Immigration helps drive Australian population explosion to new heights

A recently-issued government report states that Australia’s population growth in 2012 has returned to the excessive increases seen in 2009, and attributes migration from overseas as the main reason.

The report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimates a growth of 1.8 per cent, the level supported by previous prime minister Kevin Rudd and renounced by Julia Gilliard after her election victory. It’s being suggested that the Gilliard government has been quietly restoring immigration levels to those endorsed by Rudd.

ABS director Bjorn Jarvis has confirmed that the population increase has been largely driven by increased immigration, Net overseas migration, he said, added 235,900 individuals to the population in 2012, representing a 17 per cent increase over the previous year.

Natural increase, he added, was responsible to 40 per cent of the population growth, a four per cent increase over the past year, and 60 per cent was due to increased numbers of migrants. Western Australia had the largest increase of all states, with 2.47 million by the end of last year, and the lowest population growth of just 0.1 per cent was recorded in Tasmania.

Previous statistics have shown that Asia, and China and India in particular, are now the major sources of migrants to Australia, overtaking those from Britain, traditionally the main source over many years. It remains to be seen how the recent sweeping changes in immigration law will affect population totals in the future.