Beowulf
Juniors
- Messages
- 720
I thinks its about 6 months old. Is promising if true, but not sure who paid for the survey - thats the clincher. If independent, then its credible providing the sample size was large enough, say over 1000.
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PEOPLE are fleeing NSW at the rate of 50 packed cars a day. Figures show that NSW and South Australia are the only states experiencing significant net interstate emigration.
The figures show Queensland is the destination of choice for those leaving NSW, followed by Victoria and Western Australia.
The NSW population is growing at the third-slowest rate in the nation. Its birthrate is the second- lowest, ahead of only Victoria's. NSW's proud boast of being the biggest beneficiary of net overseas immigration is no longer true, Victoria having become No. 1 last June.
Only in raw immigration numbers does NSW remain an Australian leader, with 36,400 overseas arrivals in the September quarter, well above Victoria's 28,200.
The picture that emerges from Bureau of Statistics figures is of a state Australians move to and leave. About 19,000 Australians moved to NSW between the June and September quarters, and 21,000 left. In contrast Queensland, which also had 19,000 arrivals, had only 9000 departures.
Western Australia is the fastest growing state, boosting its population at an annual rate of 2.2 per cent, followed by Queensland (1.6 per cent) and Victoria (1.5 per cent). NSW is fourth at 1.2 per cent, ahead of South Australia and Tasmania.
The bulk of WA population growth comes from overseas. A net 6900 immigrants moved there in the September quarter, and only 1200 Australians left.
Australia's annual population growth rate of 1.57 per cent is the slowest for four years, well down on the long-term high of 2.16 per cent reached at the tail end of the previous mining boom.
Net immigration was just 185,800 in the year to September, almost the weakest for four years and down 40 per cent on the peak.
It appeared fewer people were ''willing to move to Australia and more are voting with their feet and moving offshore'', an economist for the Commonwealth Bank, Michael Workman, said.
''If the trend continues, annual net migration could be headed under 150,000. The government might seek to turn the slide around by boosting skilled migration.''
The slide in population growth comes as the Population Minister, Tony Burke, prepares to issue a report on a sustainable population strategy for Australia, commissioned at a time when growth was much faster. Both sides of politics eschewed talk of a ''big Australia'' during last year's election campaign when Mr Burke was briefly titled minister for sustainable population.
In a report to be issued this morning, the business advisory firm PKF warns that population growth is slowing as the need for workers is exploding.
PKF's national director, Matthew Field, said the slowdown meant ''workers will become harder to find, putting pressure on wages, inflation and eventually interest rates as smaller businesses struggle to compete for workers with larger employers''.
The report says the trend will become more pronounced as ageing baby boomers retire from the workforce, marking the start of a population slowdown that could last a generation
