Sydneysiders love to boast that their town is an “international city” that is the beginning of any international traveller’s trip to Australia.
But Melbourne is by far and away the place to be for anyone who wants to build a better life, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.
The new Regional Population data from the ABS revealed that Melbourne’s population grew by 142,600 in the 2023-24 financial year, far outstripping the net population growth in Sydney (107,500), Brisbane (72,900) and Perth (72,700) over the same period.
Interestingly, Melbourne and Sydney were almost level in terms of the arrival of immigrants from overseas (122,900 for Sydney and 121,000 for Melbourne) and natural growth (27,700 for Sydney and 29,000 for Melbourne).
But Sydney’s net population growth of 2.0 per cent was overshadowed by Melbourne’s 2.7 per cent growth rate through one factor – was tempered severely by internal migration – people leaving the city.
In 2023-24, 41,400 people chose to leave Sydney, compared to 7,600 leaving Melbourne.
This fact flies in the face of conventional media commentary that Victorians are fleeing Melbourne in large numbers. In fact, Sydney has suffered a pronounced population loss for some years while Victoria, which had strong and sustained population growth for long periods outside the 2020 and 2021 Covid years.
Read more here: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/regional-population/2023-24
