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Overseas migration falls as interstate migration grows

According to new research from the Housing Industry Association, (HIA), the pace of population growth in Australia has continued to slow down during the 2014/2015 year.

However in spite of this the sale of new homes in Australia remains strong, even though sales sit below peak levels.

Looking closely at figures released by the ABS, the population of Australia at the end of June 2015 reached 23.78 million people. This population level has actually increased by approximately 317,000 people over the year and works out to be an annual growth of 1.4 per cent.

In contrast, net overseas migration during this time period saw an extra 168,183 people come to Australia to live; however this number is down 11.4 per cent when compared to the previous year.

Natural population growth (births minus deaths) also resulted in an increase in the population numbers of 148,900 people, and is actually a decline of 5.1 per cent on the year ago level.

According to HIA Economist Geordan Murray, “the pace of population growth has gradually been slowing since 2012 and today’s figures confirm this trend continued in the first half of 2015. During the 2014/15 year we saw a lower contribution from ‘natural’ population growth, although the overall slowing was primarily driven by a reduced contribution from net overseas migration.”

“While the overall rate of population growth has slowed, there are variations around the states which are generally aligned with the divergent performances of the state economies. Both New South Wales and Victoria hosted the strongest rates of population growth in the year to June 2015, recording growth of 1.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively. Nevertheless both were marginally slower than a year ago.”

Mr Murray also added, “The resource states that experienced strong growth during the mining boom are now seeing the back of the wave. Population growth in Western Australia has dropped to the slowest rate since 2003 and is experiencing a growing net outflow of interstate migrants. The Northern Territory has followed the same path as Western Australia, while Queensland’s population growth rate has dropped to its slowest rate in more than 25 years.”

Population growth in South Australia also slowed down to 0.8 per cent, whilst in the ACT, the annual rate of population growth actually increased to 1.4 per cent, whilst Tasmania also saw an increase of 0.4 per cent.

New South Wales and Victoria will continue to see a steady population growth due to Sydney being an important global city, whilst Melbourne has been named the world’s most liveable city for five years running by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) liveability survey.

Sydney is also Australia’s most populated city and is expected to reach a population of 5 million people this year, whilst Melbourne is expected to overtake Sydney’s population in 2056 to become Australia’s biggest city where each city will be home to over 8 million people.

The trend that we are noticing now is that people are moving more interstate, particularly to Victoria and less are actually arriving from abroad and Victoria has actually recorded its highest net interstate migration in more than 40 years, according to figures from the ABS.

Victoria has seen its population continuously grow since 2011 with a net gain of 9,300 over the last year alone. Interestingly, most of these people migrated from Sydney.
Published on 4th of January 2016 by Marty Stanowich
Marty Stanowich
Marty Stanowich

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