Glenn looks into the latest population data for the March quarter from the ABS, which reveals that, even before Australia had felt the full brunt of border closures and the other impacts of COVID-19, there were some interesting population trends, including a slowing of the growth rate of Victoria’s population, which has been Australia’s fastest-growing state for several years.
Australia’s population grew in the March Quarter 2020, to reach 25,649,985 people – an increase of 357,018 people, or 1.4% in the previous year, and 113,912, or 0.45% in just one quarter.
Australian Demographic Statistics – March 2020 – is the first ABS population data release to show the effect of COVID-19 and border closures, but it only shows the very start of it. The name “COVID-19” was only given to the disease halfway through this quarter (11 Feb), and also in February, the government required arrivals from China to quarantine before arrival. The closure of Australia’s international border and effective suspension of overseas migration only happened on March 20th, right at the end of the March quarter.
There is very little effect of this seen in the March quarter figures. We will have to wait for the June quarter data to see the expected major downturn in population growth caused by minimal overseas migration.
For the March quarter, Net Overseas Migration was 78,503 people, bringing the annual total to 220,510, down from about 250,000 the previous year, but still historically quite high. And despite border closures late in March, the quarterly NOM was only 5,000 less than the previous March quarter.
There is a definite slowing of population growth, but this was already seen in the December quarter figures – it’s not due to COVID-19. Here are the figures by state and territory, showing the current population and growth over the past 2 years.
Delving a little further into the figures, there are a few interesting points:
- Victoria’s population growth rate of 1.77% annually is the slowest growth in the state since 2011. Victoria has been the fastest-growing state for the past 7 years, and remains so, but only just ahead of Queensland for the year ended March 2020 – and for the quarter, Queensland had a higher percentage growth, at 0.52%. It’s likely that Victoria will lose this title from the next quarter.
- Net interstate migration into Victoria for March 2020 was just 590 people, the lowest of any quarter since 2012. Queensland is now getting about 24,000 net interstate migrants per annum, around 3 times as many as Victoria in the last year, and by far the highest of any state or territory. NSW interstate migration is strongly negative as usual (more people leave NSW than arrive), at approximately 22,000 people in the last year.
- Northern Territory’s population change continues to decline over the year, but for the March quarter, there was a slight increase, turning around the declines of the past few years.
- South Australia’s growth is increasing. Generally one of the slower-growing states, SA has exceeded 1% annual growth for the first time in 8 years.
- Western Australia has had very slow growth since the end of the mining boom in 2014. But in the year to March 2020, it added 1.5%, or 39,628 people, more than double the growth rate seen at the low point in 2016. The annual growth rate for WA has increased every quarter for the past 10 quarters, as interstate migration losses fall from a peak of about 12,000 p.a. down to 3,000 p.a now. Overseas migration into WA also substantially increased in March, so this will be one to watch once the border closures take effect in the data.
- Still around two-thirds (~140,000 out of 220,000) of overseas migration goes into NSW and Victoria. So these states are likely to show the largest downturn in population growth once the border closures are more evident in the data next quarter.
So there are certainly interesting trends in the data – even if we can’t yet see the real effects of the pandemic on population numbers. The next quarterly data will tell the story (due for release in December) – we know that overseas migration will be heavily down, but interstate migration remains a mystery. Will varying levels of shutdown between states and territories drive people to move interstate? Or will border closures lead to more people staying put? And early next year we get the update for local areas, which feeds into .id’s community profiles and may show more trends like movement into rural and regional areas due to increased working from home.
At this point, it’s a lot of conjecture. Watch this space!
