Sustainable Queensland first report projects 3 million new Queenslanders

This is an archived CEDA media release. It reflects the state of events at the time it was issued; it may not reflect current facts or CEDA's current view.

---

Queensland is likely to gain three million new people by 2051, according to projections in a new CEDA information paper on Queensland's economic development. And the influx could be even greater - as many as 4.6 million, more than doubling the state's population.

The population report is one of two reports in the first volume of CEDA's Sustainable Queensland research project, designed to respond to the challenges of rapid growth in Queensland over the coming decades.

"Over the next 40 years Queensland will grow as never before," says CEDA's Queensland executive director and deputy CEO, Greg Meek. "We need to find a way to let that growth happen without destroying the essence of our magnificent lifestyle."

Sustainable Queensland Volume 1 warns the state will need new strategies to accommodate the new millions and to ensure they have good jobs. Despite today's Queensland labour shortage, it says, the workforce of the coming decades will need higher skill levels.

The first report, Population Growth and Demographic Change, has been written by state government demographer Alison Taylor; the second report, Skills for a Sustainable Queensland, is written by former Queensland Education & Training Department deputy director-general Chris Robinson.

Key points in the two reports include:

• Queensland will probably have more than seven million people by 2051, up from just over four million today. This is the "medium growth" projection; on the "high" projection, the population could reach 8.7 million, while even on the "low" projection it will reach 5.9 million.
• Well over two-thirds of the 2051 population will be clustered on three per cent of the state's land in the south-east corner.
• Far more households will contain just one or two people and no children, with the proportion of "couple with children" households falling from around 32 per cent to around 22 per cent by 2026 as the proportion of no-child households rises.
• Previous strategies for coping with this growth appear to be reaching their limits; the obvious areas for urban expansion have mostly been used up.
• The largest threat to Queensland's future sustainability comes from:
  • unfettered population growth
  • occurring in unplanned areas with inadequate facilities
  • coupled with the unrestrained expansion of coastal settlements, towns and cities to accommodate interstate immigrants.
• To avoid this, Queensland must continue to focus on the sustainable management of population growth.
• To avoid a mismatch between jobs and the workers who can do them, Queensland must also grow the skills of this population, through:
  • workforce training
  • greater workforce involvement from the over-55s
  • a fundamental shift in employer and community attitudes to hiring, developing and retaining workers
• Take-up of vocational and technical education (VTE), in particular, will need to rise sharply.

The Sustainable Queensland project is run by a Queensland CEDA committee chaired by Professor Ken Wiltshire of the University of Queensland Business School. CEDA's deputy CEO, Greg Meek, is the project director. CEDA's Queensland trustees consult with the paper's authors in a series of forums before the paper's release.

---

For further information please contact:

John Harris
Corporate Relations Director
Phone 03 9652 8415

Email info@ceda.com.au