melbournes growth

Melbourne’s population booms
By Melissa Marina, Tim Colebatch
March 24, 2005

It’s not exactly a challenge to Sydney’s number one city title – not yet, anyway – but it is a trend. For the third year running, Melbourne has significantly outgrown the harbour city, recording the highest population increase of any capital in Australia.

After decades of watching its power and population share drift northwards, Melbourne in the last financial year grew by a healthy 1.3 per cent, adding almost 45,000 people to more than 3.6 million.

In percentage terms, Melbourne’s growth almost doubled that of Sydney, which lagged behind the national average with a modest 0.8 per cent rise, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Despite the Bracks Government’s controversial 2030 policy push for consolidation in existing developed areas, much of Melbourne’s population increase continues to occur in outer suburban areas including Casey, Wyndham and Melton.

While Melbourne added the most people in 2003-04, Brisbane continued to be the fastest-growing city in percentage terms, adding 39,700 people, or 2.3 per cent.

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AdvertisementIt is the third year in a row that Sydney has trailed the population growth of both Melbourne and Brisbane. Melbourne led the way in 2001-02 with a population increase of 41,426, followed by Brisbane and Sydney.

In Victoria, the City of Casey recorded the highest population growth of any local government area in 2003-04, with 8700 new residents.

Mayor Neil Lucas said news that the area had topped the list was “very passe out here”. Casey, he said, had led population growth for several years.

Mr Lucas said the growth in the municipality was being driven by the “juggernaut” of young people wanting to own their own homes on their own block of land.

The figures coincide with renewed debate this week over the merits of 2030, the State Government’s planning blueprint that was criticised by planning experts Bob Birrell and Kevin O’Connor as being too focused on high-density living around activity centres in urban areas.

Mr Birrell said the figures showed that unlike Sydney, Melbourne still had a strong demand for frontier land. That demand, he said, did not come just from new home owners, but from older generations wanting to upgrade from outer suburbs to estates with features such as lakes and gates. “In Melbourne about two-thirds of all dwellings are still new detached dwellings whereas in Sydney it’s more like a third,” he said.

A State Government spokesman said growth in Casey, as well as Wyndham in the west and Melton in the north, was expected because they were three of the five growth corridors identified under 2030.

“This should not be a surprise that we’re seeing growth picking up in these areas and we will continue to make sure land is available but in a planned way,” he said.

The spokesman said the 2030 plan was needed to stop “this Los Angeles-style” of growth and to ensure planning was effective, that services and transport were available and that “precious open space,” known in the blueprint as green wedges were maintained.

The bureau figures show that since 2001, Melbourne has added almost 25,000 more people to its population than Sydney. Over the three years its population has grown by 128,455 or 3.7 per cent, while Sydney’s has grown by 103,806 or 2.5 per cent.

The population rates reflect other trends that show NSW trailing on key economic indicators. In three years to June 2004, gross domestic product (GDP) grew in NSW by 7.6 per cent, compared with 19.1 per cent in WA, 17.5 per cent in Queensland, 11.2 per cent in Victoria, 10.3 per cent in Tasmania and 9.3 per cent in SA.