Back in March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its annual population estimates for the capital cities, which estimated that Melbourne’s population had risen by 108,000 people in the 2015-16 financial year and by just under one million people (27%) in the 12 years to 2016:
In the wake of the 2016 Census, the ABS on Friday released revised population numbers, which showed that Melbourne’s population had actually grown by an insane 127,175 (2.7%) in 2016:
As well as by nearly 1.1 million (30%) in the 12 years to 2016:
Micro-data from the ABS also revealed that the lion’s share of Melbourne’s population increase has occurred in the Northern and Western Suburbs:
We know that the Victorian Government last year projected that Melbourne’s population would grow by 97,000 people a year (1,850 people a week) for the next 35-years, adding an insane 3.4 million people to the city’s population – equivalent to 2.5 Adelaide’s:
And that this growth would come primarily from immigration:
Surely in light of the 2016 Census’ data, the Victorian Government will now have to ramp-up its population projections for Melbourne (to 9 million maybe?).
In light of this horrendous data, the State Opposition over the weekend warned of a congestion crisis and has called for a broad population debate. From the Herald-Sun:
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said Melbourne had a congestion crisis…
“The Government thinks that adding the population of Brisbane to Melbourne within the next 20 years can be accommodated simply by building one railway tunnel and dipping a few level crossings,” he said.
Mr Guy, who yesterday fronted a population forum in Bulleen, said the nation needed a population debate because it was the “biggest issue on Australians’ minds”.
“It’s a healthy thing to have … I don’t think we should shut down any Australian who wants to have a debate about the kind of Australia we want to be,” he said.
The Coalition wants more growth diverted from Melbourne to regional areas…
Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said: “Everyone hates congestion. It wastes precious time, frustrates people and hinders productivity.”
Spot on. The massive increase in Australia’s immigration program from the early-2000s was mismanaged from the get-go. There was never any community consultation on whether Australian citizens actually wanted a ‘Big Australia’, nor was any thought given to how cities like Melbourne and Sydney would cope with the population deluge. Instead, literally hundreds of thousands of people have been jammed into both cities, with the corresponding deleterious impacts on infrastructure, housing affordability, and overall livability.
Here’s a question for the ‘open borders’ ideologues like Peter Martin, Jessica Irvine, and Tom Westlakeland: How do you propose that our governments provide all of the economic and social infrastructure necessary to accommodate such rabid population growth in Melbourne and Sydney? Because the experience over the past 12 years of mass immigration has been one of monumental failure.
What makes you all so confident that the situation can be turned around over the next 35 years, thus ensuring Melbournians and Sydneysiders living standards are safeguarded?
The sad truth is that these ‘open borders’ ideologues have no practical ideas other than ‘grow and hope’. Never-ending mass immigration is unequivocally good because they say so. Bugger the lived experience on the ground.
