Indians are now Australia’s largest migrant group, surpassing the English

BRUSSELS (TIP): Indians are now Australia’s largest migrant group, supplanting the English for the first time ever, in a change that highlights the rise of immigration as an increasingly contentious political issue. Some 971,020 people in Australia — or 5.2% of the population — were born in India, narrowly surpassing the 970,950 born in England, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The England-born population slipped from just over 1 million in 2013. The third-largest cohort comprises those born in China, at 732,000, followed by 638,000 from New Zealand. Migration has long been a key pillar of Australia’s economic growth, helping the country avoid recession since the early 1990s, aside from a brief contraction during the pandemic. The population fell in 2021 due to international border closures, but the share of overseas-born residents has steadily risen each year since, climbing to 32% in 2025 from 29.5% in 2022, according to the ABS. At the same time, immigration has become a political flashpoint as Australia grapples with its worst housing shortage in a generation.