Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy has conceded the department did not anticipate the post-pandemic surge in migration, blaming the “frankly poor” forecasting performance to a failure to anticipate a sharp rise in foreign student numbers.
“Did Treasury get the numbers wrong? Yes. Temporary migration recovered from the pandemic much more rapidly than we anticipated,” Dr Kennedy said on Monday.
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Michael Read is the Financial Review's economics correspondent, reporting from the federal press gallery at Parliament House. He was previously an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and at UBS. Connect with Michael on Twitter. Email Michael at michael.read@afr.com
