With the Opposition Spokesperson for Immigration, Dan Tehan, making it clear immigration levels will be a key battleground for the 2025 Election, the Government will be keen to see net migration trending down faster. While net migration past its peak in around September 2023, it is still not falling sharply. That is despite major tightening of student visa policy, including very high refusal rates and slower processing.
The total number of temporary residents in Australia fell in January 2024 by over 120,000 to 2.637 million. However, the decline was driven entirely by the departure of short-term visitors with the number of visitors in Australia falling by over 200,000. This was partly offset by an increase in almost all other groups which are largely longer-term visas (and thus more likely to contribute to net migration):
Bridging Visa (BV) holders again increased by over 7,000 to 218,889. While well short of the record of 373,109 BV holders in March 2022 (a high level of BV holders is a clear indication of an immigration system in trouble), the ongoing increase in BV holders will be worrying the Government as that is indicative of people extending stay, often beyond 12 months and thus adding to net migration, as well as an inability of visa processing staff to cope with a rise in onshore visa applications. It is highly likely a substantial portion of the BV backlog will be onshore student and........