Politics

Housing, traffic and crowding: Majority of Aussies think ‘country is full’

Jan 15, 2019

The most common reason for not wanting more people was the overcrowding of cities. Source: iStock.

Issues such as traffic, overcrowding and rising housing costs have contributed to the majority of Australians believing the country has “enough people” living in it, according to the results of a new poll.

More than two thirds of the country believe that the population has reached its peak, with 84 per cent of those citing the overcrowding of major cities as the main reason for wanting to halt migration.

A total of 2,167 Australian citizens took part in the research, carried out by The Australian National University between November and December last year, which asked people: “The Australian population is now a little over 25 million… do you think Australia needs more people?”

Just 30.4 per cent of those asked answered yes to the question, a drop of about 15 per cent from a similar poll conducted by the university in 2010.

As well as concerns about crowding, those who said ‘no’ were also worried about traffic and the cost of housing, as well as importing skilled people from overseas rather than focusing on training Australians.

“People expressed concerns about the impact of population growth on the environment,” Associate Professor Biddle said. “Australians are more likely to support population growth if it increases our skills base, mitigates the impacts of an ageing population and increase our economic prosperity.

“But they do not want population growth to cause crowding, affordability or job security issues, nor at the expense of our natural environment.”

Respondents who wished to further increase the population said they wished to do so to increase the country’s cultural diversity, however limiting cultural diversity was also given as a reason by those who took the opposing view.

Biddle added: “There were more people who said that ‘Having more people means more cultural diversity’ was a reason for increasing Australia’s population than those who listed too much cultural diversity as a reason against population growth.

“Most people are now supportive of cultural diversity as a by-product of population growth. On the other hand, geopolitics, defence and population pressures overseas are less likely to factor into someone’s decision than they might have in the past.”

Australia’s population reached a landmark 25 million people in August last year, a whopping 33 years earlier than was predicted just two decades ago. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, mass migration and an unexpectedly high number of births led to the surge with net overseas migration accounting for 62 per cent of population growth alone.

One of the biggest migrant groups was found to be Chinese – as well as British, Kiwi and Indian – with 8 per cent of the growth coming from migrants moving from China. In fact, in 2016, a huge 28 per cent of Aussies were born overseas.