Victoria again leads nation in population growth with 130,000 people added in a year
Victoria is again the No.1 state for population growth in Australia and Melbourne now has more people than all of Queensland. But our birth rate is far behind the leading state.
VIC News
Don't miss out on the headlines from VIC News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Victoria is still the population powerhouse of the nation, adding almost 130,000 people in a year, says a new report.
The state had 6.63 million residents as of September 30 last year after an annual 2 per cent growth rate.
By contrast, NSW grew by just 1.3 per cent, adding 102,000 people for a total population of 8.1 million, according to the ABS report Australian Demographic Statistics.
As revealed by the Herald Sun this month, Melbourne’s population, now about 5.2 million,
surpassed the whole of Queensland late last year and is on track to overtake Sydney in 2026.
Melbourne gets the lion’s share of overseas migration to Victoria, with arrivals from India and China dominating the intake.
The Indian-born influx has been so big that the state’s Indian migrant community is now bigger than the British, which was the traditional source of migrants for most of Australia’s history.
The ABS report said that Victoria had the biggest growth last year despite recording 23,000 fewer births than NSW.
It managed to maintain high numbers because it had 16,000 fewer deaths than NSW and also had bigger net gains in overseas and interstate migration.
For example, Victoria had a net gain of 11,629 people through interstate migration while NSW had a net loss of 22,245.
ABS demography director Beidar Cho said that last year Australia grew by 1.5 per cent, or 371,000 people, to reach 25.5 million residents.
“Natural increase accounted for 37.5 per cent of annual population growth, while net overseas migration accounted for the remaining 62.5 per cent,” he said.
There were 304,000 births and 165,300 deaths registered across the nation for the year ending September 30.
The Northern Territory was the only state or territory to suffer a population decline, losing 1400 people to have 245,600 residents.
Queensland grew by 1.7 per cent to reach 5.1 million, WA by 1.1 per cent to reach 2.63 million, SA by 0.9 per cent to 1.75 million and Tasmania by one per cent to 535,000.
The data in the report predate the recent bushfires and coronavirus outbreak, so are not affected by those events.
MORE NEWS
VICTORIA’S CORONAVIRUS TALLY TOPS 150
PM CLOSES BORDER TO NON-AUSSIE RESIDENTS