Population ponzi swamps Melbourne’s Blue Ribbon inner-east

By Leith van Onselen

I have argued previously how Australia’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy is placing incredible strain on the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, with these areas experiencing easily the fastest population growth in the decade to 2016:

Well, today Fairfax reports that Melbourne’s ‘Blue-ribbon’ inner-east is also experiencing manic immigration-led growth:

A sweep of blue-ribbon suburbs from Hawthorn and Kew through to Templestowe and Box Hill has seen a wave of migration over two decades that accounts for 100 per cent of net population growth, far outstripping any increase from births or internal migration…

Declining birth rates and an ageing population have been offset by a big increase in migration into parts of federal seats Kooyong and Higgins, held by Turnbull government ministers Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer, as well as Menzies, Kevin Andrews’ seat, and Chisholm, the key marginal the Liberals snatched from Labor in 2016, the only opposition seat won by the government at the last federal election…

Australia’s population climbed by 6 million between 1996 and 2016 – 75 per cent of which has been centred on increasingly congested capital cities.

…in 2009, Kevin Andrews called for immigration to be slashed to 35,000 per year.

In absolute terms – after accounting for both Australian citizens and migrants, Melbourne’s west experienced the largest population increase, with the population rising from 410,000 to 766,000.

The doubling of the population in that area is reflective of Victoria’s extraordinary overall population growth. It is now 17 times higher in 2016 than it was at its low point in 1993.

I am not surprised by these findings. I have lived in the federal seat of Higgins (cited above) for most of my life (including currently) and have witnessed the changes first hand. While population pressures are undoubtedly less than the long suffering west, we too are experiencing it.

This is what happens when you add 1.1 million people to Melbourne’s population in just 12 years, mostly via immigration, with the city’s population also projected to balloon by another 3.4 million people in just 35 years:

Liveability across Melbourne will decline everywhere and nobody, except the mega-rich, will be immune.

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