CITY LIVING OR SEACHANGE: REGIONAL POPULATION GROWTH
Inner city areas and coastal regions experienced strong population growth during 2000-01. Some of the fastest increases in population were recorded in inner city suburbs, such as the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Melbourne (up 10.0%), Sydney (8.1%) and Perth (7.6%), while Australians continued to head to the seaside to live, with many of Australia's coastal regions experiencing population gains in the past year. Examples include Lake Macquarie, Wollongong, Shoalhaven and Maclean in New South Wales, and Mornington Peninsula, Port Phillip, Bass Coast and Surf Coast in Victoria. The Gold Coast, Maroochy and Pine Rivers in Queensland and Victor Harbour in South Australia continued to grow in 2000-01, while in Western Australia the coastal LGAs of Broome, Bunbury and Busselton recorded growth.
Regional Australia had mixed experiences, with both population growth and decline in regional centres. The regional centres of Queanbeyan (NSW), Maitland (NSW), Greater Bendigo (Vic), Ballarat (Vic), Townsville (Qld), Mount Gambier (SA) and Albany (WA) all increased in population, but the top 20 population declines were all in regional LGAs with Wellington (Vic), Latrobe (Vic), Whyalla (SA), Wagga Wagga (NSW), Glenelg (Vic), Broken Hill (NSW) and Port Augusta (SA) all experiencing declines of more than 300 people in the year ending June 2001.
Regional Population Growth, Australia and New Zealand, 2000-2001 (Cat. no. 3218.0) contains details of population growth since 1996 for Statistical Local Areas and Local Government Areas, as well as State and National data.
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