Welcome to 25 millionth Aussie
TOMORROW at just after 11pm (AEST), Australia will welcome its 25 millionth resident. It’s impossible to say exactly who this will be – it could be a newborn baby or it could be a person moving to Australia, but what we do know is that overseas migration is fuelling population growth (accounting for 62 per cent), and the vast majority of new arrivals will make a life in our cities.
The Population Clock estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics assumes one birth every one minute and 42 seconds, one death every 3 minutes and 16 seconds, one person arriving to live in Australia every minute and one second, and one resident leaving the country to live overseas every one minute and 51 seconds.
That’s an overall population increase of one new resident every one minute and 23 seconds.
Our annual population growth sits at 1.6 per cent, slightly higher than a global growth of 1.2 per cent and the highest of the G12 nations.
This means we’ll probably stand at 26 million in another three years from now, and if growth remains at this rate, there should be 40 million of us by mid-century.