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Standing room only – a million more Queenslanders by the time our Games begin

Queensland would need an annual increase in dwelling construction of 20 per cent, or an extra $50 billion, on top of baseline projections to meet booming population growth, according to an economic report.

Mar 29, 2023, updated Mar 29, 2023
Almost one million more people will be living in Queensland by the time the Olympic Games begin. (Image: AAP)

Almost one million more people will be living in Queensland by the time the Olympic Games begin. (Image: AAP)

The report, released yesterday by ANZ and compiled by Adept Economics and Conus Consultancy, found over the past decade Queensland had averaged 37,000 new dwelling completions a year.

“However, while housing construction remained at similar levels, the average population increase has been 75,000 annually in the last decade compared with around 62,000 in the 1990s,” it said.

“This suggests an annual increase in dwelling construction of around 20 per cent is required, corresponding to an additional $50 billion in capital expenditure in dwellings on top of a baseline of an expected $250 billion (in today’s dollars) over the next 10 years.”

The report said there was an urgent need to meet this housing demand and if the state failed, projects would become more reliant on fly-in, fly-out workforces.

The report cited government data suggesting that by June 2032, a few weeks before the Olympics, Queensland’s population would be 6.3 million, up from the current 5.4 million.

It said the concentration of the growth was in the south east.

“The concentration of the state’s population in SEQ suggests there is considerable scope for greater regional population growth in the future, possibly supported by the decentralisation of some government administrative services.

“There is an opportunity here to attract people to more regions in Queensland, rather than only to SEQ, which could relieve some of the congestion pressures in SEQ. This may require some additional public capital expenditure in regional liveability and connectivity, particularly in regional roads and communications connectivity.

“This could reduce differences in economic and social outcomes between the regions and SEQ.”

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The Property Council also said today that Australia was well behind in its house-building goals by as much as 163,400 homes over a decade.

Council chief executive Mike Zorbas the volume of apartments to be built by 2024 would be just over one-fifth of the number built in 2018.

“State Governments have been hiding behind local politics to ignore the industry’s consistent country-wide messages about supply deficits and poor planning outcomes for the past decade,” Zorbas said.

He pointed to the failure of all but one of the 34 councils in Sydney to meet their own housing supply targets.

“Why should it take six to eight years to build apartments in Sydney and Melbourne?” he said.

“Clearly state and local planning systems need intergenerational improvement.”

However, interstate migration “appears to be disproportionately young families rather than families with teenage children or retirees”.

 

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