NSW residents leaving...ZT

NSW residents leaving in their droves
By Jessica Irvine
September 23, 2005

NSW had the biggest population exodus of any state last year when 26,900 people left, most of them to Queensland. As Australia's most heavily populated state, NSW is struggling to keep pace with the national rate of population growth.

NSW's population growth is 0.7 per cent compared with a national rate of 1.1 per cent, according to the latest population figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

"NSW risks falling further behind other states and territories," the chief economist at CommSec, Craig James, warned yesterday.

"If the exodus of people from NSW … gathers pace, businesses may also seek to relocate, leading to less investment, jobs and spending," he said.

With a population of 6.8 million, NSW is still home to a third of Australians. Its status as the most populous state is unlikely to be challenged for at least 50 years, the bureau predicts.

But the bureau also notes a national trend to stay put. Despite the NSW exodus, and except for an increase in people leaving South Australia and a rise in migration to Western Australia, Australians were more likely than a year ago to stay where they were.

The total number of people moving interstate each year has contracted by about 10 per cent since 2003.

Like most other states, departures from NSW have slowed. About 4000 fewer people left in the year to March than in the corresponding period last year.

The bureau's quarterly demographic snapshot calculated Australia's total population at just less than 20.3 million. It predicts the population will exceed 30 million by 2050. However, if the fertility rate keeps falling, that target may not be met.

With Australian women now giving birth to an average of only 1.76 children in a lifetime, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, population growth relies on immigration. The bureau warns that if the national fertility rate falls to 1.4 and immigration does not increase, the population could enter a period of sustained contraction - the first in Australia's history - after reaching a peak of 23 million in 2040.

But figures for "hatches" and "dispatches" have proved overly pessimistic the old adage that "for every death there is a birth". Rather, about two babies are born for each death.

In the year to March, 131,600 deaths were recorded, compared with 251,900 babies born.

A truer catchphrase is that for every death there is an international migrant arriving. Net overseas migration brought 110,000 people to Australia in the past year.

The bureau estimates that a baby is born every two minutes, a person dies every four minutes and one migrant arrives every four minutes.

Northern Territorians have the most babies, with 2.27 births for each woman. For ACT women, it is 1.63 births.

NSW is ranked in the middle of the eight states and territories for fertility, mortality and child mortality.

Infant mortality in the Northern Territory is still double the national average at nine deaths per 1000 births, the highest in the country.