Tasmania’s popularity is leading to a revised approach about managing a much faster growing population growth than what was expected.
The government had aimed at 650,000 people by 2050, but it’s now likely to be nearly that in just 10 years by 2032.
“We want Tasmanians’ feedback, express your views over the next six weeks and then in the second half of this year, once we’ve assessed the feedback, reviewed the numbers, got more information, we will then release our population strategy,” said State Development Minister Guy Barnett as he unveiled a Population Consultation Paper in Launceston – aiming to devise a strategy for managing population growth.
Premier Rockliff was also at the launch, expressing his support for the positive impact of population growth on the state.
“This is what we want for Tasmania, to be positive, to see people employed, to see our population grow, infrastructure created, jobs created so that people can feed their families and enjoy Tasmania’s lifestyle,” he said.
The consultation paper shows just 3% of the 74,483 new residents in Tasmania will be from natural increases, with 27% coming from interstate migration and 70% per cent as a result of overseas migration.
Almost half of the extra 74,000 people will be in Hobart alone, highlighting the need for a comprehensive plan to manage the influx of new people.
