The Centre for Population, which is run out of the Australian Treasury, has released its 2021 Population Statement, which projects a quick return to ‘Big Australia’ immigration levels.
Below are key extracts from the statement:
The population of Australia is projected to increase from 25.7 million in 2020-21 to 29.3 million in 2031-32. Australia’s low population growth is forecast to continue through 2020-21 and 2021-22 as a result of the international border restrictions and quarantine requirements to limit the transmission of COVID-19…
The size of the population is expected to be around 1.5 million people or 4.9 per cent smaller by 2030-31 compared with what was projected in the MYEFO 2019-20, prior to the onset of the pandemic…
Annual population growth is projected to increase from 0.3 per cent in 2021-22 to 1.4 per cent by 2024-25 as net overseas migration recovers to long-run levels of 235,000 (Chart 1 and Table 1). Growth is then projected to gradually decline to 1.2 per cent in 2031-32. This gradual decline in population growth over the medium term results from assumptions that net overseas migration remains steady at 235,000 and the total fertility rate goes to 1.62 babies per woman from 2030-31 onward…
Net overseas migration is forecast to be at a historic low in 2020-21 with a net outflow of 100,000 (Chart 2). Overseas migration is forecast to recover to a net outflow of 41,000 in 2021-22 as border restrictions and quarantine arrangements are relaxed. In 2022-23 it is then forecast to return to net inflows of 180,000, reaching 213,000 in 2023-24. A full return to pre-COVID-19 trends of 235,000 is projected from 2024-25 onwards…
Global migration flows, including to Australia, could increase more quickly if there is a more rapid containment of COVID-19 worldwide. Alternatively, a slower containment of COVID-19, the emergence of new variants or sustained hesitancy to travel could result in a slower recovery in global migration flows. This box presents an upside and a downside scenario as alternatives to the net overseas migration forecast.
In the upside scenario, migration flows are assumed to return to pre-COVID-19 trends from the March quarter of 2022, so that net overseas migration is positive in 2021-22 and reaches 235,000 persons per year from 2022-23 onwards. In the upside scenario, net overseas migration is higher by 120,000 persons in 2021-22, by 55,000 in 2022-23 and by 22,000 in 2023-24 (Chart 3).
The downside scenario is based on net overseas migration forecasts in Budget 2021-22, which assumed international border restrictions would remain in place until mid-2022 and the recovery in net overseas migration would be more gradual. In the downside scenario, net overseas migration is lower by 36,000 persons in 2021-22, by 84,000 in 2022-23 and by 12,000 in 2023-24.
Australia’s population is projected to reach 29.3 million in 2031-32 under the central case, and 29.5 million in the upside scenario. In the downside scenario, Australia’s population is projected to reach 29.1 million by 2031-32 – a level that it is projected to reach about half a year earlier in the central case, and about a year earlier in the upside scenario (Chart 4)…
The projected distribution of net overseas migration across jurisdictions is based on historical distributions and trends across different visa groups. Each state is forecast to return to pre-COVID-19 trends as national net overseas migration recovers. The greatest shares of net overseas migration flows are projected to go to Victoria and New South Wales.
Recent opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of Australians do not want to return to pre-COVID levels of immigration.
Australians recognise that the mass immigration program of 2005 to 2020 was managed appallingly and crush loaded everything in sight, resulting in widespread infrastructure bottlenecks across Australia’s major cities and reduced liveability, especially in the migrant epicentres of Melbourne and Sydney.
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Sadly, in the unrepresentative democracy of Australia, our politicians, policy makers and media bend the knee to vested interests in the property, business and edu-migration lobbies rather than representing the wishes of the Australian people.
And with it, they have locked in another decade of anaemic wage growth, worsening housing affordability, and declining living standards.
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.
