WA continues to draw a crowd, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirming the State\u2019s population is growing faster than anywhere else in the nation.<\/p>\n
Fresh figures released this week show WA was home to about 65,800 more people last September compared to 12 months earlier, swelling its total population to 3.06 million.<\/p>\n
The numbers translate to a 2.2 per cent population increase, significantly more than any other State or the more modest national growth of 1.6 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur population grew to 27.7 million, with 423,600 more people than in September 2024,\u201d Phil Browning, ABS head of demography, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was made up by natural increase, which is the number of births minus those who died, and overseas migration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nationally, that natural increase amounted to 112,600 people. There were 1.9 per cent more births and 1.4 per cent less deaths.<\/p>\n
Net overseas migration accounted for a boost of 311,000 people over the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern Australia was the fastest growing State, with a population rise of 2.2 per cent,\u201d Mr Browning said.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictoria and Queensland grew by 1.7 per cent, while Tasmania had the slowest growth over the 12-month period, with a 0.3 per cent rise in population.\u201d<\/p>\n
While screaming ahead of other States highlights WA\u2019s desirable qualities, the bulging population is placing significant strain at a local level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been criticism about the supply of land, as well as the speed at which schools and healthcare and those things are being developed, as well as extending of the public transport network,\u201d Amanda Davies, head of the school of social services at University of WA, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to the smaller local level things, I think there\u2019s quite a lot of frustration that those are quite delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added more focus was needed for the State to keep pace with population growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll forecasts indicate that we\u2019re going to continue to grow, and that that means that we are going to have very substantively increased demand on the aged care sector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Land availability is looking especially bleak.<\/p>\n
The Urban Development Institute\u2019s State of the Land Report this week revealed Perth has just 16 days supply remaining \u2014 if no additional land is brought to market \u2014 the worst demand\u2013supply ratio since the 2013 housing boom peak.<\/p>\n
Land supply in Perth has dropped into \u201cchronic or critically low territory\u201d, well below a healthy two to four months of active supply.<\/p>\n
The report said Perth delivered 17,000 dwellings in 2025 and is expected to maintain that rate for the next three years, \u201cas the significant stock of dwellings under construction completes and improved unit supply starts to flow through\u201d.<\/p>\n
Premier Roger Cook\u2019s answer to a population putting strain on Perth\u2019s infrastructure was to encourage people to move north to regional towns.<\/p>\n
He nominated Port Hedland, Karratha, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie as places he wants new West Australians to live, saying late last year that supporting a roaring population in the city was \u201cnot unsustainable, but it\u2019s challenging\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WA continues to draw a crowd, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirming the State\u2019s population is growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,45],"class_list":["post-553510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}