The addition of Melton has made Melbourne Australia’s biggest Significant Urban Area.Credit:Joe Armao
Macquarie University demographer Professor Nick Parr said the main reason for Melbourne’s faster growth is the difference in net internal migration (that is movements from elsewhere in the country minus movementsto elsewhere in the country).
“Sydney’s growth has been slowed by its substantial net losses of people due to internal migration,” he said. “Far more people have moved out of Sydney going to other parts of Australia,especially to the rest of NSW,Queensland and Victoria,than have moved to Sydney from elsewhere in Australia.”
In contrast,Melbourne gained people due to net internal migration between 2012 and 2017,and its net losses in the other years were smaller than those for Sydney.
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Parr said Melbourne’s rates of net overseas migration have also tended to be higher than Sydney’s.
Population growth rates in both Melbourne and Sydney collapsed in 2020 and 2021 due to the disruptions of COVID-19 but are recovering.
While the Melbourne population is set to draw ahead of Sydney,NSW is still the biggest state by a significant margin – the population of NSW,at 8.23 million,is about 1.5 million larger than Victoria’s at 6.72 million.