Unofficial Australian migration settings simulator
Can migration pay its way?
Test how Australia's migration settings change the balance between fiscal dividend, skills use, education exports, housing demand, and capital-city pressure.
Narrative
The useful question is not just how many people arrive.
It is whether the mix of migrants, the speed of skills use, and the pace of housing delivery are moving together. Strong migration settings create capacity; weak settings can turn the same flow into pressure.
Migration balance
Higher is better. A-E is a plain school-style grade for the current settings.
61 /100
Grade C Balanced but tight
At 61/100, benefits still lead, but the buffer is thin. The long-term dividend scores 71 against pressure of 52, so the scenario is positive but still tight on housing and city capacity.
Dividend stack 71
Pressure stack 52
What the levers mean
The 0-100 balance score compares an economic dividend stack with a capacity-pressure stack. The score improves when the permanent program selects more skilled primary applicants, when overseas skills are used quickly, and when housing delivery can absorb the added demand. It falls when high volume, student arrivals, and capital-city concentration add pressure faster than capacity expands.
The underlying ABS, Treasury, Budget, housing, education, and Home Affairs references are collected on the Sources page.