Engaging our population on population
As Australia’s population passes the 25 million milestone, our nation’s future rests with our cities, says the Property Council’s Ken Morrison.
Over the past three years, Australia’s population has grown by around 400,000 people a year, an increase fuelled by immigration and natural increases.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics population clock, we add one new resident to the nation every 83 seconds. A migrant arrives on average every two minutes, with the largest number coming from India and China.
At the start of the 20thcentury, Australia was home to 3.5 million people – fewer people than reside in either of our two largest cities today.
Two in every five Australian residents now live in either Sydney or Melbourne. The Harbour City has a population of 5.1 million people, but Melbourne boasts 4.9 million people and is growing at a faster rate.
Morrison says reaching 25 million people should be a catalyst for Australia’s city-building agenda.
“Australia’s future rests overwhelmingly with our cities and their ability to become high amenity, high liveability engines of our economy,” Morrison says.
“Population targets, decentralisation policies or adjusting immigration rates can’t allow us to take our eyes off the main game – which must be our ability to create great cities for current and future generations of Australians.”
Earlier this year, the Property Council released ‘Creating Great Australian Cities’, a series of reports that highlighted the escalating economic importance of cities.
The report also made recommendations based on the experience of other fast-growing cities that are already capturing a greater share of business, immigration, visitors, talent and capital flow.
Australian cities can lay claim to several strengths: economic performance investment attraction, higher education opportunities and natural environment.
However, these strengths were outweighed by weaknesses in several areas critical to success in the metropolitan century. These included transport congestion, fragmented systems of governance, below-average infrastructure investment and limited institutions to manage growth.
Morrison says Australia must “plan for a growing future”, and that means establishing “smarter systems of governance to capture the full potential of the metropolitan century while sustaining the quality of life and access to services that Australians value”.
“Any population policy that doesn’t strengthen Australia’s ability to create great cities of the future is completely missing the mark,” Morrison concludes.
Download Creating Great Australian Cities.