Every family and its dog loves it here
Region’s growth fires up call for more investment
THE Latters epitomise the typical Cairns family according to Census 2016. Tammy and Paul and their son, Aiden, 10, and dog, Rancher, love the region and its relaxed environment, and they’re not the only ones. The latest Census shows Cairns is one of Northern Australia’s biggest movers in population growth providing further evidence for greater government funding.
CAIRNS has emerged from the Census 2016 as one of Northern Australia’s leaders in population growth, confirming the need for greater government investment.
The Cairns statistical region, extending from Cardwell up to the Daintree, is home to 240,190 people, up almost 16,000 since 2011.
Economist Bill Cummings said the growth was higher than the intercensal estimates of 13,000, an anomaly among the other major North Queensland areas’ disappointing results.
“In the Townsville region, instead of coming in at an (estimated) increase of about 15,000, the actual increase was about 11,000,” he said.
“Cairns and Townsville City local government increases were about the same at about Cairns 11,600 and Townsville 12,300.
“However, the rest of the immediate Townsville region’s population showed a decline, whereas the rest of the immediate Cairns region increased by about 4000.”
The Mackay and Fitzroy regions’ increases also fell well short of expectations: Mackay had a population growth of about 3000 instead of 7500, and Fitzroy was down from an 18,000 estimate to just 9500.
Advance Cairns chief executive officer Kevin Byrne said all levels of government needed to heed the national survey results and dish out funding accordingly.
“It means organisations like Advance Cairns and Cairns Regional Council need to recalibrate and re-energise their pitch for increased state and federal government financial support,” he said.
“Cairns has never been in the debate of who gets more and who gets less. I think that’s a counter-productive debate.
“But where governments need to invest money is obviously areas that are showing the most significant growth.”
Darwin’s 16,000 population growth was the largest in Northern Australia but Mr Cummings said the rest of the Northern Territory showed hardly any increase.
The Census also revealed more Cairns residents claim to have no religion than belonging to any specific church.
Back in 2011, “Catholic” was the region’s leading response to the religion question.
In 2016, “no religion” received 30.2 per cent of responses, followed by Catholic (23.3 per cent), Anglican (14.4 per cent), not stated (12.2 per cent) and Uniting Church (4 per cent).
HOWEVER, THE REST OF THE IMMEDIATE TOWNSVILLE REGION’S POPULATION SHOWED A DECLINE, WHEREAS THE REST OF THE IMMEDIATE CAIRNS REGION INCREASED BY ABOUT 4000 BILL CUMMINGS