Australia hits record 28 million people as WA leads nation’s migration-fuelled population boom

Australia’s ballooning population has rocketed past 28 million, hitting the major milestone on early Tuesday as the nation’s growth continues to outpace much of the developed world. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ population clock, the country added its latest million people in just two years and three months. That rapid jump is eclipsed only by the frantic post-COVID catch-up era of 2023 and 2024, when the jump from 26 million to 27 million took a record one year and 11 months. It is a stark contrast to the 20th century, when adding a million people routinely took closer to a decade. The national population has doubled since 1976 — taking 49 years and five months to do so — and long-term ABS modelling suggests the head count will exceed 45 million by 2069. But while national growth has been swift, WA is the real engine room of the demographic surge. While the Australian population grew by 74 per cent between 1986 and 2026, WA’s population skyrocketed by nearly 114 per cent over the same four decades, jumping from 1.45 million to more than 3.1 million. The State has also cemented its status as the nation’s premier destination for overseas migrants, boasting the highest proportion of foreign-born residents in the country. In 1986, 29 per cent of WA’s population was born overseas, by the 2021 census, that figure climbed to 34.1 per cent, edges ahead of New South Wales and Victoria at 31 per cent. Nationally, the proportion of overseas-born residents rose from 20.9 per cent in 1986 to 32 per cent in 2025. University of Western Australia demographer Professor Amanda Davies said the state’s population boom is being driven by a combination of interstate and international migration, predominantly attracting younger working-age people. “We are attracting people who are in the workforce and usually between the ages of 30 and 45,” Professor Davies told The West Australian. Cheaper housing compared to Sydney and Melbourne is also proving a major drawcard for interstate arrivals, while international migrants are increasingly using a “two-step” pipeline to the west coast. “There’s a two-step migration that we’re seeing from international migrants who move to Melbourne or Sydney and start FiFo’ing, and after a few years relocate their families to the west coast,” Professor Davies said. As a result, WA’s cultural landscape has fundamentally shifted. “We have a way bigger variation in our ethnic makeup in Western Australia with more than 200 different countries represented,” Professor Davies said. New residents from India, Bangladesh, and the Middle East are increasingly filling critical gaps in the economy as Australia mirrors a broader global trend. “We’re seeing the same decline in our fertility rate and increase in dependence on international migration to keep the economy floating, which we’ve seen play out in Europe,” Professor Davies said. “That of course can lead to some underlying tensions that you see also play out in the political sphere, and we’re starting to see that now roll into Australia.” Historically, WA struggled to keep its local talent, but a decade-long economic shift has reversed the traditional “brain drain.” “If you go back 40 years ago, it was very common for university graduates or people with high end trade skills to leave Western Australia and move east coast or to the UK or Singapore or other places to do their first 10 years or so of work,” Professor Davies said. “We’re now seeing that that high-skilled trades and educated or university graduates are able to find employment in Perth, and so we’re seeing that brain retain going on, and that’s a bit of a switch that’s occurred in the last decade.” The natural increase also remains steady. In WA, a baby is born every 20 minutes and 56 seconds, while a death is recorded every 36 minutes and 59 seconds. Meanwhile, the interstate and international churn continues at a frantic pace. An international migrant arrives in WA every seven minutes and 59 seconds, while someone leaves for overseas every 23 minutes and 17 seconds. Interstate arrivals drop in every 17 minutes and 60 seconds, offsetting departures to the east coast every 25 minutes and two seconds. Australia’s long-term pre-COVID growth rate of 1.4 to 1.6 per cent continues to trump other developed nations, including the United States (0.7 per cent) and the United Kingdom (0.6 to 0.7 per cent), closely trailed only by Canada at 1 to 1.2 per cent due to strong net overseas migration. The latest ABS data also reveals women slightly outnumber men across the country, making up 14.2 million of the population compared to 13.9 million men. The average age of an Australian right now sits at 39.72 years.