425 Place-based drivers and effective management of population growth and change in regional Australia 5 Introduction This project was designed to investigate place-based push and pull factors that explain contemporary population shifts in regional urban centres, and how local governments can best foster and manage population growth and retention across different economic and environmental context. [...] While both fertility rates and mortality rates can have place-specific impacts on the natural increase and decrease of population in non-metropolitan regions, overall, the impact of natural rates of growth are small in Australia compared to the change in population as a result of migration. [...] The identification of a ‘population turnaround’ in Australia in the 1970s (Burnley and Murphy 2002; Hugo 1994; Hugo and Smailes 1985; Smailes and Hugo 1985) attributed much of the growth of regional Australia to migration to the high amenity coastal locations, termed ‘sea change’ migration (Burnley and Murphy, 2004). [...] 425 Place-based drivers and effective management of population growth and change in regional Australia 16 Modelling factors associated with population change in non-metropolitan areas 2.2 Analysis of variables This section describes the results of the multiple regression model that uses the variables described in Table 3 as independent variables, and SUA population change in 2011–16 or 2016–21 as. [...] 425 Place-based drivers and effective management of population growth and change in regional Australia 18 Modelling factors associated with population change in non-metropolitan areas Analysis of population change model results for 2011–16 The model delivers a high level of explanation of population change between 2011 and 2016 in SUAs with fewer than 250,000 people in 2011.
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- 102
- Published in
- Australia
Table of Contents
- List of tables 5
- List of figures 5
- List of boxes 5
- Acronyms and abbreviations used in this report 6
- Executive summary 7
- 1. Introduction 11
- 1.1 Population change in non-metropolitan Australia 12
- 1.1.1 Migration and non-metropolitan areas 12
- 1.1.2 Non-metropolitan urban centres of high population change 13
- 1.1.3 Place-based drivers of migration in and out of non-metropolitan areas 14
- 1.1.4 Impacts of COVID-19 and other recent events 15
- 1.2 Policy approaches to encourage population growth in regional Australia 16
- 1.3 Challenges of managing changing populations 16
- 1.4 Research questions 17
- 1.5 Research methods 18
- 2. Modelling factors associated with population change in non-metropolitan areas 21
- 2.1 Identified variables impacting population change from an international literature review 22
- 2.2 Analysis of variables 23
- 2.2.1 Variable transformations 23
- 2.2.2 Multi-collinearity 23
- 2.2.3 Multiple regression model 23
- 2.3 Implications for policy development 27
- 3. Place-based factors of population change: a community survey approach 29
- 3.1 Case study area profiles 30
- 3.1.1 Port Macquarie Hastings 30
- 3.1.2 Ballarat 31
- 3.1.3 Broken Hill 32
- 3.2 Characteristics of movers to case study areas 33
- 3.2.1 Port Macquarie Hastings 33
- 3.2.2 Ballarat 34
- 3.2.3 Broken Hill 36
- 3.3 Reasons for moving to case study areas 37
- 3.3.1 Reasons for moving by movers’ characteristics 43
- 3.3.2 Government and industry incentives to move to case study areas 45
- 3.3.3 Impact of recent events on reasons to move to case study areas 46
- 3.4 Likelihood and potential reasons for moving from case study areas 49
- 3.4.1 Likelihood of moving from case study areas 49
- 3.4.2 Characteristics of people most likely to move 49
- 3.4.3 Where movers from case study areas would potentially move to 50
- 3.4.4 Potential reasons for moving from case study areas 50
- 3.5 Policy implications 52
- 4. Managing population change: interviews with local government and economic development stakeholders 53
- 4.1 Challenges related to population change 54
- 4.1.1 Infrastructure 54
- 4.1.2 Facilities and services 55
- 4.1.3 Housing and planning 56
- 4.1.4 Key worker attraction and retention 58
- 4.2 Solutions to managing population change 58
- 4.2.1 Infrastructure and service upgrades 58
- 4.2.2 Housing and planning solutions 60
- 4.2.3 Upskilling and key worker attraction 62
- 4.3 Key implications for managing population change 64
- 5. Conclusions and policy development options for non-metropolitan Australia 65
- 5.1 How can regional pull factors be strengthened and push factors be addressed? 65
- 5.1.1 Employment, jobs growth and economic development 66
- 5.1.2 Promoting and maintaining place-specific lifestyle and amenity attributes 66
- 5.1.3 Enhancing local infrastructure and services 66
- 5.1.4 Increasing housing and rental stock and diversity, and ensuring housing affordability 67
- 5.1.5 Key and skilled worker attraction and retention 68
- 5.2 How can population growth and change be managed effectively? 69
- 5.2.1 Timing and preparedness 69
- 5.2.2 Coordination and cooperation of place-based interventions 69
- 5.3 Final remarks and further research 70
- References 71
- Appendix 1: Justification for case study LGA selection 78
- Appendix 2: Rationale and data sources for included variables 79
- Appendix 3: Justification for excluded variables 82
- Appendix 4: Variance inflation factors 83
- Appendix 5: Example survey (Ballarat) 85
- Table 1: Research questions, data sources and methodology 18
- Table 2: List of interview participants, position title and/or organisational affiliation 20
- Table 3: Explanatory variables identified in the Australian and international literature used in modelling 22
- Table 4: OLS regression results, 2011–16 model 24
- Table 5: OLS regression results, 2016–21 model 26
- Table 6: Selected characteristics, Port Macquarie Hastings LGA 31
- Table 7: Selected characteristics, Ballarat LGA 32
- Table 8: Selected characteristics, Broken Hill LGA 33
- Table 9: Grants and incentives for moving to each LGA noted by survey respondents 46
- Table 10: Number of survey respondents who were influenced by recent events to move to the case study areas 47
- Figure 1: Map of case study LGAs (italics) relative to nearest Australian capital cities (bold) 30
- Figure 2: Comparison of length of residence in Port Macquarie Hastings LGA of survey sample versus Census 2021 33
- Figure 3: Count of location prior to moving to Port Macquarie Hastings LGA (movers only) (n = 399) 34
- Figure 4: Comparison of length of residence in Ballarat LGA of survey sample versus residents in Census 2021 34
- Figure 5: Count of location prior to moving to Ballarat LGA (movers only) (n = 350) 35
- Figure 6: Comparison of length of residence in Broken Hill of survey sample versus residents in Census 2021 36
- Figure 7: Count of location prior to moving to Broken Hill LGA (movers only) (n = 263) 36
- Figure 8: Percentage of total movers to each case study area by stated reason for moving 37
- Figure 9: Count of responses from movers only to ‘I/we moved to Port Macquarie ...’ (n = 397–399) 40
- Figure 10: Count of responses from movers only to ‘I/we moved to Ballarat ...’ (n = 346–350) 41
- Figure 11: Count of responses from movers only to ‘I/we moved to Broken Hill ...’ (n = 261–263) 42
- Figure 12: Percentage of movers to Port Macquarie Hastings LGA from capital cities versus regional areas by stated reasons for moving (n = 399) 43
- Figure 13: Percentage of movers to Ballarat LGA from capital city versus regional areas by stated reasons for moving (n = 350) 44
- Figure 14: Where respondents stated they were likely to move to by case study area 50
- Figure 15: Percentage of total respondents to each case study area by stated potential reasons for leaving 51
- Box 1: Welcome Experience Program 63