Melbourne’s growth is likely to have been impeded by the pandemic.Credit:Paul Rovere
“There’s still strong capital city growth,Melbourne is growing strongly,” Dr Wilson said.
“A lot of regional areas are not growing so strongly,a few regional towns is where population growth is holding up with scenic coastal areas doing well but that’s been going on for years.”
Dr Wilson said Tuesday’s data release only captured the first three months of Australia’s COVID crisis.
“The 2019 to 2020 data is probably three-quarters of a year of growth because everything stops,in terms of international migration in March last year,” he said.
“So we don’t have much of the COVID story yet,in those population figures.”
The nation’s capitals added 245,000 residents through 2019-20,the smallest number since 2010-11.
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Of Australia’s 25.6 million residents,17.4 million,or 67.7 per cent,now live in capital cities.
But an increasing number of people are prepared to live outside the capitals.
Geelong,grew by 2.4 per cent over the 12 months,taking its population beyond 282,000. Ballarat’s population grew 1.7 per cent to almost 110,000 while Bendigo added 1500 residents to 102,500.
Across NSW,coastal centres such as Ulladulla (2.3 per cent to almost 17,000),St Georges Basin (1.6 per cent to 19,900),Port Macquarie (1.6 per cent to 49,500) and Ballina (1.7 per cent to 27,000) all easily grew faster than Sydney.
Major inland centres including Albury-Wodonga (with more than 96,000 residents) and Goulburn (24,382 residents) also added people more quickly than Sydney.
Queensland’s beach lifestyle continues to attract residents. The Gold Coast’s population swelled by 2.3 per cent through the year to almost 710,000,while the Sunshine Coast grew 2.1 per cent to almost 348,000 residents.
While the growth in residents for most capital cities slowed in 2019-20,both Adelaide and Perth defied the trend. Adelaide added 16,127 residents,its largest addition in more than three years,while Perth added 37,559 residents.
Even before the COVID crisis,Darwin was suffering from a flow of residents out of the city. It has shed people for a fourth consecutive year,with its population back to where it stood in 2016.