Australia's immigration numbers are falling further from the annual ceiling of one hundred and ninety thousand, an Home Office official said at a Senate review hearing on Tuesday.
As of April 30, the number of immigrants was 183608 in 2016-2017 and 138086 in 2017-2018, the official said.
This means that this fiscal year's intake will be about 20000 fewer than the annual ceiling.
Of these 138086, 91302 were skilled immigrants, 44193 were family visas and 2591 were children.
Immigration official Darcy (Christine Dacey) said: "this is likely to be lower than in the same period last year."
The data came from government's improved "censorship mechanism" for immigrants by connecting to the security database, said (Michael Pezzullo) Pezuro, the interior ministry's chief executive.
"when we connect previously independent immigration integrity risk systems to intelligence databases. "as your review mechanism is connected to more databases, you will find more 'doubts' that must be addressed."
Still, government advocates immigration as a key driver of job creation.
Peizuro told the hearing that Australia's population growth of more than 50% was driven by immigration.
A recent study by the Treasury and the Interior Department found that 2/3 of the net jobs created over the past five years were attributed to immigrants, with a more significant proportion of full-time jobs.
The joint report found that immigrants did not replace Australian workers.
"in fact, the study found little evidence that the employment outcomes of Australian-born people were harmed by immigrants." The report says.