Demographic futures for South East Queensland

Abstract

In 1981, the population of South East Queensland stood at 1.5 million. Today, the region is home to twice that number, and over the last few years has been increasing in population by an average of 2.7%, or 80,000, per year. Concern about high population growth and its implications for housing affordability, transport, water supply and the environment have recently led some commentators to call for reduced population growth, or even a population cap. This paper examines key characteristics of South East Queensland's population and household trends and presents several scenarios, both plausible and implausible, for their future development. In addition to conventional high and low scenarios, we explore the demographic implications of capping population at current levels. Consequences range from rapid growth (7.4 million by mid-century) to severe ageing. We also show that household growth continues even under conditions of zero population growth. Our results demonstrate that population dynamics involve substantial inertia, with little scope for policy to influence outcomes in the short term. Realistically, planners should be preparing for sustained population growth in South East Queensland with continued population ageing, and large increases in the number of lone person and couple households without children.

Keywords:

• population
• projections
• immigration
• South East Queensland
• Big Australia
• sustainability
• population cap

Notes

1. ‘I actually believe in a big Australia I make no apology for that. I actually think it is good news that our population is growing … it's good for our national security long term, it's good in terms of what we can sustain as a nation’ (Rudd, 23 October 2009).

2. ‘Are Australia's natural resource endowments … capable of sustaining a population of 35 million? … (I)n my view we are not well placed to deal effectively with the environmental challenges …’ (Henry, 22 October 2009).

3. South East Queensland is defined in this paper as the Queensland Government's South East Queensland Regional Planning Project Area, which comprises the four statistical divisions of Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and West Moreton plus the Statistical District of Toowoomba.