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 per cent of the population – were born in India, narrowly surpassing the 970,950 born in England, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 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 major 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 per cent in 2025 from 29.5 per cent 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.