Simon Kuestenmacher, Co-Founder & Director, The Demographics Group
As the pandemic recedes and migration resumes, Australia has continued to head towards a population of 30 million, slightly delayed to 2023 due to the pandemic.
That is according to The Centre for Population’s annual Population Statement released in the first week of the new year, which forecasts an older Australia where the average age to be 40.1 years while the fertility rate is predicted to fall further, from 1.66 to 1.62 children per woman.
Its number, 29.6 million by 2032 differs from the UN Population Report from last year, which put the number at 28.7 million. That is a difference of 902,000 people.
Demographics Group Co-Founder Simon Kuestenmacher said the Centre for Population’s numbers are likely to be set higher due to the nature of links to the Treasury, but that despite this, he believes we will end up closer to the Population Statement, rather than the UN statement.
“I’m very, very optimistic about this,” he said.
“I in no way or form, believe any negative talk where we say the brand Australia has been hurt by Melbourne having been the lockdown capital of the world for some time. Nobody talks about it anymore and, in Australia, we overestimate traditionally how much the world cares about Australia.”
Despite his optimistic outlook, Mr Kuestenmacher said a big problem putting the numbers in doubt, is Australia’s inefficient visa system that is overly expensive and burdensome.
“They’re working on this…so let’s be optimistic and say we fix this,” he said.
“There’s still a couple more problems. One of the problems is that there is competition for migration. Largely, we’re talking about international education here.
“Countries have outdone us. Quite frankly, we make it too complicated, too cumbersome, too expensive to move from a student visa, for example, to permanent residency that is outrageously expensive.”
According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics late last year, overseas migration contributed a net gain of 171,000 to Australia’s population in the year ending 30 June 2022.
In contrast, the 2020-21 financial year had seen a net loss of 85,000 people which represented the lowest level of net overseas migration since World War 1.
Jenny Dobak, ABS Head of Migration Statistics said traditionally more people have migrated into rather than out of Australia and that while the pandemic created a blip, we are seeing a return to pre-pandemic norms.
Nationally, migrant arrivals rose 171 per cent when compared with last year (395,000 from 146,000), while migrant departures fell 3 per cent (224,000 from 231,000)
From 2015-16 to 2019-20, the average number of migrant arrivals per year was 523,000, with 61 per cent entering on temporary visas.
This number fell to 20 per cent in 2020-21, but it rose to 61 per cent in 2021-22. In 2021-22, migrant arrivals for permanent visa holders increased by 84 per cent compared to 2020-21.
In November 2022 there were 33,080 international student arrivals to Australia, an increase of 32,300 students compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, 13.5 per cent lower than the pre-COVID levels in November 2019.
The data came after the Albanese Government announced an increase to Australia’s permanent migration cap from 160,000 to 195,000, a move that was welcomed by the Property Council of Australia.
Mr Kuestenmacher said our overseas net migration (NOM) figure should be linked to a housing target.
“We really want to get building housing stock as much as possible,” he said.
“Building supply needs to be amped up and any policy, any incentive that encourages additional building stock is good in my books. Anything that does not directly help this is wasted time wasted money, wasted energy.
“I’m thinking of stuff like every local government area gets a housing target, if you fail, your council gets funding withheld or put under administration.
“This is a very rough approach. This is an approach that local governments will not like. But that’s the kind of things that I’m seeing increasingly become necessary.”