Population

HIA’s Position Statement

1. Australia should promote and maintain a population growth rate sufficient to secure ongoing growth in Australia’s economic performance, workforce capacity, national productivity and standard of living. To this end, it follows that caps and limits need not be placed in categories such as skilled and business migration.
2. Australia’s population growth policies should target working aged skilled migration and business migration so as to mitigate the rate of decline in the proportion of our working aged population encouraging those 65 and over to be involved and participate in the workforce.
3. Population programs be cognisant of supporting growth in regional Australia.
4. HIA supports population growth where it can be demonstrated housing supply supports such growth.

Background

• In 2017 Australia’s population reached 24.77 million people.
• During the course of 2018 Australia’s population will reach 25 million.
• Over the last decade there have been three distinct population cycles, driven primarily by net overseas migration (NOM), but also to a smaller extent by a mini natural population boom. Over the last ten years (to December 2017) Australia’s population has increased by 15 per cent or by nearly 3.3 million people.
• The latest population figures for Australia incorporate revisions which reflect the rebasing of population estimates from 2011. These revisions occurred as a result of information gleaned from the 2016 Census (a Census is taken in Australia every five years).
• As the main determinant of population growth, the fluctuating nature of NOM has a crucial impact on workforce participation numbers, national skills’ capacity, productivity and economic output.
• As Australia’s population grows and ages there will naturally be a significant increase in areas of expenditure such as health, welfare and aged pensions.
• A sensible immigration policy ensuring a relatively high intake of skilled migrants each year can mitigate the adverse budgetary impacts from an ageing population. Skilled migrants (who fill gaps in the labour force that domestic workers can’t fill) are younger in age and generate additional taxation revenue, in addition to providing a transfer of technology experience and knowledge which benefits Australia’s growth potential.
• Research by the HIA provides a mid-range projection where with a reasonable rate of growth in population and household incomes, around 184,400 new dwellings starts on average will be required over the next 30 years to achieve a balance in housing supply and demand. A slow rate of growth in both population and incomes sees this projection slip to only 131,370 starts.