More People Moving To Western Australia

Western Australia has recorded the strongest rate of population growth across all Australian states in the past 12 months, according to a new report from Corelogic RP Data.

The rate of population growth in Western Australia in the 12 months to June 2014 was 2.2 per cent, followed by Victoria at 1.9 per cent, New South Wales and Queensland at 1.5 per cent.

Growth was slower in the ACT (1.2 per cent), Northern Territory (1.0 per cent), South Australia (0.9 per cent) and Tasmania (0.3 per cent).

Four of the 10 council areas with the fastest rate of population growth in Australia were from Western Australia.

Serpentine Jarradale, a new housing region on the outskirts of Perth, had the highest rate of growth at 6.8 per cent (other top WA areas were Armadale at 5.8 per cent, Kwinana at 5.0 per cent and Chittering at 4.5 per cent).

Other fast growing areas from the rest of Australia were Camden, NSW at 6.1 per cent; Wyndham, VIC at 5.6 per cent; Palmerston, NT at 5.2 per cent; Melbourne, VIC at 5.0 per cent; Whittlesea in VIC at 4.4 per cent and Northern Peninsula area, QLD at 4.1 per cent.

Interestingly, most of the 25 council areas that recorded the fastest rate of decline in population over the year were in regional WA. This is despite the fact that WA was the state with the fastest rate of population growth over the year.

The region with the largest fall was Derby-West Kimberley, a mining region in far north WA. The population in the area has dropped -5.4 per cent over the year.

The data in the report was from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).