Australian immigration levels higher under Liberal governments?

You might be surprised to learn that by analysing data from Australian Bureau of Statistics that while the increase in migration year on year is just 0.7% between 2020-2024, between the years from 2016-2020, a period of successive Liberal governments, the increase in migration was 1.4% each year.

2016-2020 was entirely Liberal governments = migration increasing 1.4% each year

2020-2024 is split about 50/50 Liberal/Labor governments = migration increasing 0.7% each year

How this was calculated

The data analysis was not complicated.  I began by downloading the last 34 quarters (8 years) of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2).

  • The average migration from March 2016 - March 2022 was 240k per-quarter
  • The average migration from March 2022 - June 2024 was 247k per-quarter
  • The difference between period A and B is under +7k per-quarter, or a 2.8% increase over 4 years
  • In annual terms that is a net increase in migration of 0.7% each year in the years from 2020-2024
A quick look at the politics of this was easy from Wikipedia (1)

  • The period of March 2016 - March 2022 was under a Liberal Government
  • The period of March 2022 - June 2024 was approximately 50/50 Liberal/Labor Government

If you take a snapshot from March 2016 - March 2022 and split this period in two; you can calculate what was the net increase between the first 8 quarters and the last 8 quarters.

  • The average migration from March 2016 - March 2018 was 237k per-quarter
  • The average migration from March 2018 June 2020 was 244k per-quarter
  • The difference between period A and B is under +6.61k per-quarter, or an 2.7% increase over 2 years
  • In annual terms that is a net increase in migration of 1.4% each year in the years from 2016-2020


Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_federal_elections 
  2. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release


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