Matt Sinden and Whitney Tucker with their children Atlas, Kenzie and baby Scottie.Credit: Ross Swanborough
Western Australia’s population increases by one person roughly every six minutes and eight seconds, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ population clock.
The bureau boffins arrive at that figure by meshing what they know about the movements of people into and out of the state.
Some come from overseas; some leave; some try their luck on the east coast; some come west to find their fortunes; some shuffle off this mortal coil; others enter the world abruptly and screaming, often at a hospital – but not always.
The state ticked over 2 million people in March 2005 and since then, the dizzying ballet of human movement has marched our state to its next population milestone.
It would be virtually impossible to identify that person, but WAtoday has cast the net wider by speaking to some of the newest West Australians (or their parents) to find out what keeps the population clock ticking.
The lucky country
The state grew by a record 90,000 people in 2023 and the ABS’ latest figures for the year to March 2024 show the state’s growth rate of 3.1 per cent was the fastest in the nation.
Overseas migration is far and away the biggest driver of this extraordinary population growth.
The ABS algorithm
- One birth every 16 minutes and 44 seconds.
- One death every 29 minutes and 43 seconds.
- One person arriving to live in Western Australia every 6 minutes and 7 seconds.
- One Western Australia resident leaving to live overseas every 21 minutes and 56 seconds.
- One Australian resident migrating from another state to live in Western Australia every 14 minutes and 33 seconds.
- One Western Australia resident migrating to live in another state every 20 minutes and 8 seconds.
- An overall total population increase of one person every 6 minutes and 8 seconds.
According to the ABS’s latest statistics for the year to March 2024 net overseas migration – the result of overseas arrivals minus departures – was 64,902, nearly three quarters of the state’s total population increase.
One of those migrants is Subin Jose and his young family.
Jose, his wife Alphy and their three children migrated to WA from Kuwait and settled in Dianella in October last year.
The Indian-born couple got their opportunity to come to WA thanks to desperate global recruitment drives for our health system, which allowed Alphy to apply for a 186 visa through the national employer nomination scheme to work as a nurse at a major Perth hospital.
The whole process took three weeks, and Jose said Perth was an obvious choice for his family, but it was the sunny weather and employment prospects that were most alluring.
“We selected Perth for many reasons such as the climate is neither hot nor cold during the peak time – the temperature during summer we felt same as in Kuwait,” he said.
“Here, the employment opportunities are more compared to our hometown area.
“Also, it ensured more wages and minimum wages for work according to the qualification.”
Jose said the proximity of WA to India was also a positive, allowing them to bring their parents here on longer visas than they were allowed in Kuwait.
Baby love
Scottie Sinden was born on October 2 to mum Whitney and dad Matt, and is one of the 4 per cent of babies actually born on their due date.
She is also one of the more than 31,000 babies expected to be born in WA this year.
Scottie, her parents, her brother Atlas and sister Kenzie live an idyllic coastal lifestyle in Singleton south of Perth.
With both parents having been born and raised in WA, Matt is very familiar with the old phrase that “Perth is a great place to raise kids”.
He agrees.
“I haven’t lived anywhere else in Australia, but I’ve visited quite a bit. Melbourne seems to be very busy. Sydney seems to be very busy,” he said.
“I wouldn’t know any different but life’s good.”
However, after recently having to find a new rental in Perth, Matt is well aware of the growing pains the state’s rocketing population face on the ground.
Matt Sinden and Whitney Tucker with their children Atlas, Kenzie and baby Scottie.Credit: Ross Swanborough
“It’s not nice to know that people are struggling to find a rental,” he said.
In the year to March 2024 there were 31,914 babies born – this was offset by 17,830 deaths. At a net increase of 14,084 people, this makes the natural increase the second-biggest driver of population growth.
Interestingly, annual natural increases have remained relatively stable since 2005, staying around 14,000 before jumping to 18,000 from 2014 to 2016.
Like much of the Western world, WA’s fertility rate – the number of registered births per woman – has been declining. In 2013, it was 1.89. Now it is 1.57.
For the Sindens, their family unit is now double the WA average family size of 2.5 people.
“I haven’t missed anything about Sydney and I don’t think I ever will.”
Rob Reeves
“Whitney and I have always thought two kids wasn’t enough,” Matt said.
“There was a point where we wanted two, but we didn’t want to get to a certain age and wish we had more.”
Escaping the Sydney grind
Priya and Rob Reeves moved to Perth from Sydney last month because it allowed Rob to escape the Sydney “hamster wheel”.
“Rob was needing a lifestyle change in terms of the daily grind, we lived about 60 kilometres from the CBD, so his daily commute would be nearly two hours each way,” Priya said.
Interstate migration added 10,039 people to WA in the year to March, but it remains the least-prominent driver of population growth.
Being intrinsically linked to the state of the economy, it is also very volatile – when the economy is on fire people flock from the east, and when it dies down, they leave the state in droves.
Rob Reeves, his wife Priya, and their daughters Layla (5) and Grace (5 months).Credit: Colin Murty
The state of the economy now has driven net overseas migration growth to the same heights it reached in 2012 during the mining and construction boom, but in 2016-17 there was a net decrease of 13,934 people escaping the state’s high unemployment rate.
Rob, a human resources manager for a national contracting firm, said the family got a bigger house closer to the city than they would have for the same price in Sydney.
Priya is originally from WA, but it was Rob’s first time living west and he hasn’t regretted his choice.
“Everything was just rush, and that’s just the Sydney grind,” he said.
“You stick your head up, and you’re like, ‘Oh, God, I’ve just lost five years’, and all I did was do the same routine every day.
“I haven’t missed anything about Sydney and I don’t think I ever will.
“It served me for a long point in time, but I got to a point where my needs are different, and that’s all focused on kids now and being present and just taking a bit of a step back.
“WA has offered us that.”
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