You'd hardly know it, but we're in the biggest immigration surge in our history. According to Rory Robertson of Macquarie Group, net immigration has exceeded 100,000 a year in 12 of the past 20 years, having exceeded 100,000 only 12 times in the previous two centuries. The Howard government planned for an immigration program of up to 153,000 this financial year, to which you can add a planned intake of 13,000 for humanitarian reasons, and maybe 20,000 New Zealanders.

That doesn't count an increase in the number of skilled workers on class 457 "temporary long-stay" visas, nor the growing number of young people on working-holiday visas.

http://business.theage.com.au/rising-migrant-intake-com...s/20080303-1wli.html