Australia is set to issue, for the first time, more than 5 million visas this year, presenting a range and scale of policy challenges not seen since World War II.

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.

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.

"We face no less a set of challenges than our predecessors did in the aftermath of the Second World War," said Mr Pezzullo, in a speech at the Australian National University on Tuesday night.

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