Victoria (read Melbourne) is experiencing the nation’s fastest population growth amid record net overseas migration (NOM).
In the year to March, Victoria’s population surged by 162,000 driven by NOM of 138,000:
Victoria’s population has also ballooned by 2.1 million people this century, driven by NOM of 1.3 million.
The May federal budget projected that Victoria’s population will grow by an astonishing 694,000 over the five years to 2026-27:
Source: 2023 federal budget
That level of growth is the equivalent of adding 1.5 Canberra’s worth of population in just five years, but obviously without the infrastructure and housing to support this population expansion.
Assuming historical population settlement patterns, around 500,000 of this population growth would occur in Melbourne.
Victoria already has the lowest share of social housing in Australia at just 3% of all dwellings. That is well below the national average of 4.2%, which itself is low by international standards.
In March, The Guardian reported that “Victoria’s social housing stock grows by just 74 dwellings in four years despite huge waiting list”.
“At the same time the social housing waitlist has grown by about 45% – from about 44,000 applications in June 2018 to 64,168 in June 2022”.
Last week, 7News reported that the Victorian Government “has demolished more public housing than it’s built over the last four years”:
New data shows the state government has demolished more public housing than it’s built over the last four years. https://t.co/5zYfOfGqUb #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/pmbwmUyojl
— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) November 2, 2023
According to the report, “the department’s annual report revealed that for every 26 homes taken out of the system, only 12 are being rebuilt”.
Meanwhile, “65,000 Victorians remain on the public housing waiting list”.
This is another sad indictment of the “Labor” Party, which has governed Victoria for 20 of the past 24 years and is supposed to defend the interests of the working class and the vulnerable.
With the state’s population growing like an out-of-control lab experiment through immigration, and the stock of public housing shrinking, thousands more Victorians will be thrown onto the streets.
