Recent Trends in Internal Migration and Population Redistribution in Australia

Graeme J. Hugo, University of Adelaide

Australia has one of the world’s most residentially mobile populations but paradoxically there has been little change in the centre of gravity of the national population over the last century. Despite the latter there have been some important changes in the detail of population distribution wrought mainly by the differential impacts of internal and international migration. This paper uses recently released data from the 2001 Australian Census to assess the major shifts which have occurred in internal migration within the country over the 1996-2001 intercensal period. It assesses counter-urbanisation and interstate population distribution. There have also been some important changes occurring in the population distributon within the nation’s major metropolitan areas with a reduction in growth in peripheral areas and significant evidence of net migration gain in the inner and some middle suburbs.