Claims of exploding migration collapse under scrutiny, as the misuse of ABS PLT data fuels a misleading political narrative about Labors policies, writes DrAbul Rizvi.

IN THIS RECENTmedia releasetitled Migration numbers explode under Labor as standards slip, the Liberal Party again argues migration levels are rising because standards are slipping. But is any of that true?

The Liberal Party says:

Several others have pointed to the same numbers.

Angus Taylors proposal to mandate English for permanent visa holders raises serious questions about fairness, practicality and its underlying political intent.

For example, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson wasreportedly:

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has made thesame argument. Sydney Radio shock jockBen Fordhamtakes it further and says we are receiving 3,400 migrants per day based on Permanent and Long-Term (PLT) Arrivals in February. That comes to 1.24 million migrant arrivals over 12 months.

The first step to understanding these claims is to note that, in addition to writing to several think tanks and media outlets warning about misusing PLT data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) also has a permanent warning on its website that states:

It is not that the Liberal Party, One Nation, the IPA and Ben Fordham do not know of the ABS warning. Some of them attacked the ABS for putting out the warning (for example,anti-immigration website Macrobusiness) and argued the ABS was trying to censor them. Even after it was shown that the ABS was right to put out the warning, the misuse of PLT movements data has continued.

I publishedthis articlein September last year, calling on these organisations to apologise to the ABS when net migration data for the March quarter of 2025 was published, showing net migration well below net PLT for that quarter. Of course, no apology was forthcoming, but the misuse continues and seems to be growing.

The key problem is the conflation of PLT data with net migration data. The two can be very different. As a general rule, PLT in the March quarter in particular tends to be very significantly higher than net migration in this quarter, while it tends to be lower than net migration in the December quarter. Thats because in the December quarter, we see a large number of long-term and permanent migrants (particularly students) leave Australia at the end of the academic year and then return at the start of the year.

But because these people will usually have already been counted in net migration when they first arrived, they are not counted in net migration when they leave in the December quarter (hence PLT in the December quarter is lower) or when they return in the March quarter (hence PLT in the March quarter is higher). See Chart 1.

(Data source:ABS)

The use of PLT in the month of February is particularly misleading. Fordhams 3,400 migrant arrivals per day in February are just wrong. Fordham may or may not know he is misleading his listeners. But he probably doesnt care. The Liberal Party and One Nation may also not care. The political opportunity of misleading Australians on migration may be just too great.

Net migration fell from its peak in 2022-23 of around 540,000 to around 305,000 in 2024-25. That was largely due to a tightening of standards since the change of government in May 2022. It was very low standards in May 2022 that led to the net migration boom in 2022-23, something that Opposition LeaderAngus Taylorrefuses to acknowledge.

In the September quarter of 2025, net migration stopped falling when it was 87,821 compared with 81,642 in the September quarter of 2024. Net migration in the December quarter of 2025 will likely be higher than the 63,894 in the December quarter of 2024.

Angus Taylor's immigration plan is inextricably linked to a Trumpian economic agenda.

But it is also likely that the outcome for the March quarter of 2026 will be lower than the 109,134 for the March quarter of 2025. That is due to significant further tightening of policy in relation to students (increased refusal rates), temporary graduates (doubling the application fee) and the training visa (increased scrutiny of the nominated position).

If that tightening is sustained, net migration in 2025-26 will be lower than in 2024-25, not higher and exploding as the Liberal Party has asserted in its press release. However, it will be higher than the 260,000 forecast by the Treasury.

Withoutfurther tightening, net migration will not fall to the 225,000 forecast by Treasury for 2026-27. We will know more about that in the forthcoming Budget.

So the truth of the matter is:

DrAbul Rizviis an Independent Australia columnistand a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul@RizviAbul.

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