Capital Cities Chalk Up Record Population Growth

The population of Australia’s capital cities grew by more than 500,000 in the year ending June 2023, the largest annual growth recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

ABS head of demography Beidar Cho said Australia's capital cities grew by a record 517,200 people last financial year, with this growth largely driven by net overseas migration.

Melbourne (up 167,500) and Sydney (up 146,700) had the biggest increase in 2022-23, with Perth and Brisbane each also adding more than 80,000 people.

Along with Adelaide (28,100), these five cities had their largest annual population growth since the start of the series in 1971.

The growth rate for the capitals combined was 3.0 per cent, more than double the growth rate for regional Australia (1.4 per cent).

Perth had the highest growth rate (3.6 per cent), followed by Melbourne (3.3 per cent) and Brisbane (3.1 per cent). 

The largest growth areas were mostly in outer-suburban parts of the capital cities, where population growth was driven by net internal migration gains.

Over 2022-23 Rockbank-Mount Cottrell in Melbourne's west grew by 4300 people. Marsden Park-Shanes Park at Blacktown (3900 people) and Boronia Heights-Park Ridge at Logan (2000) grew the most in Sydney and Brisbane respectively.

Outside the capitals, the largest growth areas were Caloundra West-Baringa and Landsborough (both up 1700) in Queensland, and Barwon Heads-Armstrong Creek and Delacombe (both 1100) in Victoria.

Population changes by state for 2022-23 financial year

▲ Source: ABS

 

CPI on rise

The monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicator rose 3.4 per cent in the 12 months to February, 2024, according to the ABS.

ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said annual inflation was unchanged in February and has been 3.4 per cent for three consecutive months”. 

The most significant contributors to the February annual increase were Housing (4.6 per cent), food and non-alcoholic beverages (3.6 per cent), alcohol and tobacco (6.1 per cent) and insurance and financial services (8.4 per cent).

“CPI inflation is often impacted by items with volatile price changes such as automotive fuel, fruit and vegetables, and holiday travel,” Marquardt said.

 “It can be helpful to exclude these items from the headline CPI to provide a view of underlying inflation. 

“When excluding these volatile items from the monthly CPI indicator, the annual rise to February was 3.9 per cent, down from 4.1 per cent to January.

“Annual inflation excluding volatile items has continued to slow over the last 14 months from a high of 7.2 per cent in December 2022.”