When solicitor Fiona Fagan and GP Richard Sykes decided to move their young family from Adelaide to the NSW south coast in 2020, they had no trouble finding work.
"Everywhere I interviewed basically said, 'You'll have a choice of where you can work. We're short of doctors here. We struggle to keep doctors, so if you're going to be around, you can have any job you want'," Mr Sykes said.
But the couple are now experiencing Australia's regional doctor shortage in a very different and personal way.
At seven months pregnant, Ms Fagan has noticed the challenges of regional health care.
"One of the problems here is you can't give birth in Milton-Ulladulla, so I will have to travel [nearly an hour away] to Nowra to have my baby," she said.
"In Adelaide, a capital city, we had all of those resources, huge hospitals, things like that."
Ms Fagan's family lives at Mollymook in the Shoalhaven region, which is growing at a rate of 1.6 per cent per year, according to the latest data from the federal government's Centre for Population.
Of that 1.6 per cent growth, 1.5 per cent is people moving from other places within Australia.
The Shellharbour local government area to the north is growing at a rate of 2.3 per cent, while in Camden on the southern outskirts of Sydney is growing at 6.2 per cent.
As well as healthcare, the swelling population is putting pressure on housing, schools and childcare.
"The biggest problem we faced with Richard getting work was actually day care for our young son," Ms Fagan said.
The couple's son was initially on a two-year waiting list, until a new centre opened and they found a spot.
But the next issue will be schooling.
"There's only one high school in the region, and we just don't know what we'll do in terms of that and … how big it is and how well our children will manage there," she said.
The public primary and secondary schools in Ulladulla are bursting at the seams.
Department of Education data from April 2021 showed Ulladulla High School had 1,247 students enrolled, 27 above its enrolment cap of 1,220.
Ulladulla Public School had an enrolment of 749 students, 240 students above its enrolment cap.
Challenging for first-home buyers
Jason Cullen and Tansiri Harnwattanachai, originally from Ireland and Thailand, moved from Sydney to Jervis Bay in northern Shoalhaven in 2020, drawn by the idea of space and access to nature instead of a small apartment.
"COVID hit and we were working from home in a one-bedroom apartment, and we were like, this is bull****, why are we stuck in here?" Ms Harnwattanachai said.
Both decided they could not afford to buy a home in Sydney and turned their attention to Jervis Bay, where they used to holiday frequently.
After making the big move, they made friends, bought a dog and Mr Cullen took up surfing again.
But when it came purchasing a home, things became tricky.
The pair rented a property in Erowal Bay, but ended up buying an investment property further south in Milton, just as the market started to soar.
"Property prices kept going up and up and we'd sort of realised that it's actually more affordable to buy your first property and rent it out," Mr Cullen said.
"It's not the way that I wanted to do it, but that's the way the system is here.
"You read statistics that property prices went up … 15 per cent, 20 per cent … but in reality, a lot of these coastal suburbs, they've sort of doubled.
"And it happened very, very quickly. So it was a very stressful situation."
Housing affordability issues
The housing shortage in the Shoalhaven region is so acute, the mayor wrote to all owners of vacant properties last year, whether they be deceased estates, holiday houses or short-term holiday rentals, asking them to rent to local residents.
"Even if only for 12 to 18 months to help alleviate some of the pressure and to buy us some time as we await the promised housing investment funding for the federal and state governments," Shoalhaven City Council mayor Amanda Findley wrote.
The Illawarrra Shoalhaven region had a population of about 425,000 in 2020 and has experienced steady growth over the past 10 years, with the state government's regional plan estimating 58,000 dwellings will be needed between 2016 and 2041.
The housing squeeze is most acute in social and affordable housing.
Figures collated by community housing charity Housing Trust show social housing waitlists grew by 122 per cent in Nowra in the past 12 months and by 112 per cent in Ulladulla.
Cr Findley said housing was just part of the puzzle of delivering additional services to the region, as more people moved to the coast in search of a better, more affordable lifestyle, not necessarily realising the pressure some locals were under.
"When it comes to government-driven services, we really are left behind — and it is unfair to put that wholly and solely at the feet of sea changers," she said.
