Surging numbers of students, tourists and workers on short-term visas mean that as many as 1.9 million foreigners are likely to be in the country at any one time over the course of 2015, according to Michael Pezzullo, Secretary of the Department of Immigration.

Over the year, more than 5 million visas are expected to be issued this year, said Mr Pezzullo, in a speech at the Australian National University (and reported in The Australian). Although over three quarters of those numbers will be tourists, the number of traditional permanent migrants is also surging, with this year's intake likely to surpass the existing record of 185,000, which was set in 1969.

Mr Pezzulo pointed to a rapid shift in the ethnic composition of new migrants away from Europe towards east and southern Asia.

The number of Chinese-born Australians has more than tripled to almost 450,000 in the space of two decades, he said.

Those born in India has risen more than four-fold in that time, to almost 400,000. 

Those numbers compare to about 1.2 million born in Britain and more than 600,000 in New Zealand, as part of an overall foreign-born population of 6.6 million.

The huge influx means a higher proportion of the population was born overseas than at any time since the gold rushes of the 19th century. 

"This is equivalent to a migrant-to-population share of almost 28 per cent," said Mr Pezzullo. "And the composition of that population is changing in ways that the proponents of 'White Australia' could never have imaged."

He also noted a profound shift towards skilled migrants, which was carefully targeted to meet the nation's economic needs.

"If a nation's immigration programme is well crafted and targeted, and migrants enjoy high levels of economic participation, as distinct from high levels of social exclusion and welfare-dependency, immigration has beneficial impacts in terms of growth in the demand for goods and services; increases in national income, and living standards; improved labour participation; expansion of the economy's productive capacity; and growth in household consumption and public revenues," Mr Pezzullo said.