Australia’s population is rebounding, and Queensland is the big winner, according to data released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The latest figures show that Australia’s population grew by 1.6% in the 12 months to 30 September 2022, which is similar to growth seen in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
At September 2022, the population was 26.1 million people, an increase of 418,500 over the year.
Natural increase was 114,800 people, down 18.1% from the previous year. There were 302,900 births and 188,000 deaths registered during this time, with deaths increasing 10.8% due mainly to COVID-19 and births falling by 2.3%.
Migrant arrivals have returned to similar levels to those prior to the pandemic but departures remain lower – mainly because there are fewer recently-arrived temporary migrants, like international students, who are due to leave. There were 536,900 overseas migration arrivals and 233,200 departures, resulting in Australia’s population growing by 303,700 people from overseas migration.
Queensland saw the largest increase, of 2.2%, followed by Western Australia (1.8%), Victoria (1.7%), South Australia (1.4%), New South Wales (1.3%), and the ACT (1.4%); and to a much lesser degree, Tasmania (0.7%) and the Northern Territory (0.4%).
