Greater Geelong is second only to Townsville as the top regional migration destination in Australia.
The Regional Australia Institutes (RAI) latest Movers Index lists each as the highest regional growth areas, followed by Port Lincoln in South Australia, and the Campaspe, Pyrenees and Moorabool Shire’s.
The index reveals a record number of Australians are exiting the big cities of Melbourne and Sydney and the situation is the same in reverse, the highest amount of two-way traffic in five years, with people citing cost of living and a desire to move post-pandemic.
Sydney accounts for the greatest number of people moving regionally, with 90 per cent of all net capital outflows.
Net outflows from Melbourne was up from 44 per cent to 51 per cent in the 12 months to March.
RAI Chief economist Kim Houghton says the unexpected and sustained shift is putting pressure on regional Australia.
“We were caught short in the regions, nobody really predicted this scale and the rapidity of the change in popularity of the regions so it has created a lot of pinch points in our social infrastructure and housing among other things,” he said.
Mr Houghton says the task now is to ensure that regional Australia is able to sustain the increasing levels of people making their home their.
“We’re really trying to get people to think ahead about let’s do better over the next ten years to resource our regions so they can grow at the level they need to.”
Image: Greater Geelong is the second top regional migration destination in Australia. (Revitalising Geelong/Vic Gov)