Australia’s migration debate reached a new flash-point overnight after official data revealed that 2.9 million people were living in the country on temporary visas as at October 2025—about 10 per cent of the national population. The tally is 70 per cent higher than in 2019 and eclipses the previous peak set before the pandemic. International students (638,000) and New Zealand citizens on Special Category visas (731,000) make up the largest cohorts, but numbers are also soaring in the Temporary Graduate, Working Holiday-Maker and bridging-visa categories.
Migration experts warn that the system designed for transitory stays is becoming the default gateway to long-term settlement. More than 402,000 people are now on bridging visas—documents that were originally envisaged for a few thousand applicants awaiting a status decision—creating administrative chaos inside the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). The tribunal is struggling with a record 124,000-case backlog, most of it student- and protection-visa appeals.
![Temporary-visa population hits record 2.9 million, fuelling calls to overhaul Australia’s migration system]()
Former deputy immigration secretary Dr Abul Rizvi argues that the surge shows “the system has flipped from planned permanency to unmanaged temporariness”. He is urging the government to lift the permanent-migration cap by 50,000 places a year for the next three years and to streamline appeal processes, warning that otherwise Australia will “sleep-walk into a two-tier society of permanent and perpetual temporary residents”.
Business groups are equally alarmed but for different reasons. Universities rely on fee-paying international students, and sectors such as hospitality, agriculture and aged care depend on temporary labour to fill chronic skills shortages. Yet employers say processing delays, ad-hoc rule changes and inconsistent enforcement are making workforce planning impossible. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants a single, digitised portal that tracks an applicant from initial lodgement through to final status, while unions insist that the real fix is better compliance to stamp out wage theft and exploitation.
Politically, the figures hand ammunition to both sides of parliament. The Coalition accuses Labor of letting migration “run off the rails”, while the government says it inherited a broken system and is tightening English-language rules, student-visa integrity checks and employer-sponsorship pathways. With a federal election due next year and housing affordability dominating public concern, the visa blow-out ensures migration policy will sit near the top of the 2026 campaign agenda.
Migration experts warn that the system designed for transitory stays is becoming the default gateway to long-term settlement. More than 402,000 people are now on bridging visas—documents that were originally envisaged for a few thousand applicants awaiting a status decision—creating administrative chaos inside the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). The tribunal is struggling with a record 124,000-case backlog, most of it student- and protection-visa appeals.
Former deputy immigration secretary Dr Abul Rizvi argues that the surge shows “the system has flipped from planned permanency to unmanaged temporariness”. He is urging the government to lift the permanent-migration cap by 50,000 places a year for the next three years and to streamline appeal processes, warning that otherwise Australia will “sleep-walk into a two-tier society of permanent and perpetual temporary residents”.
Business groups are equally alarmed but for different reasons. Universities rely on fee-paying international students, and sectors such as hospitality, agriculture and aged care depend on temporary labour to fill chronic skills shortages. Yet employers say processing delays, ad-hoc rule changes and inconsistent enforcement are making workforce planning impossible. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants a single, digitised portal that tracks an applicant from initial lodgement through to final status, while unions insist that the real fix is better compliance to stamp out wage theft and exploitation.
Politically, the figures hand ammunition to both sides of parliament. The Coalition accuses Labor of letting migration “run off the rails”, while the government says it inherited a broken system and is tightening English-language rules, student-visa integrity checks and employer-sponsorship pathways. With a federal election due next year and housing affordability dominating public concern, the visa blow-out ensures migration policy will sit near the top of the 2026 campaign agenda.
