•In the Treasury’s latest Intergenerational report, released in February 2010, Australia’s population was predicted to reach 35.9 million people by 2050, an increase of 64 per cent on the 2010 figure of 22 million. This prediction is based on Australia taking 180,000 migrants a year from 2012, two-thirds of the present intake of 277,700. Treasury based its forecast on an average annual rate of 1.2 per cent over the next 40 years, slightly lower than the 1.4 per cent growth rate experienced over the previous 40 years and significantly less than the current rate of 2 per cent .
•In 2007–08 migrants came to Australia from more than 200 countries. The major contributors to our migrant intake were: China (28,700 people), NZ (27,400 People), UK (24,000 people) and India (23,900 people).
•Skilled visas accounted for 68 per cent of the 2007-08 migration program, and family reunion 31 per cent. This is the reverse to the mid 1990s, when two-thirds of non-humanitarian visas were family visas (56,700) and a third were skilled visas (24,100). The ratio changed in 1997-98, gradually becoming dominated by skilled migration. See Skills Shortages.
•The number of people that Australia accepts under its humanitarian program, including refugees and boat people, make up less than 5 per cent of our immigration intake. During 2008-09, 13,507 humanitarian visas were granted. The refugees mostly came from China, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Burma, Bangladesh and Egypt.