Population Growth

[Black Orchid]

Australia's population will hit the 25 million mark later tonight according to projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), a milestone reached in record time as net migration continues to outpace births.

The ABS population clock estimates Australia's population is increasing by one person every 83 seconds, and the new population record is likely to be set at about 11:00pm.

While we cannot know for certain who the 25 millionth person will be, author and political commentator George Megalogenis said they would most likely be a young, female Chinese student or skilled worker.

"The two biggest migrant groups in Australia are Chinese and Indians since the turn of the 21st century," he told The World program.

"So we're getting an extraordinary number of Chinese and Indians from two countries that are actually rising.

"Since about 2005, we're receiving more people from overseas than have been added to our population through natural increase, so more migrants than babies.

Net overseas migration — the number of arrivals minus departures — currently accounts for 62 per cent of Australia's growth. Natural increase makes up 38 per cent.

"Last time that happened was in the gold rushes of the 1850s," Megalogenis said.

If you look at arrival figures, as opposed to net overseas migration, people born in China emerge as the largest group of migrants accounting for 15.8 per cent of total arrivals.

Divided by visa category, international students are the largest group of arrivals, and China is the most common country of birth for international students in Australia.

University of Melbourne student Jinghua Liang, 20, said she was attracted to Australia's multicultural society and lifestyle.

"I think the first thing when I think about Australian schools is fresh air, blue sky, good food — and my mum told me [about] emus, kangaroos, that's a pretty attractive thing," Ms Liang said.

If Ms Liang does remain, she would join a growing population of single, well-educated Chinese women who have decided to stay in Australia permanently.

"Every time I read this stat, my jaw drops — the Chinese-born population in Australia is overwhelmingly female, and in fact it has one of the greatest gender skews towards women of any migrant group," Megalogenis said.

"And given that they're a young and very well-educated group, the question is where are the guys going to come from?"

Megalogenis predicts marriages between Chinese-born and Indian-born migrants, who have a heavy gender skew towards men, will become increasingly common in coming decades and continue a long-standing trend in Australian history.

"A greatest mixed marriage in the 19th century — which sort of creates an idea of the older Australian population as we know it today, but at the time it was young and vibrant — Protestant male from England, Catholic female from Ireland.

"I tend to view the mixed marriage between the Chinese women and the Indian men in the next 20 or 30 years will be the next version of what is this sort of great ability I think we have to unite tribes."

And that ability may prove crucial in future decades, where Megalogenis said different states in Australia were likely to have populations with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

"There is … a Eurasian identity being formed in Melbourne and Sydney … the rest of the country are oversubscribed from migrants from other parts of the world," he said.

"New Zealand migration is really driving the migration story on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane, and English and South African migration is driving the migration story in Perth.

Concerns over transport infrastructure and property prices in Sydney and Melbourne have seen population growth become a political issue in both cities.

Last month, there were calls for an inquiry into population growth and further cuts to the migration intake from the Coalition's backbench, while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said there was an "out-of-control" amount of people coming to Australia on work visas.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull waded into the debate over gang-related violence in Melbourne, and former leader Tony Abbott said the Labor Party was in the grip of "ethnic activists".

Megalogenis said instead of "dog whistling" on migration policy, politicians should be working to ensure the benefits of migration are shared more evenly.

"If you're running a mass migration program — and you know you're locked into it because otherwise your population would age too quickly — why don't you get a discussion going about spreading the benefits to all the other parts of Australia," he said.

"These things are very difficult debates to have, and the sceptic in me says I probably wouldn't trust this generation of politicians to do all the infrastructure — they'd probably make a lot of mistakes.

"But I'd much rather have that conversation than none at all, or to be having the one at the margin about asylum seekers or so-called gangs."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-07/a ... y/10077100

[Black Orchid]

Australia's population has more than quadrupled in the past century, with the number of people tipped to reach 25 million this year.

If current trends continue the population will top 40 million within 40 years.

Some say Australia should have stopped growing decades ago. Others point out Australia is a wealthy country with plenty of space to welcome more.

This is your chance to decide how big (or small) you think Australia should be.

The chart below shows 24 potential paths for Australia's future population, based on the latest projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Each assumes different levels of births, deaths and immigration — the key factors that determine population size.

Keep in mind: a growing population means more demand on resources. But it also means more people to produce goods and services, and to pay the taxes that fund government services.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-13/b ... on/9470156

Just put in your year of birth.

[sprintcyclist]

What awful news, more people

[Black Orchid]

It's hard to tell the difference now between northern/north western Sydney and Hong Kong or India. And in the south west/west from the Middle East.

[Black Orchid]

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[Black Orchid]

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[Black Orchid]

Former prime minister Tony Abbott wants Australia to cut its immigration intake to what it was under the Howard government.

He told an internet radio station on Tuesday afternoon that "we've got to get the numbers down, and get them down very significantly".

"[John] Howard got them down 30 per cent in the first couple of years of his prime ministership," he said to the Daily Telegraph show.

"We should look to getting [the migration intake] back down towards 110,000 a year, which was the average of the decade of the Howard government."

The declaration follows comments from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton last week where he signalled "we have to reduce the numbers where we believe it's in our national interest".

Changes in Australia's immigration sector were significant under Mr Howard, but not because his government kept the permanent intake — now at 190,000 visas per year — low.

Every year since John Howard lost the 2007 election to Kevin Rudd, more of Australia's population growth has been attributed to migration than a natural increase due to births.

The period under Howard was transitional, but brought substantial migration growth in its later years

Much of Mr Howard's time as prime minister was linked — by the Treasury's chart — to a period of low migration.

However the latter years of Mr Howard's prime ministership delivered significant increase to net overseas migration as a proportion of the population.

The planned size of the migration program — the number of permanent visas the government plans to grant each year — was reduced in the early Howard years.

Those reductions were more than made up for in later years.

By the time of the 2007 election, his government had doubled the permanent intake.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-20/m ... rd/9465114

[Bobby]

There's too many people and too many problems
and not much love to go around.

[Super Nova]

Aussies will become the new wogs in our own country.

Get prepared to assimilate into their culture.

[sprintcyclist]

I want hardly any new migrants and then only rich intelligent white attractive christian ones.

also, deport lots of ones here that don't meet the new criteria