Population and Migration

This article explores population movements in the Gippsland region, Victoria. The main issue addressed is the extent to which population movement within and without the region has been shaped by economic developments and what that implies for the well being of Gippsland residents. An analysis of census data between 1991 and 1996 de ....

Has the notion of 'sea change' and its considerable implications for non-metropolitan coastal Australia been exaggerated? In this article alternative perspectives of 'sea change' in Australia are reviewed, and the policy implications of each assessed. One perspective regards migration to coastal areas beyond the capital cities as incidental to co ....

A survey conducted on behalf of the Joint Commonwealth State and Territory Research Advisory Committee (JCSTRAC) examined how well the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS) had performed against a number of indicators. These included the proportion of migrants who stay in regional areas and continue to contribute to the local ....

This Sustainable Population Strategy outlines the Government's framework for a sustainable Australia. It will help to ensure that future population change is compatible with the economic, environmental and social wellbeing of Australia. The Strategy recognises that population change is not only about the growth and overall size of our population ....

Federal Government strategies to increase international migration to regional areas include regional skilled migration, increased business migration and approval of international students living in Australia for permanent residence. Injecting migrants into rural and regional areas raises fundamental questions about quality of servi ....

Talking point: Returning to regional Australia looks at the influx of Australians aged 25-44 into regional areas. There are now more people in this age group migrating from metropolitan to regional areas than vice versa. Many of these are regional 'Returners', people who have left in their younger years but come back later in life to resettle t ....

International migration is responsible for more than half of Australia's population growth and presents a unique opportunity for regional areas looking to transform their community. For regional areas grappling with an ageing or declining population, international migration can offer population stability, diversity and create jobs. The RAI's Tal ....

While modern telecommunications infrastructure and services have been recognised as important in stimulating regional economic development, significant disparities in their provision have been observed between metropolitan and regional areas. Some of the identified advantages of telecommunications services include the diversificati ....

Arguably, rural land markets inAustralia are currently in a high state of flux, with a panoply of competing interests seeking to capitalize on both the traditional and a range of newly emergent values anchored in land. Amenity-led migration is, we argue, an important strand of this renewed interest in rural lands, albeit one that is hig ....

In recent years there has been a net migration from the regions to coastal and metropolitan Australia. Now the attraction and retention of professionals to regional areas is emerging as a major problem for Australia. This paper reports the results of a study to scope the nature, severity and extent of the problem in Queensland. Rep ....

Major trends that are draining people from the Wheatbelt are globalisation of the economy (and its associated global urban culture) and coastalisation based on lifestyle preferences. A focus on Wheatbelt towns in partnership with the adjacent global city is needed to reverse the decline. It will require a new quality of life attraction similar to ....

This paper investigates the determination of population and employment changes for the 125 Local Government Areas of Queensland over the 1996-06 period. The intention is to determine the flow of causality from employment to population growth and/or vice versa. Unlike previous similar studies, the role of geographic location is formally investigat ....

The Victorian Department of Infrastructure has recently released a new set of population projections for all Local Government Areas and Statistical Local Areas in Victoria for the period 1996-2021. This article seeks to analyse the population projections at a broad level and evaluate the assumptions chosen. There is a discussion of ....

On the land and in country towns, the battle to survive goes on forever. Increasingly, the world needs food and fibre, but squeezes out the communities which provide them. Young people leave, farmers sell up, towns die, football teams amalgamate, communities keep reinventing themselves. What's going on? What can we do? Neil Barr looks close up, a ....