At its height, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted well-established patterns of migration within Australia. Reports of a regional renaissance suggested city dwellers were moving to regional areas in droves. The governments of Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory were also keen to promote new migration flows to reverse long-standing declines in their shares of the national population.
Advice from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that internal migration numbers were “implausibly high” received less attention. The ABS suspended these data releases due to this concern. Its latest population data release uses a revised model for net interstate migration.
These data indicate a new normal rather than a renaissance for South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.
