Only 6% of migrants went to Australia’s regions in 2017-18

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

Over the past year or so, I have ridiculed the new found push by Coalition politicians towards decentralisation, noting that this is a pipe dream based on the settlement pattern of new migrants, which have overwhelmingly chosen to flood the major cities.

My view was initially based primarily on data from the Productivity Commission’s 2016 Migrant Intake into Australia report, which revealed that 86% of immigrants lived in the major cities of Australia in 2011 (mostly Sydney and Melbourne), whereas only 65% of the Australian-born population did:

ScreenHunter_17913 Mar. 13 16.00

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.