Population growth strategy needs to

In order to entice more people to move to Tasmania we need a better understanding of migration, writes Dr Lisa Denny

LIKE many regions in the developed world experiencing population ageing, the Tasmanian government’s mitigation strategy has been to focus on population growth, and the assumed economic benefits associated with population growth, to address the perceived fiscal challenges presented by an ageing population.

Tasmania’s Population Growth Strategy: 650,000 people by 2050, launched in 2015 (disclosure: I provided advice to the Tasmanian government at the time), includes three key pillars, made up of 52 initiatives – ( i) job creation and workforce development, (ii) migration and (iii) liveability, with the overall aim to attract people to move to Tasmania and retain Tasmanians in the state. Despite the three pillars, much of the proactive effort has been on migration and promoting the state’s lifestyle as the best place to live and work and raise a family.

It could be said that this approach successfully achieved the intended outcomes.

Until 2018, Tasmania’s population grew at its highest rates this century, driven by both interstate and overseas migration, accounting for around 80 per cent of the growth. However, growth started to slow in 2019 as arrivals to the state began to decline and departures from the state increased, largely explained by our relative housing affordability (or lack thereof).

Since the start of the Covid19 global pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, discussion and debate about the potential impact on migration patterns and long-term trends in Australia has been prominent, particularly in relation to lifestyle and where people want to live.

Given that Tasmania’s population growth since the pandemic has been driven by natural increase (more births than deaths), overseas migration for Australia continues to be negative and that the true volume of interstate migration is skewed by the impact of the mass vaccination rollout, the 2015

Tasmanian Population Growth Strategy is now obsolete as it stands and a comprehensive review is warranted.

While previous marketing endeavours to grow the population through migration were successful, they also came at a cost. Research out of the Australian Government’s Centre for Population finds that “Relative property prices in states and territories appear to have a greater influence than relative unemployment rates on interstate migration.