A few months after Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised to slow population growth, Australian immigration levels are reported to have reached record highs. In 2018, Australia received a total of 832,560 new permanent immigrants, an increase of 7.1% over 2017. If the Australians are taken into account, the number of net immigrants coming to Australia is 291,250, the highest level in four and a half years. In the last 10 years of the 20th century, Australia’s annual net immigration level was only about 70 million. In addition, the vast majority of new immigrants settle in Sydney and Melbourne, which are already overcrowded. Three months before the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released new data, Prime Minister Morrison had promised to reduce the proportion of immigrants in order to slow population growth. In a speech in the Bradfield Lecture in Sydney last November, he said: “Population growth plays a key role in our economic success. However, I also understand that in our largest cities, Australians are the population. The problem is worrying. They are saying ‘enough, enough, enough’.”
It is reported that the Australian population broke through the 25 million mark in August last year and achieved the expectations of the federal government’s first Intergenerational Report in 2002. The Australian Bureau of Statistics also predicted in 1998 that the Australian population would increase to 23.5 million to 26.4 million by 2051. Australia’s population growth rate has reached 1.6%, ranking first in developed countries, more than twice as much as Britain and the United States. At the same time, its growth rate is even higher than that of the Philippines, which is significantly higher than the global average of 1.1%. Despite this, Morrison added that this is far below the economic growth rate of more than 3% in Australia. In addition, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released new foreigners’ entry and exit data yesterday, showing that China overtook New Zealand, which ranked first in the list for 19 consecutive years, becoming Australia’s largest source of tourists. In 2018, the number of Chinese tourists coming to Australia exceeded a record 1.4 million, an increase of 6% year-on-year.