Qld population explodes by equivalent of Mackay region

An extraordinary population spike has triggered warnings from experts about Queensland’s ability to keep pace with the growth.

Queensland Council of Social Service CEO Aimee McVeigh

Queensland’s population swell­ed by more than 134,000 in the past year – almost the equivalent of the number of people who live in the Mackay region.

The extraordinary population spike has prompted warnings from experts about the state’s ability to keep pace.

In the past two years, Queensland’s population has had an almost 5 per cent increase, with an extra 266,196.

The additional 134,696 people meant the state had the nation’s highest net interstate migration in the 12 months from March 2023.

Of those, 30,930 people came from interstate while 82,794 came from overseas. The only other state to record a positive increase in interstate migration was Western Australia with an extra 10,000 people.

Griffith University’s senior research fellow for social and cultural research, Dr Diti Bhattacharya, warned that the state government would struggle to keep up with the population boom at the current pace.

“The existing housing crisis has worsened because of interstate migration,” she said.

“If there is not a balance between the government addressing the crisis by building more houses and creating public housing and social housing, this problem is going to exacerbate.

“So, it’s not purely because of the migrants moving in, but the migrants moving in are becoming a major factor because the other factors aren’t being addressed as quickly as possible.”

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon

Queensland Council of Social Service chief executive Aimee McVeigh said the government needed to ensure there was enough housing and infrastructure.

“We do know that over the past decades, the successive governments at both the commonwealth and state level have failed to deliver sufficient housing to meet the needs of our growing population,” she said.

“And now what we’re seeing is the results of that, that we don’t have enough houses for our growing population, but at the same time, we do need to sustain migration.”

Logan City Council Mayor Jon Raven, whose area is one of the fastest-growing in the state, said it was critical that the state and federal governments helped councils.

“All growth councils have experienced the same thing – a critical sustainability challenge,” he said.

“For infrastructure, it means either rates go up or we go deep into debt, which means that there’s a limit to how much we can borrow.”

“And at that point, we would stop building infrastructure that we don’t have cash for.”

Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said the Homes for Queenslanders Plan and South East Queensland Regional Plan took into account population growth and would deliver the one million homes needed.

“Already, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that while the rest of the country has dipped, Queensland’s residential construction is on the up,” she said.

Originally published as Qld population explodes by equivalent of Mackay region