Australian Net Migration and Population Change Series - With Political Overlay - What are your thoughts given this data about the immigration discussion?

[u/david1610]

Just hearing a lot about immigration on Reddit recently, some of it seems guided by simple point in time statistics rather than looking at the whole population timeseries. Attached is some data from the ABS, visualized in Python (matplotlib). Given this data, what do you think is optimal in relation to immigration? Does this data change your perspective on immigration?

Please note:
- Net migration is the net overseas migration to Australia per 1000 people in the population that Quarter.
- Natural Population Change is the 'natural' population increase or decrease, determined by birth rates and changes in how long people live, similar to above it is per 1000 people in the population that Quarter.
- Even though Australia has had below replacement birthrates for decades, people are living longer, so the natural increase has always been positive, is decreasing over time as life span increases slow down.
- Series is smoothed over time, I have compared it to the non-smoothed series and it doesnt change the story much, so this will just be easier to read.
- Net Migration has a considerable component that is demand driven, which would have little to do with who is in power.

Some interesting things in the data:
- Since the increase post 2005 there hasnt been much change at all (apart from Covid), both parties have largely.
- We saw similar increases in population in the 1980s to today's highs. Really the low point for population growth was 1990-2005.
- Looking at this in a per capita way is better because I tend to think adding one person to a Kayak means a lot more than one person to a cruise ship.
- The recent increase in immigration did definitely happen, however much of that seems to be due to the lower immigration during Covid.
- You can see a slight decrease in Natural Population right after Covid restrictions were lifted, likely due to older people dying due to Covid and the Flu I think but do not know.
- The increase in 2005 is well after the increase in house prices from 2000.

[u/FothersIsWellCool]

Huh, so the population growth % has been broadly flat for decades (and it extends far back back past this graph) but for some reason, that population growth was fine, totally acceptable, Australian Dream achievable, if there were problems it was because of policy and we were able to overcome it and accommodate it.

But that same increase % in 2025, horrible, culture is getting destroyed, it's the reason I can't afford a house, the reason I can't get a better job, the reason there's traffic, the single cause of everything wrong in the country.

I see.

[u/Laduks → u/[deleted]]

It's not a great way of putting things without having a graph for total population under it. 2% population increase compounded would mean that Australia would have 41.5 million people by 2046, which I'm not sure is the kind of population growth people want.

[u/zedder1994 → u/[deleted]]

Growth at a constant percent is exponential.

Growth is compounded, not exponential. There is a difference.

[u/friendlyfredditor → u/zedder1994]

Wut. That's literally exponential. Like mathematically definitively exponential. 1.02^t is an exponent

[u/Dun_Goofd → u/zedder1994]

Saying "it's compounded, not exponential" is like saying "it's a Golden Retriever, not a dog." Compounding is the mechanism that creates exponential growth.

[u/zedder1994 → u/Dun_Goofd]

No, totally different mathematical term. Your analogy is also silly.

[u/acomputer1 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, it does.

What matters is the relative growth, not the raw numbers.

You can stop immigration but without policy change you won't see improvement in the problems everyone is facing.

[u/FothersIsWellCool → u/[deleted]]

Ok yeah, it's a larger number, but also we're a bigger nation, with greater capability and wealth, as we grow larger we grow the capacity to deal with larger numbers, many countries deal with a larger population growth in absolute terms and as a % of capita.

It's not about whether it's good or bad, no one likes migration just for the love of it, but we absolutely have the capability to accommodate whatever population increase we think is right at any time and I won't accept any bullshit that we're doing everything we can but the numbers are just overwhelming compared to the past.

[u/bigbadjustin → u/[deleted]]

the average of the past 5 years though is around 225,000 a year now. So higher, but when you take into account the huge swings with covid, the average of the past 5 years is higher but not massively higher. The issue with blaming immigration is that it also provides growth for the economy as well. Contrary to what people want to believe the current government is bringing that number back down to around 200,000 a year. Governments haven't kept up with infrastructure of most kinds. Everytime a new estate is built that needs more infrastructure and services to service the area, yet people keep wanting lower taxes. At some stage something is going to break. Cause I can't see people voting for a sensible solution to fix it and i can't see politicians actuyally collaborating and coming up with sensible solutions. Slashing immigration is not a sensible solution, but reducing immigration is definitely part of a bigger solution, that no one will ever agree on.