The ‘unique’ NSW regions defying the population drain

But fresh stats from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a handful of inland regions are bucking the population drain.

While places like Bourke, Walgett, Nyngan, Moree, Kyogle, and Broken Hill bleed numbers, there are others across the Southern Inland, Riverina, Central West, Murray and even right out near the South Australian border that are matching the growth ratio of major regional centres.

ABS Regional Population Growth figures for 2016-17 says Junee, the Yass Valley, Lockhart, Dungog and the Upper Lachlan are mirroring larger centres like Tamworth and Bathurst in having more babies, holding on to their residents, and welcoming new people from other regions and overseas.

Granted, the population increases in these places are not huge - and may be under the NSW average annual growth of 1.6 per cent - but like Lithgow, Temora, Walcha, Forbes, Wentworth, and other council regions including the Murray River, Snowy Monaro, Balranald and Murrumbidgee, they are proving that rural doesn’t necessarily mean stagnant.   

“What it probably points to is that these communities are doing something out of the box,” says Julia Andrews, the Regional Development Australia Central West executive officer.  

“That might be an event, or a particular initiative. Maybe there’s a particular employer in town, or they’ve got good transport links to other major centres.

“The key is to look at these places and see what is working. Each one would have a different story.”

ABS statistics released this week predictably show Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong accounted for bulk of the state’s 120,000 net population rise last year, with the natural growth and migration charted for all council areas.  

Coastal areas including the Tweed, Coffs Harbour, Mid Coast, Kiama, Shoalhaven, Bega and Ballina are growing quickly despite a significantly larger number of people dying than being born.

Growth, therefore, must be all down to migration from other regions and by people from overseas.

Larger inland regional centres like Queanbeyan, Maitland, Cessnock, Albury, Bathurst, Dubbo and Tamworth are enjoying natural population growth as well as migration from overseas and domestically.

Interestingly, the next rung down (Griffith, Orange, Armidale and Wagga Wagga) are growing naturally and seeing people come from overseas, but unlike the slightly bigger towns are also losing established residents.

Smaller towns, especially remote and very remote areas in the west and north west of the state are largely in decline.

In the past ten years the population in remote areas is down 6.5 per cent, and down 8.5 per cent in very remote areas.

A lot of smaller North-West communities losing numbers are still seeing more births than deaths and good overseas migration.

It's the larger numbers of residents leaving town driving the population down.

This is the case for Bourke, Walgett and Moree. 

Then there's the towns that are seeing more deaths than births, low overseas migration, and people leaving town: Nyngan, Kyogle, Broken Hill, and Coonabarabran.

So small is the population of the vast Unincorporated Area in Far West NSW that every person who left in 2016-17 represented a 0.1 per cent drop.

Ms Andrews said barring the few shining examples, the statistics were not overly surprising.

“What it tells us is that retaining populations in remote areas is one of biggest challenges facing regional Australia,” she said.

“And while our ‘small cities’ keep growing, we have to keep working on it.We need to keep up the infrastructure that supports their growth.”

Boom coastal areas, largely due to migration over natural growth

Regional centres with good natural growth and migration, and who held onto established residents

Centres that grew from overseas migration and natural growth, but lost established residents

Areas that had more births than deaths - but more people moving out than in

Areas with more deaths than births, and more people moving out than in

​’The wildcards’