I’m not sure whether I should feel disappointed or elated that I didn’t receive a scolding email from the Australian Bureau of Statistics admonishing me about the use – misuse according to the good folk down at the ABS – of official migration figures.

To be sure, I hadn’t specifically referenced the recent release of the publication, Overseas Arrivals and Departures, which incidentally shows monthly net permanent and long-term arrivals figures rising to record levels. But I do write a lot about migration.

Other commentators did receive an ever-so-polite – OK, blunt – rebuke from ABS Media, including Leith van Onselen at Macrobusiness, and the Institute of Public Affairs. ‘Our data experts have raised concern about the information you’ve used.’

It was even suggested to van Onselen that he might want to ‘update the online story’ that read as follows: ‘Last week, the ABS reported the strongest net permanent and long-term arrivals over the first six months of any year on record.’

By way of background, let me explain.  The ABS has three key publications on migration: Overseas Arrivals and Departures, issued monthly, and Overseas Migration and National, State and Territory Population.  These last two are issued quarterly with long lags of between 6 and 9 months. The first publication sources its figures differently from the other two, but there is strong correlation between all the figures.

Let’s be clear about the import of this development. The ABS, a statutory authority, is essentially running interference for the government because it wants to be seen to be in control of net migration and has a plan to reduce net overseas migration as outlined in the Budget. What van Onselen is suggesting, quite rightly, is that these monthly figures indicate that net overseas migration is increasing again.

As Morgan Begg, Director of Research at the IPA, has pointed out: ‘The government’s own Centre for Population (located in Treasury) notes in its official handbook, Fundamentals of Migration in Australia concepts and measurements, the ABS overseas arrivals and departures data is ‘an early indicator of future migration flows’.

And give me a more general break here: lots of commentary using ABS data is open to challenge. The monthly labour force figures are routinely misrepresented. Ditto the monthly CPI figures. ABS Media doesn’t send out warnings to every commentator when contestable interpretations are offered up.

Let’s also be clear on another issue: it wasn’t some low-level public servant working in ABS Media that took the decision to issue this threatening email. This will have come from the top or near the top. Note that the position of Chief Statistician is a statutory appointment that is confirmed by cabinet.

If there were ever a tactic likely to backfire, it was this. Telling attentive and astute commentators that they have made a mistake and should publicly make a correction is a highway to exposure and contempt. It feeds into the impression of a government seeking to hide the truth from punters, knowing full well that the explosion in migrant numbers since 2022-23 is deeply unpopular with most of the population.

We know this from multiple surveys, with the majority of people keen to see the migrant intake significantly reduced. It’s not just about the dire shortage of housing and its rising cost; it’s also about congestion, pressure on services and the loss of social cohesion, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney.

According to this year’s budget, the government expects the figure for net overseas migration (long-term arrivals minus long-term departures) to be 435,000 this financial year; 335,000 in 2025-26 and 260,000 in 2026-27. These figures contrast with the net overseas migration recorded in 2022-23 of 536,000.

The reality is that the government is very unlikely to meet these targets, having failed to meet previous, ambitious lower targets. The pressures from universities, from property developers, from some employer groups for the government to pump up, or at least maintain, the migrant intake are very powerful.

There is also the likely advice of Treasury that, absent substantial net overseas migration feeding into population growth, GDP growth will be extremely sluggish, particularly if productivity doesn’t pick up, as seems likely. We have already endured many quarters of negative per capita GDP growth.

It is entirely possible that a technical recession – two successive quarters of negative GDP growth – could result from negative growth in working hours. This is not an outcome that the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, would welcome.

There are lessons in this story from the UK, a story that is now reaching a crescendo. One of the reasons that the Brexit vote succeeded related to widespread aversion to uncontrolled migration from the EU.

But instead of heeding this lesson, the hapless Tory government allowed close to uncontrolled migration to continue but with the migrants coming from other parts of the world – India, China and Nigeria, in particular. Net overseas migration in the UK soared and this only counted legal migrants. Virtually all the job vacancies in the UK in the ‘care economy’ have been filled by recent migrants.

Add in the steadily increasing flow of illegal migrants – the government prefers the term ‘irregular’ – who are then housed, fed and watered courtesy of the UK taxpayer and the scene has been set for a massive political backlash centred on migration.

It is also one of the principal reasons for the soaring popularity of Nigel Farage and the Reform party, which is taking a strong line on migration, both legal and illegal. If the polls are to be believed, Farage stands a good chance of becoming the next UK prime minister as the Tory party sinks to a new level of irrelevance

Back home, the Albanese government is not really committed to reducing the migrant intake, notwithstanding its mutterings and its numerical targets. The Education Minister, Jason Clare, recently increased the annual cap on international student numbers by 25,000.

Even so, the massively overpaid vice-chancellors continue to bleat about universities being underfunded and needing the revenue from international students to fund ‘vital’ research. I guess that’s because the depiction of gender in Icelandic poetry is a vital research area.

Various self-serving employer groups will also complain about persistent skill shortages and beg the government to permit the easy entry of migrants to fill these positions. The obvious response – and one on which the government should insist – is for the affected employers to fund training programs to ensure a supply of locals to fill these jobs.

If those occupying the ABS C-suite thought they were being helpful to the government by questioning the use being made of its migration numbers, they were sadly mistaken. They have undermined both the integrity and independence of the agency.  It will be difficult for its reputation to be restored.