Well, asylum-seekers are a massive political football at the moment, but they&#x27;re a drop in the bucket compared to other migration - Australia has 500k in and 300k out for an annual net migration of 200k in. Excluding kiwis, permanent migrants in are about 86k. Asylum-seekers are very much in the media, but they are also very not typical of the usual migrant situation here.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abs.gov.au&#x2F;ausstats&#x2F;abs@.nsf&#x2F;Latestproducts&#x2F;3412.0Main%20Features52013-14" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.abs.gov.au&#x2F;ausstats&#x2F;abs@.nsf&#x2F;Latestproducts&#x2F;3412....</a><p>With 28% of our population being born overseas, we&#x27;re doing integration okay (21% if you discount UK and kiwiland - and our #1 country of import in recent years is China). For comparison, the UK is 12% and the US is 14%. If you look at the current migrant rate (migrants&#x2F;1000 pop&#x2F;year), there are only two sizeable western countries higher than Australia, being Norway and Spain. If you exclude conflict areas, there are no other large countries higher than Australia[1].<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_countries_by_net_migra...</a><p>Basically, the WAP is dead as a dodo as of 40 years ago. The idea that Australia is an insular country afraid of immigration is clearly a myth once you look at the stats. Of course, that doesn&#x27;t sell newspapers.<p>In short, no, we haven&#x27;t gone backwards. We&#x27;re actually a success story, it&#x27;s just that we have a very visible wart on our nose at the moment (thank you, politics).<p>--<p>[1] this data is from 2014, which is before Germany took in 1% of it&#x27;s population in the form of Syrian refugees