People
Australian population trends
With the borders closed due to COVID-19, Australia's population growth has slowed. Two components account for our population growth: natural increase (that is, the number of people being born), and overseas migration. Australia has recently had historically high population growth, due primarily to overseas migration, however border closures will greatly diminish the number of new arrivals, leading to a large reduction in overseas migration.
In recent years, migration has overtaken natural increase as the dominant component of population growth. This has led to an accelerated rate of population growth.
The following statistics in Part One: People are sourced from the ABS net overseas migration data, and count actual people coming and going from Australia. Please note, as migration statistics take time to collate, the effects of COVID-19 are not incorporated into a number of the charts below.