Migration numbers have been dominating headlines, with politicians and commentators quoting several different figures. But many metrics significantly overstate how many people are permanently settling in Australia. So how is migration actually measured?
Bjorn Jarvis, Head of Demography from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), told SBS Examines that Net Overseas Migration (NOM) is the official measure of how migration is contributing to changes in the Australian population using a "12 in 16 months" rule.
But this means temporary visa holders like international students, working holiday visa holders and PALM workers are also counted if they spent 12 out of the last 16 months in Australia.
NOM is not the only dataset that measures movements in and out of Australia, and experts warn against using these figures interchangeably.
Overseas Arrivals and Departures data (OAD), which counts cross-border travel, has also been incorrectly quoted as a measure of Australia's migration intake.
"At the moment, if you were using that as a proxy, that would be overstating migration by about 60 per cent, or about 180,000 people," Jarvis said.
Former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration Abul Rizvi said different datasets produced by the ABS are often misused by politicians and media organisations.
A number of organisations have used the net permanent and long-term movements data to argue that that immigration to Australia is exploding and increasing at a rapid rate. That is untrue.Former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration Abul Rizvi
Professor Alan Gamlen, Director of the Australian National University Migration Hub, said migration figures can also be misleading when presented without context — including forecasts of future NOM.
In this week's episode, SBS Examines asks how migration numbers are calculated, and why our exact migrant intake is frequently misunderstood.
This episode was produced in collaboration with SBS Cantonese.
