Australian troops are leaving in huge numbers. That's this huge dip.

After the war, migration spikes as the Commonwealth begins actively recruiting farmers, domestic workers and young people.

But then the Great Depression hits.

With unemployment at almost 32 per cent, public attitudes towards migrants change and migration schemes are paused.

World War II is another time of huge disruption, though less visible in this case.

Troops leaving the country were not counted in the migration data like they were for World War I, otherwise there'd be a similar and more dramatic dip here.

After the end of World War II, a new era of migration begins that changes the future of the nation.

Alan Gamlen, director of the Australian National University's Migration Hub, says the war highlighted Australia's vulnerability as an island continent.

"In war times, people realise we need a bigger population to defend … and also as a basis of economic growth, we need to grow the population, so populate or perish," he says.

"Populate or perish" is a term coined by Australia's first immigration minister, Arthur Calwell, who's appointed in July 1945.

And so begins a decades-long period of strong bipartisan support for an expanded migration program.

In 1945, Australia's population is about 7.4 million, according to the Department of Home Affairs. By 1970, it's almost 13 million.

Migration schemes begin by targeting Britain and other parts of Europe — including the "Ten Pound Pom" and "Beautiful Balts" (Baltic people) campaigns — but over the decades the pool widens and multiculturalism is embraced.

"I would summarise the 1960s to 2001 as the 'multicultural period'," says Alan Gamlen.

Migrants can also apply to bring their families to Australia on family reunion visas.

From about 2001, another key period of migration begins as a result of new policies under prime minister John Howard.

Mr Howard is more often remembered for his hard-line talking point that "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come", as well as linking migration to security concerns in the period after the September 11 attacks.

And he did crack down on some forms of migration, including family reunion visas and unauthorised boat arrivals.

But a new, very different trend also emerges during his leadership: migration spikes to new heights, and much of the rise comes from temporary visas.

Gamlen says temporary visas allow governments to have a flexible workforce at both ends of the skills spectrum: highly skilled jobs where there aren't enough Australians to meet industry demand; and lower-skilled jobs that Australians don't want to do, such as seasonal agricultural work, aged care and domestic care.

Between 2005 and 2006, the working holiday visa is also extended to allow travellers to stay for a second year. And there's a huge spike in student visas.

Associate professor Anna Boucher, a global migration expert at the University of Sydney, says from the 1970s through to this period there is bipartisan agreement on a lot of migration policy.

"That spike that you also see over time, under the Howard government but also under subsequent Labor governments, is what I would call deregulation of temporary migration," she says.

"Until the caps were introduced through ministerial instruments a year and a half ago, international student migration was uncapped."

And then … the pandemic.

After the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, migration plunges.

Australia effectively closes its borders; arrivals come to a screeching halt.

For the first time since the world wars, more people leave the country than arrive.

After the borders reopen, there's a large influx of migration, prompting that now-familiar spike.

Migration is clearly higher than at any other point in our nation's history.

But look a little deeper, and there's some nuance to the numbers.

For starters, if you take the average over the past five years to smooth out the year-by-year peaks and troughs, the NOM comes in at 280,000 per year.

That's much closer to matching the broader trend since the Howard era.

But there's also an entirely different way of looking at this data, and one that Alan Gamlen and Anna Boucher say is a more insightful way to compare NOM over time …

… and that's to look at migration as a percentage of the population.

Which is exactly what this chart does.

The reason Gamlen and Boucher prefer this view over the raw numbers is because a large migration increase has a much greater impact on a small population, and on the services and infrastructure that support it, than the same increase would have on a larger population base.

Suddenly, when we take into account the population already living in the country, the chart tells a different story. It paints a picture of how transformative migration growth would have been at different times in history.

"Obviously the whole total human population was much smaller in the middle of the 19th century and so you know, a movement of 10,000 people at that time was far more significant than movement of 10,000 people today," Gamlen says.

"So you really need to consider both."

Around 1880 Australia's population was about 2 million people.

In 2023 it was 27 million.

Anna Boucher says recent migration has been significant and fast but not dissimilar to other fluctuations at moments of great change.

"When people have been arguing about the current rate of net overseas migration as being at record highs, I'm like, 'Yeah, but you can't compare it with 10 years ago because the population's growing,'" she says.

"In people's lived experience it has been considerable … but it's not that much higher than some other important times in history."

Gamlen concurs, saying the massive upheaval of COVID fits into the previous pattern.

"It looks a bit like the two other major, similar disruptions, World War I and World War II," he says.

However, in a detailed immigration policy paper, e61 Institute research manager Lachlan Vass notes that since 2006, migration has exceeded 1 per cent of Australia's total population on multiple occasions, even before COVID.

That's a marker it had previously breached very rarely, even in the migration-friendly post-war period.

"It is a high figure compared to almost every other liberal democracy, and broadly comparable to the Australian post-war average, and well below the post-war peak," Vass and his co-author write.

Another way to shed light on our migration numbers is to break net migration down into the parts that make it up: arrivals and departures.

