Let’s take a top level look at Sydney for a moment. According to the Census, the city was home to 5,029,768 people as at 2016, which followed 12 years of hyper-growth, whereby Sydney’s population increased by 845,000 or 20%:
Few living in Sydney would argue that the city is functioning effectively at its current size. Sydney’s roads are hideously congested, its trains and buses are sardine-packed, and housing is among the most expensive in the world.
And yet, some are now suggesting that Sydney’s population could hit 9 million people mid-century if current mass immigration levels are maintained. From The Daily Telegraph:
AUSTRALIA’S population is booming and expected to hit almost 25 million next year, more than 30 years ahead of official forecasts…
A 1998 Australian Bureau of Statistics forecast had the country on track for a population of 24.9 million by 2051 but it will hit that level by the middle of next year.
Growth is more than 2½ times that anticipated and, at current rates, there will be 38 million Aussies by the middle of this century.
Sydney is on track to reach nine million people by 2051, nearly three million more than predicted in 1998.
“If we’re wondering why our cities are groaning with insufficient infrastructure, it’s because the planners have been going off the wrong numbers,” social researcher Mark McCrindle said
“Australia’s population growth is now one of the highest in the developed world. We have added 390,000 people in the past 12 months.”
In 1998, the ABS believed the net arrivals from other countries would be between 70,000 and 90,000 per year. But 231,900 migrants came in the past 12 months.
… the major factor that has blown out previous population modelling has been the rise and rise of Australia’s net overseas migration,” Mr McCrindle said.
Modelling suggested there would be 29,000 people added to the NSW population each year, but last year there were 116,000.
Committee for Sydney director of advocacy James Hulme said the city’s booming population was a positive.
“We should be seeing it as a positive that so many people want to live and work here,” he said.
NSW Property Council executive director Jane Fitzgerald said Sydney needed to maximise the the benefits of population growth…
University of Sydney Professor of Planning Glen Searle, however, said the country needed to have an “honest debate” on whether the growth is sustainable…
“Government and business alike promote the positives of population growth and downplay the negatives,” he said.
A similar theme was picked up at The Border Mail:
Australias latest ABS figures estimate the national population will be close to double by 2050, hitting 50 million. Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth’s populations will double…
Our cities are already groaning under the pressure of rapid growth, with a serious lag in infrastructure. Australia is growing faster in percentage terms than almost all developed economies…
Obviously those of us who live in the countryside have an enviable buffer to our city counterparts, but it’s pretty scary to think our carefree way of life may change for the worse. We will need some forward planning and visionary leadership to successfully plan for our future.
Last year, Bernard Salt forecast that Sydney’s and Melbourne’s populations would hit more than 8 million people mid-century and some 11 million people by the end of the century, with Perth and Brisbane also morphing into mega-cities:
We all know what is driving this population surge: the federal government’s ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration program. Heck, the Productivity Commission’s own forecasts show that Australia’s population would hit just 27 million people by 2060 under zero net overseas migration (NOM), more than 13 million fewer than Australia’s current 200,000 strong mass immigration intake:
Why are our policy makers pursuing this mass immigration path when living standards in the big cities of Sydney and Melbourne are unequivocally deteriorating as the population influx overwhelms both infrastructure and housing?
Sydney and Melbourne are barely coping with populations around 5 million. They will grind to halt if Australia’s current mass immigration program continues.
