{"id":665911,"date":"2026-05-12T11:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665911\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T11:46:08","slug":"australia-is-expected-to-add-another-1-4-million-people-over-the-next-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665911\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia is expected to add another 1.4 million people over the next four years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Australia is set to add another 1.4 million people over the next four years with immigration forecasts revised upwards in the Treasury Budget papers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The national population is forecast to grow from 28 million, come the end of June this year, to 29.4 million by the 2029-30 financial year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The immigration slowdown promised by Labor is taking longer than expected with 295,000 now expected to have arrived in Australia in 2025-26 \u2014 on a permanent and long-term basis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-3mk41m-StyledText eze0guv9\">Sign up to The Nightly&#8217;s newsletters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1r9pdr5-StyledSubText eze0guv8\">Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>By continuing you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/thenightly.com.au\/subscription-terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sevenwestmedia.com.au\/privacy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">That\u2019s up from the 260,000 forecast a little more than a year ago, on a net basis with departures factored in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">More migrants are also forecast for 2026-27 with 245,000 now expected, up from 225,000 projected in Labor\u2019s pre-election Budget of March 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Net overseas migration was forecast to grow by 225,000 in 2028-29 and 2029-30, roughly where it was in the 2010s and lower than last year\u2019s levels above 300,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Fertility was tipped to increase slightly from a record low of 1.44 now to 1.49 by 2029-30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Western Australia was forecast to have Australia\u2019s strongest growth in percentage terms while Victoria, now a slowing housing market, was tipped to be adding the most number of new residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Iron-ore rich WA was predicted to add 184,000 new residents over the next four years as its population grew by 5.9 per cent to 3.3m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Victoria was tipped to add 405,000 new residents, the most of any State, as its population grew to 7.6 million with the second-highest growth pace of 5.6 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Queensland, despite a strong property market, was expected to come third in the growth stakes, with a 5.5 per cent increase that would take its population to 6.1m with 314,000 new residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">New South Wales, despite receiving the largest influx of overseas migrants, was tipped to have a slower population growth pace of 4.2 per cent owing to a big exodus from Sydney to other states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Australia\u2019s most populated State was expected to add another 365,000 people, taking its total to a touch over 9m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The smaller, provincial states were expected to have more subdued growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">South Australia was expected to add just 50,000 over the next four years, taking its population to 1.972m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The 2.6 per cent population increase would be weak despite Adelaide being home to double-digit house price rises.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Tasmania was only expected to add 8000 people by June 2030, taking its population to 586,000 with the nation\u2019s weakest population growth of 1.4 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The Australian Capital Territory was tipped to add 25,000 people as Canberra\u2019s population swelled by 5.1 per cent to 516,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The Northern Territory, the least populated part of Australia, was expected to add another 8000 people taking its population to 275,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">In the face of faster than expected national population growth, unemployment was tipped to rise from 4.25 per cent this financial year to 4.5 per cent in 2026-27 and 2027-28.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">A wage price index of 3.25 per cent is forecast for this financial year as inflation rose to 5 per cent, the highest level in three years, meaning workers will be getting a real wage cut of 1.75 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia is set to add another 1.4 million people over the next four years with immigration forecasts revised&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,84],"class_list":["post-665911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665911","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=665911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}