He’s one in 25 million – ‘a gift to Australia’

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ population clock has struck 25 million, and this healthy baby boy may have been the one.

Shravanthi Vooturi with her newborn son at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital. Picture: Hollie Adams.

When Australia’s population hit 25 million, it was not ­entirely clear whether that would be through migration or birth — so Indian-Australian couple Shravanthi and Anil Vooturi had a bet each way, welcoming a healthy baby boy at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital.

While unaware the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ population clock had been steadily clicking over to the magic number, they said it was “very exciting for us” that their son, as yet unnamed, might have been the one.

“I feel so lucky,” Ms Vooturi said, calling him her “gift” to join five-year-old brother Arya. “Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter. We are so happy,” she said.

The pair’s story — migrants who start a family here — is the overwhelming theme at Westmead, where 70 per cent of women who give birth are born overseas. Ms Vooturi, 33, migrated to Australia from India in 2011 after marrying her husband, 39, who had moved to Sydney in 2003. After they return from hospital, Ms Vooturi will stay at home to care for her sons and Mr Voot­uri will return to work as a client service manager at a business maintenance company.

Westmead has also seen a 50 per cent increase in births over the past five years, giving it the highest number of any hospital in the state, a spokeswoman said. On an average day, 16 children are born at the hospital.

 

The bureau has a “population clock” on its website, which notes one birth every 102 seconds, one death every three minutes and 16 seconds, one migrant arriving every 61 seconds and one resident leaving to live overseas every 111 seconds.

The population ticked over to 24 million in January 2016 and is expected to reach 26 million in three years. In 1901, 36 per cent of Australians lived in capital cities and 64 per cent in other urban or rural areas. By last year this had ­reversed, with 67 per cent living in capital cities.

Ms Vooturi said she hoped her son’s life in a multicultural Australia would involve being treated equally and he would “treat and look after everyone the same way”. “It doesn’t matter what their ­religion is,” she said.

The young family was joined at the hospital by Ms Vooturi’s parents, who described their grandson’s birth as the family’s “gift to Australia”.