Victoria loses thousands of people to interstate, overseas due to coronavirus

Covid-19 has seen Victoria lose tens of thousands of people to overseas and interstate, mainly Queensland, new data reveals.

Victoria lost residents to other states and overseas in the past year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Covid-weary Victorians fled the state in droves in 2020, with Queensland the big beneficiary.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed ­anaemic growth in the nation’s population last year as the closing of the international border ­reduced immigration to a trickle.

The national population grew just 0.5 per cent, or 136,000 people, in 2020, with migration contributing just 3250 people, the ABS found. This compares with net migration of about a quarter of million people in recent years.

Victoria, a state that usually gains people from overseas ­migration, lost a net 19,000 people overseas in 2020.

It also saw big shifts in interstate migration. Normally attracting more than 10,000 people a year from other states, Victoria in 2020 saw 12,700 more people head interstate than arrive. Only natural increase, babies born minus deaths, kept Victoria’s population from contracting in 2020.

The Victorian population grew by just 700 people overall.

South Australia and Western Australia, which usually lose ­people to the eastern states, saw a net increase from interstate ­migration, but Queensland was the go-to state for Australians, ­receiving 29 per cent of all interstate migration arrivals.

Graphic: The Australian

Covid-19 had a dramatic ­impact on net overseas migration, which was down 98.7 per cent compared with 2019. Almost all the movement was before April.

“There were 243,500 overseas migration arrivals and 240,200 ­departures during the year ending 31 December, 2020, resulting in net overseas migration of 3300 people,” the ABS article, Population Change in 2020, said.

“Just over half of these movements were in the three months to March 2020, prior to the closure of Australia’s international border.”

Even the natural increase component of the population was lower in 2020, which saw 294,400 births and 161,400 deaths.

The 133,000 natural increase was 4.5 per cent lower than the previous year.

New ABS migration data for the year ending June 30, 2020, says 7.6 million migrants now live in Australia, with 30 per cent of the total population born overseas.