As political debate over Australia's immigration levels intensifies ahead of the federal election, a new report from the Australian National University argues that a critical factor has been almost entirely overlooked: the people who are not leaving.

The analysis, released Monday by the ANU's Migration Hub, finds that while long-term arrivals to Australia have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, long-term departures have not kept pace — and that gap is a key reason why net overseas migration remains elevated.

What net overseas migration actually measures

At the centre of the debate is an official metric known as net overseas migration, or NOM — the figure both the Labor government and the Coalition have pledged to reduce, and the headline number most often cited when assessing whether migration policy is working.

NOM measures the number of people who arrive in Australia and stay for at least 12 months, minus the number who leave for at least 12 months. Because it captures both sides of the equation, a slowdown in departures pushes the figure higher even if arrivals remain stable or fall.

According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, NOM stood at 301,000 in 2025–26, down slightly from 306,000 the previous year but still above the government's forecast of 295,000. The government expects NOM to fall further to 245,000 this financial year.

For context, net overseas migration peaked at 556,000 in 2022–23 — a post-pandemic surge driven by a backlog of arrivals after borders reopened.

How pandemic-era visa changes slowed the departure cycle

The ANU report's co-author, Migration Hub director Alan Gamlen, points to pandemic-era policy decisions as a significant, underappreciated cause of the current situation.

When COVID-19 closed Australia's borders, both arrivals and departures collapsed. When borders reopened, arrivals bounced back sharply before easing toward pre-pandemic norms. Departures, however, recovered far more slowly — remaining relatively flat for several years before only recently beginning to tick upward.

During the pandemic, the federal government introduced visa extensions and other concessions to support temporary migrants stranded in Australia and to help businesses struggling with severe labour shortages.

"Temporary migrants who were caught in Australia needed some kind of relief," Gamlen said. "Businesses who desperately needed workers needed some kind of relief, and the solution to that was to create all sorts of extensions to temporary visas for people who had a limited amount of stay in Australia."

Those extensions effectively delayed the normal departure cycle for a cohort of temporary migrants — and their delayed exit is still flowing through the NOM figures today.

The political debate is missing the point, researchers say

Migration has become one of Australia's most contested political issues, frequently cited in debates over housing affordability, social cohesion and public services. The debate has grown increasingly polarised, with some critics linking high immigration to cost-of-living pressures and a broader wave of anti-immigrant sentiment.

Gamlen argues that framing the challenge purely as a matter of cutting arrivals misrepresents the underlying dynamics.

"Contrary to popular belief, stabilising the migration system after the pandemic is not only a matter of cutting arrivals," he said. "It's a matter of managing departures."

The ANU report contends that the NOM figure is frequently misused or misunderstood in public and political discourse, and that a more accurate understanding of what is driving the numbers is essential to designing effective policy responses.

What comes next

With both major parties having committed to bringing migration figures down, the report's findings suggest that policymakers may need to broaden their focus beyond visa caps and arrival limits. As the delayed cohort of pandemic-era temporary migrants continues to work through its extended stay periods, departures are expected to gradually normalise — but the timeline remains uncertain.

The government's forecast of 245,000 NOM this financial year will be closely watched as a test of whether the current policy settings are achieving their intended effect — or whether the departure side of the ledger continues to complicate the picture.