Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally, who gained the original figures in answer to a question in the Senate, warned of a "crisis" last week because of the scale of arrivals. But Immigration Minister David Coleman insisted the government was getting the issue under control and would reduce the number this year. Immigration Minister David Coleman (left) and Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reported the 95,000 total over five years, as disclosed to the Senate, and cited figures from July and August that showed Australia was on track to reach a new record this year. The original answer to Senator Keneally’s question, based on advice from officials in the Department of Home Affairs, said that 4037 people had arrived by air from July 1 to August 19 and applied for protection visas.

While this suggested more than 80 people had arrived each day during the 50 days from the start of the financial year, the government checked the dates and discovered it was wrong. The corrected answer, issued on Monday, said the 4037 people had arrived from July 1 to August 31 – a period of 62 days. This suggested the rate of arrivals was about 65 per day. If this rate is extrapolated over 365 days, the arrivals would fall below 24,000 for the current financial year, just below the level seen last year. The original and corrected figures both showed the number of asylum seekers who arrived by air climbed from 8562 in the 2015 fiscal year to 12,673 in 2016, 18,267 in 2017 and 27,884 in 2018. It fell to 24,520 in the year to June 2019.

This means the arrivals by air will soon surpass 100,000 under the Coalition since July 2014, double the 50,000 arrivals by boat when Labor was last in power. Senator Keneally criticised the government for getting the numbers wrong. "Not only has the government lost control of the borders at our airports, but also they’ve lost the ability to do basic maths and actually count the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia," she said. "The one number that matters and remains clear is this – 95,000 people have arrived in Australia by airplane and claimed asylum under the Liberals. This is almost double the number of boat arrivals between 2007 and 2013. "Nearly 90 per cent are found not to be refugees, but these people can remain in Australia for up to four years and work, often in low-paid and exploited situations."

Loading The Herald and The Age also reported last week that the time taken to decide the visa applications had blown out to two years for refugee cases on average, raising concerns that applicants had more time to seek illegal work in Australia while they waited. Mr Coleman said asylum seekers who arrived by air were different to those who arrived by boat because they did not put their lives at risk in the same way and came with documentation. "We know who those people are," he said last week. "They’ve arrived on valid visas with passports.