Australia's annual growth of 2.2 per cent (563,200 people) is undemocratic and unacceptable according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).
Today the ABS released its figures to the year ending 31 March 2023 showing the growth comprised Net Overseas Migration (NOM) of 454,400 and natural increase of 108,800.
SPA National President Ms Jenny Goldie says NOM now makes up over four fifths of population growth.
"Under the Albanese government, immigration has blown out of all proportion," says Ms Goldie. "It is six times the rate it was in the pre-Howard years.
"Mr Albanese knows very well that voters want much lower levels of migration. He and his Ministers continue to fob them off with absurd and self-contradictory lies that this jaw-dropping immigration is 'not a government policy', or 'is just catching up for COVID', or 'is leading to slower population growth'.
"And yet Treasurer Jim Chalmers said in January that immigration 'should never be a substitute for what we need to do to train Australians for local opportunities'.
"We cannot sustain this level of population growth", says Ms Goldie. "Mr Albanese himself has lit a fire under the extreme rental/housing unaffordability crisis, and now pretends to douse it with his cruelly inadequate Housing Australia Future Fund.
"He is gunning for Sydney and Melbourne to reach eight million apiece, degrading infrastructure, services, and living amenity.
"Even where high-rise replaces urban sprawl, people still need resources such as food, clothing and shelter. It means ever more natural habitat is destroyed to meet human needs.
"Right now, climate change is bearing down upon us with increasing intensity and speed. Yet climate is only one of the nine 'planetary boundaries'.
"Today, an international scientific assessment found that six out of nine planetary boundaries had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world."
Ms Goldie says the more people there are, the more pressure is put on the environment, both nationally and globally.
"Australia must end population growth as soon as possible. Natural increase is falling naturally, so the prime lever is immigration.
"We have 26.5 million people in Australia right now. At the current rate of growth, we will reach 30 million in less than seven years. It's an equality and environmental disaster."
