The first release of the Australian census data showed big increases in population in city suburbs and tree-change areas.
Now, with the second tranche of census data released on Thursday, we can see figures on internal migration – that is, where people are moving from, and to, in Australia.
The census data tells us the usual place of residence, and the place of residence both one and five years ago. By combining the two, we’re able to show where people have moved from for any given state or local government area.
It’s worth keeping in mind the 2021 census was conducted in the middle of the Covid pandemic, when many states and territories had restrictions on movement.
In the following chart you can see the movement between states and territories, with the arrows showing the direction of migration. I’ve also split the data into three age brackets so you can see the difference in migration among young people, the middle-aged and elderly:
Queensland was the most popular destination state overall, particularly for older and middle-aged people, where the share of all internal migration in these age groups was 37.8% and 34% respectively.
Looking at the age breakdown for migrants to each state suggests the ACT cohort tends to be younger, while the Queensland cohort tends to be older:
The following map shows each local government area where people have moved from. It also shows the same area where people moved to if you use the toggle button.
You can see, for example, where people who moved to Byron Bay and were living there on the census night were living either one or five years ago – unusually, more people moved to the Byron Bay LGA from Sydney’s northern beaches (231) than from the LGA adjacent to Byron, Ballina (220). For many areas the major source of internal migration is from adjacent areas.
The most popular LGA for people to move to was Brisbane. In fact, the top three LGAs are all in Queensland.
There are other patterns that suggest popular sea-change and tree-change LGAs, with the Ballarat area having a large share of Melburnians moving in, and the East Gippsland area also drawing people in from Casey and the Mornington peninsula.
