Call for campaign to increase population

POPULATION growth has slowed in Townsville during the pandemic, while the wider North Queensland region has lost more people than it gained, economist Colin Dwyer says.

The surprise findings, derived from 2020-21 population estimates released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, prompted Mr Dwyer to call for better promotion of the area.

“We should be marketing Townsville a lot harder to gain a greater share of the big domestic population shift,” Mr Dwyer said.

The pandemic has caused a huge migration of people escaping crowded capital cities, but the move mostly has been to centres nearby.

Mr Dwyer, an adjunct professor with James Cook University, said Townsville remained the largest city in Northern Australia and 14th largest city in Australia, with an estimated population of 197,992 people as of June 2021.

He said this was a rise of 1222 people or 0.6 per cent annual growth, slower than the previous year’s growth of 0.9 per cent, indicating the city population could surpass 200,000 in early 2023.

Growth in Mackay (118,723) was slightly higher at 0.7 per cent, but the figure was lower in Cairns (0.3% at 168,853), Rockhampton (0.4% at 82,311) and Mount Isa (-1.6% at 18,271).

Mr Dwyer said the Townsville region’s population had grown to 239,859.

The Burdekin’s estimated population fell 0.6 per cent to 16,844 and Charters Towers fell 0.5 per cent to 11,676, while

Palm Island gained 0.3 per cent to 2691 and Hinchinbrook rose 0.1 per cent to 10,656.

Mr Dwyer said the population data confirmed a strong movement of people from large cities, but in Queensland the move was mainly to lifestyle centres such as the Gold and Sunshine coasts and not north of Bundaberg.

“There was lots of discussion about this trend during the pandemic, but almost all net internal migration has occurred close to major metropolitan areas. Indeed, over 92 per cent of net internal migration activity in Queensland occurred in the southeast corner,” Mr Dwyer said.

He said Townsville turned around a five-year period of negative net migration and boosted its net natural increase by having more babies, but North Queensland centres did not receive their “fair share” of population growth.

“Decentralisation remains a myth and gaining funding for crucial and basic projects is not becoming easier, especially with the loud Olympics drums beating in the distance,” Mr Dwyer said.