After the pandemic arrivals soar, as Australian citizens return home and migration catches up after the border closure period.

Once again, the slump and the peak draw the eye, but they hide the overall trend.

Across the past five years, the average number of arrivals per year is 507,000, very much in line with the preceding pattern.

Departures tell a different story, Gamlen says, noting this is really where the rise in NOM has come from. Essentially, people have been slow to leave, with departures remaining at historic lows.

During the pandemic, many people living here on temporary visas got their visas extended.

"We've had far lower arrivals than we've expected. We've had about equivalent NOM to what we expected," Gamlen says.

"The thing is, we've just had heaps fewer departures."

Lachlan Vass says "temporary migrants are becoming more and more permanently temporary over time", which is one of the details of the immigration system that needs attention.

This poses the question, what is the right number? Is there a sweet spot?

Well, the answer is complex and highly political.

Migration has long been used as a tool for solving our nation's productivity woes as well as slowing our aging population crisis.

But what makes sense to different economists or politicians may not always win public support.

Notably, NOM has already fallen a long way from its post-COVID highs.

And Treasury forecasts suggest it will continue that downward trajectory, reaching 225,000 by 2028.

(That said, it's worth noting migration has significantly overshot these forecasts in recent years.)

Even within individual political parties, there isn't agreement about the right number to target.

• The government has been planning to further tighten temporary visas as it seeks to bring migration down to that 225,000 figure. However, an announcement was postponed at the last minute, with the policy still to be settled.
• One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has vowed to cut NOM to 130,000, but there has been internal dispute within her party about that figure and exactly what elements of migration would be cut.
• The Coalition intends to tie migration to housing construction rates but has not yet set a specific target for NOM.

For his part, Gamlen says for every person who retires, we need two people to replace them in the workforce — one to replace their job and one to care for them.

"In order to compensate for Australia's aging population, receiving somewhere between 160K and 240K is the optimal bandwidth," he says.

He says migration is often the scapegoat during periods of crisis or instability, like the one we're living in right now.

Lachlan Vass argues for a limit on migration so it doesn't exceed 1 per cent of the population per year. That would currently be about 280,000.

He admits you could make a case for a higher or a lower figure, but says the important thing is to set a target and make the decisions required to have better control over the migration system.

"The point we're trying to make is there is a maximum amount of migration the system will probably tolerate, whether politically or economically or infrastructure-wise," he says.

"And as soon as you have that, you face these trade-offs.

"Currently we're above that 1 per cent number, which was something we were trying to highlight that might explain some of the concerns within the community about the speed of migration."

Of course, Australia's immigration system is much more complex than one headline number.

"NOM doesn't tell us anything about the composition within that flow of migration," Vass says. "Some of that NOM number is Australian citizens leaving the country or arriving back into the country … and then there's all these different types of migration that we have to Australia. We've got temporary skilled visas, we've got international students, we've got working holiday makers, we've got a lot of Kiwis.

"It really is that composition that matters for Australia's welfare and the outcomes for Australia as a whole, in terms of the type of migrant we're bringing in, the skills that they have, and the way they can work in the Australian economy and fit in.

"Composition is completely missed in the current debate."

Business groups have also warned against a political race to the bottom on migration, saying skilled migration is essential to addressing serious workforce shortages in housing, infrastructure, manufacturing, health and aged care.

The Australian Industry Group is urging the government to work harder to explain to voters how migration supports essential services and the economy.

Nonetheless, according to polls, more than half of Australians think migration rates are too high.

Immigration and its impact on the country is shaping up to be a focus of the next federal election.

The challenge for future candidates will be getting the balance right — managing public sentiment while filling the holes of our modern nation, holes that have long been filled by immigrants.

About the data

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics calculates NOM using international border crossings; not all border crossings result in a migration. Most reflect short-term and holiday travel.
• NOM is based on a calculation of whether an individual has spent 12 of the past 16 months in or out of Australia.
• Prior to 1972, the data in this story is based on a calendar year (i.e. 12 months ending December).
• From 1972 forward, we use financial year data (i.e. 12 months ending June), which is more in line with how government officials and policy makers discuss migration data, but is unavailable for earlier years.
• All data except for forecasts are sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Forecast data are taken from the Australian Federal Budget 2026-27 (Budget Paper 3, Appendix A).
• NOM figures for 1860 — 2021 are from the Historical Population, 2021 release.
• NOM figures for 2022 — 2025 and the arrivals and departures for all years shown are from the Overseas Migration financial year 2024-25 release.
• NOM, arrivals and departures figures for 2025 are preliminary and subject to further refinement by the ABS.
• The method for calculating migration data has changed a number of times since 1860, notably there was a significant change in methodology starting in 2006.

Credits

• Reporters: Margaret Burin and Hanan Dervisevic
• Developers: Ash Kyd and Simon Elvery
• Data: Simon Elvery
• Design: Ben Spraggon
• Photo illustration: Georgina Piper
• Editor: Matt Liddy