WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A graph shows the gap between net immigration and housing supply is growing.
OUR VERDICT
Misleading. The graph depicts international border crossings, not net overseas migration.
AAP FACTCHECK - A graph being shared online appears to depict immigration far outpacing housing supply in Australia, but it's misleading.
The graph shows raw border-crossing data instead of official net overseas migration figures.
While the graph claims to show net migration hit almost 500,000 in 2025, official data puts the figure closer to 300,000.
The claim is in a Facebook post that states that the gap between housing supply and net migration "keeps growing".
The post includes an animated chart titled "HOUSING SUPPLY vs NET MIGRATION EACH YEAR", purportedly comparing both metrics between March 2021 and March 2026.
The chart displays housing supply holding steady between about 173,000 and 179,000 annually, while net migration climbs from minus 16,000 in 2021 to more than 486,000 by 2026
"Housing affordability won't improve if demand continues to outstrip supply," the post's caption reads.
"The data is clear: Australia needs policies that restore balance between population growth and new housing."
While the housing supply data resembles Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures for residential dwelling completions, the migration data differs from the official figures.
The latest figures show Net Overseas Migration (NOM) declined after September 2023, meaning the gap between housing and migration has narrowed rather than expanded.
The post was shared by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) think tank.
An IPA spokesperson told AAP FactCheck that the figures in the graph depict net permanent and long-term (NPLT) arrival tallies from the ABS rather than the net overseas migration figures.
NPLT is a count of cross-border traveller movements, combining permanent and long-term arrivals minus departures.
Multiple migration experts have previously told AAP FactCheck that NPLT data is not an accurate measure of net migration.
The ABS warned in 2025 that NPLT did not measure true net migration and risks double-counting individuals who travel multiple times in a year.
Instead, the ABS uses net overseas migration (NOM), which counts migrants who have lived in Australia for 12 months within a 16-month period, known as the 12/16 month rule.
The NOM and NPLT measures have diverged markedly in recent years.
While both increased after COVID-19 border restrictions were relaxed, NOM fell sharply between September 2023 and December 2025, whereas NPLT continued to climb.
Abul Rizvi, a former immigration department deputy secretary, said NPLT had outpaced net migration and, in some quarters, nearly doubled it over the past 18 months.
An IPA press release claimed that while NPLT and NOM "differ slightly", they were "closely related".
It also argued NPLT could "act as a proxy to estimate overseas migration" because of the lag in reporting NOM due to the 12/16-month rule.
However, official NOM data was available for almost the entire period shown in the Facebook chart when it was posted, except for the March 2026 quarter.
Dr Rizvi said NPLT figures could only be used as a proxy for migration if they were corroborated with other data.
The sharp divergence between the two figures over the last eight quarters should have alerted the group against using the border-crossings count as a proxy, he said.
AAP FactCheck has previously debunked a claim about net migration that was inaccurately based on NPLT figures.
Alan Gamlen, a migration expert at the Australian National University, said the two measures were calculated differently.
"NPLT is not a meaningful proxy or leading indicator of NOM," he told AAP FactCheck.
Anna Boucher, a migration expert at the University of Sydney, also said NPLT was "not an accurate measure of the number of migrants".
The Facebook graph's housing supply figures were similar to ABS dwelling completion figures; an expert said comparing these with NPLT or NOM tallies misrepresented housing demand.
Hal Pawson, a University of NSW expert and an unpaid advisor to independent senator David Pocock, said implying that the number of individual migrants needed to match new dwelling completions was "barmy" as it ignored household size.
A household consisted of 2.5 people on average, Professor Pawson said.
"It takes only a moment's thought to realise that housing demand is related to households, not people!" he told AAP FactCheck.
Starting the graph in March 2021 was also misleading as it selectively captured an unprecedented post-pandemic rebound in NPLT, Prof Pawson said.
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